Profile

Veteran Hollywood producer Zak Kilberg is now a member of SmithDehn, assisting our clients with a full range of business services, including, but not limited to, packaging and sales for film and television projects.

His packaging services include filmmaker/project tracking and identification, script coverage with creative feedback and worldwide market evaluation, pitch packet creation, budget and schedule creation, business plan creation for companies and projects, and submission of projects to talent, producers, financiers, studios, companies and agents.

Zak's sales services include editorial creative feedback (to support maximum financial returns and widest worldwide audience), festival consultation (i.e. preparation of recommended festival lists and submission schedules; representation of client projects to festival programmers), worldwide sales projections, submission of projects to domestic distributors and international sales agents, representation of clients and projects at festivals and markets around the world (including Sundance, Berlin, Hong Kong Filmart, Cannes, Toronto, AFM, etc.), negotiation of distribution agreements and various distribution legal and technical delivery management services.

Zak has been submerged in all aspects of filmmaking since arriving in California in 2004. Since that time he’s been hard at work developing, producing and selling feature and short film projects across the United States and internationally. He formed his first production company Social Construct Films while still in his twenties, with the intention of exploring socially relevant and meaningful themes, in order to bring to the big screen engaging stories that both elevate audience awareness and provide commercial success for independent filmmakers and investors.

Social Construct’s completed features have since been picked up by top distributors worldwide including Lionsgate, HBO, IFC, Tribeca Film, etc. Zak has also advised and consulted for a variety of sales and distribution companies, and was the VP of Acquisitions and Development at newly relaunched international sales company, Imagination Worldwide. Zak also produced the short film L TRAIN, from Executive Producer Alexander Payne (THE DESCENDANTS, NEBRASKA), which was an official selection at Sundance 2012, winning the “Women in Film” grant.

In 2014, Zak and SCF joined forces with SmithDehn to form Convergent Media, a dynamic new force in international film and television development, financing, production and sales, which launched in both the US and UK. The first project under the new banner is BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB - ADIOS, follow-up to the Oscar nominated documentary from Wim Wenders, which Zak is producing for Convergent alongside Blink TV and Broad Green Pictures.

Zak currently divides his time between his home base in Asheville NC, Los Angeles, NYC, and at film festivals and markets around the world.