The Gather Project

For two decades, Freestyle Picture Company partners Kevin Chinoy and Francesca Silvestri have created award-winning film, TV, theater, and branded content with many of the industry’s most talented individuals, entertainment companies, and recognizable brands. Their projects have played major festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, New York, and SXSW. Their projects have been represented at award ceremonies including the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Gothams, and Spirit Awards. Their projects include Sean Baker’s Tangerine and The Florida Project and many directorial debuts including Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Keys, Demi Moore, Eva Longoria, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Kirsten Dunst, Rachel Weisz, Kate Hudson, and Eva Mendes. Kevin also has twenty-year’s experience as a management consultant, served as faculty at Parsons School of Design and received his MBA with honors from The Wharton School. Francesca previously launched Moxie Pictures’ Film, TV and Branded Content Group. 

Technology provides more instant access to each other, information, and diverse resources than ever before. We celebrate the increased opportunity for awareness and connection, but fear the effects of overstimulation and misinformation. We are specifically concerned about political movements and toxic partisanship that breeds fear and hatred, instead of unity and progress.     

The Gather Project seeks to elevate lives through culture and community. Our team is committed to building an infrastructure that allows people to connect with each other, consume purposeful content, and have productive discussions about important issues. 

  We want to use culture - shared experiences, content, traditions - as a tool to unite people instead of as a barrier that highlights our differences. We want to build bridges that shrink the gaps between communities and demographics. We want to solve global challenges together. 

Our leaders and citizens largely fall into two groups: the conservative Republicans and the liberal Democrats. How a person identifies often dictates their opinions and information consumption about pressing issues like race relations, immigration, gun control, abortion, and climate change. Ideology bubbles hinder objective research, honest awareness and solutions as many people have no interest in understanding the “other side.” Our communities occupy the same space but live in separate worlds. 

According to BBC, 76% of people globally believe that their countries are very or fairly divided - 84% in the US. Two thirds of American citizens believe that partisanship is a bigger problem than it was ten years ago. To add, American participation in civic and local community organizations has considerably declined (according to an AEI survey). 

How can we motivate citizens to work together to improve our common world?

The Gather Project team understands that to solve a problem, we have to analyze it from all angles. Our goal is to create safe spaces for constructive dialogue spurred by engaging content. Initially we hope to facilitate honest connection around shared passions. In time, we hope our network can serve as a breeding ground for unity and positive change.

TGP has a two-pronged focus: networking and content. We are building a fully inclusive, replicable infrastructure that facilitates dialogue about important issues. Individuals connect locally through their shared passions (cinema, music, literature, art). We motivate people to unite with content - newsletters, podcasts, events and digital programs - that presents objective information and expertise.

In March 2020, we created gatherproject.net and launched the Gather Film Society of Miami. Our first event was an online Q&A about the movie industry for over 100 South Florida students. The positive response led to an Ambassador Program engaging students to build their own local branches. Within one month and without funding, students are building their local society in Miami, Central Florida, LA, NYC, Chicago, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Indiana. We are building Gatherproject.net to support this networking infrastructure.

  With our support, participants have begun developing an internet interview show about entertainment careers to begin in September, ideas to launch a newsletter with local and national content, a student film summit in Miami for Spring 2021, and a film/music festival centered on social justice in Brooklyn for next summer. These self-driven initiatives prove our content opportunities are endless, even in the socially distant age of COVID-19.

The Gather Project’s community impact is limitless. Our inclusive network invites individuals to share their stories and engage with others as a catalyst for change. By using engaging formats like film and music, we spur discussion that motivates substantive action. We capitalize on shared passions to help members become more informed local, national and global citizens plus better individuals, partners, family members, and humans. 

We use culture to amplify and unpack important topics for the greater good of the human race: objectively, focused on facts, in detail, with constructive goals. This structure has the potential to expand ideas and unite individuals across the world.

We are starting on a grassroots level appointing Student Ambassadors to mobilize local groups. With our guidance, these leaders have already started to organize purposeful programming. We will provide templates for events, connections to thought leaders, amplification of original content and strategic connections to relevant groups in the network. Everything will be designed specifically for each group. We will grow to serve students, industry professionals (alumni) and enthusiastic consumers across local communities. Our initial societies will have a film focus, but we plan to expand to more formats - i.e. music, food & wine, wellness. 

TGP addresses all three dimensions.

We welcome the stranger, presenting an opportunity for participation and accomplishment to all people. Our impact directly links to the diversity and openness of our gatherings; with only similar individuals, TGP will not be successful.

Our end goal is issue-focused: we want to unite, educate and motivate people to address problems of today. To be successful, we develop common ground through shared cultural passion, enabling new perspectives. We will entertain our diverse network while providing opportunities for safe, open-minded discussion within local communities.

 Our community will elevate minds as a catalyst for productive social change.

