Curating experiences, managing stakeholders, and shipping under impossible deadlines. The surprising overlap between film and product.
Curation as Product Sense
Selecting films for a festival is eerily similar to prioritizing a product backlog. You have limited slots, competing priorities, and stakeholders with strong opinions. The skill is in saying no to good things so you can say yes to great things.
Shipping Under Pressure
A film festival has an immovable deadline. The venue is booked. The tickets are sold. The films must be ready. There is no "let's push it to next sprint." This kind of pressure taught me to distinguish between things that must be perfect and things that just need to work.