Cinemas Club: Are Communities the Future of Cinema?

Speakers

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  Brett Gaffney President, The B-List Movie Club
  

  Brett Gaffney

  President, The B-List Movie Club

  Brett Gaffney is a Los Angeles based actor and community builder who prioritizes making friends and bringing people together around the immersive format of storytelling that is the movies. Brett lives and breathes everything movie related, and aspires to leave a positive impact on the industry and world around him.

  The B-List Movie Club, founded by actor Brett Gaffney (President) and led in operational growth by Jenna Webster (Vice President), is a premier Los Angeles–born film community and events organization dedicated to revitalizing the theatrical cinema experience. By bridging independent exhibition, studio marketing, and grassroots community building, Brett and Jenna transform standard theatrical viewings into high-engagement social events—ranging from opening-weekend meetups and theater takeovers to dynamic digital hubs on Discord and Instagram. Through industry partnerships and an expanding chapter ambassador program, Brett and Jenna empower audiences to build genuine connections, drive theatrical attendance, and celebrate moviegoing as a shared, social passion. The B-List Movie Club’s first meetup was in June 2026 when Brett and Jenna watched Obsession at The Grove with 60 strangers (now friends) – The B-List Movie Club is now 6,000+ members strong – it’s been a busy five months!

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  Dave Jesteadt President, GKIDS
  

  Dave Jesteadt

  President, GKIDS

  David Jesteadt is President at GKIDS, a distributor of award-winning animation and live action features for both adult and family audiences. Since David joined company founder Eric Beckman to form GKIDS in 2007, the company has charted a new path for foreign and independent animation in one of the world’s largest film markets. In 2024, GKIDS won its first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, and has received 15 Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations for titles such as The Secret of Kells (2010) in 2010, Ernest & Celestine (2014), The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2015), My Life as a Zucchini (2017), The Breadwinner (2018), Mirai (2019), and Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (2026), among others. GKIDS also handles North American distribution for the acclaimed Studio Ghibli library of films, one of the world’s most coveted animation collections, including such titles as Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke. In 2024, the company became part of TOHO, the leading Japanese entertainment company, home of the Godzilla franchise and titles like Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia. David is currently working on the global release of Godzilla Minus Zero, the blockbuster follow-up to the Academy Award-winning film Godzilla Minus One, which will be released in cinemas in November 2026.

  David is also an Executive Producer of Academy Award®-nominated films The Breadwinner and Wolfwalkers, both led by acclaimed Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, and has co-produced the English language versions of many GKIDS films, most recently Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, which features the voices of Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh. He is currently based in Los Angeles.

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  Jenna Webster Vice President, The B-List Movie Club
  

  Jenna Webster

  Vice President, The B-List Movie Club
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  Kevin Temmer Animation Creative Supervisor, Glitch Productions
  

  Kevin Temmer

  Animation Creative Supervisor, Glitch Productions

  Kevin Temmer is an Annie Award-nominated animator who has been in the industry for about ten years. He was a Lead Animator and is now an Animation Creative Supervisor at Glitch Productions where he has worked on hit shows like The Amazing Digital Circus, Murder Drones, and The Gaslight District. He has animated on several feature films at Blue Sky Studios and has worked on video games at Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jam City, and Squanch Games. He also has a YouTube channel with over a million subscribers where he posts original songs and animated music videos.

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  Marvin Wiechert Director of Strategy & Product, Yorck Kinogruppe
  

  Marvin Wiechert

  Director of Strategy & Product, Yorck Kinogruppe

  Marvin Wiechert is Director of Strategy & Product at Yorck Kinogruppe in Berlin, Germany’s largest independent arthouse cinema group with more than two million admissions a year. For over a decade, he has worked where cinema, technology and audiences meet. At Yorck, he works across teams to engage audiences through the Yorck Unlimited membership, data-driven CRM and film series that make screenings shared events. During his tenure, the median age of Yorck’s audience has dropped by more than ten years, and admissions have stayed above pre-pandemic levels since 2024. Marvin advises the art cinema associations CICAE and AG Kino-Gilde and is a member of the European Film Academy.

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  Patrick von Sychowski International Editor-in-Chief, Cine Group
  

  Patrick von Sychowski

  International Editor-in-Chief, Cine Group

  Patrick von Sychowski is International Editor-in-Chief of Cine Group, the Paris-based cinema trade publisher and events organiser behind the Cinemas Club at Cannes and AFM. He has covered the global cinema exhibition industry as a journalist and analyst for more than 25 years, and co-founded the B2B cinema industry platform Celluloid Junkie. He is Vice President of the European Digital Cinema Forum (EDCF) and co-founder of Cultpix, a Swedish streaming and physical media label specialising in cult and international cinema. A regular keynote speaker and moderator at industry events worldwide, he is based in London.