As active community members, we regularly think about ways to encourage productive dialogue with leaders. As filmmakers, we regularly think about how to deliver a narrative with integrity. The Gather Project concept took shape as we recognized opportunities to use entertainment and community to elevate cause. If orchestrated with care, gatherings that celebrate shared interests can be a safe space for productive communication about societal issues.

At a party when friends were deeply discussing the book Homo Sapiens, we noticed that everyone loved discussing culture, but rarely did. At a concert by a musician that supports forest preservation, we realized that shows are an opportunity for environmental education and subsequent fundraising. This hybrid concept could be applied to a variety of live events, drive attention to important issues, and bring top tier talent to smaller markets. 

We created TGP through our production company in 2019. Our first local film society launched with the 2020 Miami Film Festival. To fuel the launch, we recruited a small team to help with initial research plus invested in a full-time assistant. This team launched our website, developed initial outreach, and crafted the structure of our Ambassador program.

We have consistently incorporated community service into twenty years of business and personal partnership. Both of our families, including all parents, worked within relevant organizations. Kevin’s mother even served as a State Representative in Florida. Our first collaborative production was a live theater show for charity in Winter/Spring 2001. 

We worry about the problems that plague our society: climate change, gun control, reproductive rights, immigration, economic inequality, and discrimination. We worry even more about the systems in place to solve these challenges. Our social discourse is constrained and stuck in a deep rut of partisanship. The political party people identify with often guides their thinking across the board - from education to healthcare to global trade and social safety networks. Our goal is to unveil common ground by connecting people through their passions. We can use common interests to start a productive dialogue about problems and dissolve partisan barriers.

We are motivated by our eleven year old son, Giacomo. We want to help remedy and prevent societal issues to create a better world for future generations. By encouraging citizens (starting with student youth) to look at problems beyond political barriers, we can provide tools to overcome adversity. 

We know how to develop an idea into an actionable plan, source a talented team, lead production, reflect on our process in real time and work through full execution. We have produced a wide variety of entertainment projects over the last 25 years, doing so together since 2001. This includes award-winning film, TV, theater, and branded content with many of the industry’s most talented individuals, top entertainment companies, studios and networks.

We have earned widespread trust by creating quality content that inspires and entertains our audience, generates value for our corporate partners, and provides a meaningful artistic outlet for everyone involved. As a result, we are able to consistently recruit top brands and leading artists to participate in successful programs.

Kevin also has a background in organizational design and entrepreneurial management consulting. After a 5-year stint in management consulting followed by a Masters degree from The Wharton School of Business, he has supported the successful growth of diverse companies: revamping the management structure of another production company to prepare for its sale to a global studio, supporting the expansion of a NYC 501c3 that resulted in its annual budget going from $400k to $10M, and overseeing the restructure of a real estate company that led to three-fold revenue growth in a four year period.

Together, we have the skills to produce a world-class program. Our extensive global network and dynamic experience across the entertainment industries will enable us to create opportunities and content that make The Gather Project extraordinary. 

We believe that every challenge creates an opportunity for growth. Adversity is relative, but our practiced response as entrepreneurs is to persevere through obstacles with an open mind. In all of our endeavors, we reflect on progress in real time in order to effectively move forward. 

In March 2020, after two years of development and preparation for our launch, we were faced with the rise of COVID-19. Our grand vision for in-person programming across the country was stunted by mandated social distancing. Our intention to launch the first local Gather film society in tandem with the Miami Film Festival was impossible as the event was cancelled last minute. Rather than throw in the towel, we simply reassessed our mission and pivoted plans to launch TGP virtually. We narrowed our focus to students for a more targeted approach. We connected with university professors to build our member base and produced a series of virtual events as a launching pad for content. We continue to recruit student leaders (Ambassadors) as the foundation of our organization. In time, they will naturally expand our network to include industry professionals and/or enthusiastic consumers. 

We have used our career to motivate people to make a difference in the world. We have navigated our lives in an uncommon, resourceful way to lead diverse groups, create paths where there were none, and launch creative original programs.

In 2001, we created a benefit event series called 24 Hour Plays. Over 15 years, we produced more than 25 live events in NYC, London, and LA raising over $10M for charities. In 2014, we developed an original program for Glamour Magazine that gave 20 women the chance to direct short films. Over seven years, we produced these critically acclaimed films, elevating the voice of female directors and launching their directorial careers that continue today.  We partnered with Canon and Ron Howard to create a program about spurring creativity, with Tommy Hilfiger to encourage people to dream, with the Lifetime Network and Jennifer Aniston to bring awareness to breast cancer and again to mental health. We have produced award-winning films that brought attention to transgender and affordable housing issues. 

In all of these cases, we organized dozens of people around a common cause and led the venture to success. We aim to continue making an impact with The Gather Project.  

We currently operate this company as a project through our film production company Freestyle Picture Company, but intend to eventually move it to its own legal entity.  We anticipate ultimately having a hybrid model with both a profit and non-profit arm.