Former Screen editor Colin Brown joins Slated

International film journalist Colin Brown, a former editor of ScreenInternational, has joined New York-based Slated in the newly created position of editorial director. He reports directly to Duncan Cork, CEO and co-founder of the company, a private marketplace for accredited investors to track and back independent film projects online.

Brown will oversee the creation of informational tools and resourcesdesigned to help investors navigate the business intricacies of the global film industry. He will also act as a strategic advisor in Slated’s international expansion plans, working alongside a team that includes head of industry relations Susan Wrubel. Wrubel will be in Cannes representing Slated.

Since leaving Screen, Brown has been contributing editor to CNBC Business and has served as an ongoing industry consultant to the Dubai International Film Festival.

“We’re extremely fortunate to have Colin join us,” said Cork in a statement. “Our goal at Slated is to shepherd in a new era of financiers that have previously not had access to the quality of viable independent films listed on our site. Education and expansion are key parts of that mission. We feel Colin’s experience, objectivity as a journalist, and clarity in thought and writing can bridge the communication gap between the investmentcommunity and filmmakers closing deals.”

Last week Slated announced that two productions had found “significant portions” of their production funding as a result of being introduced to investors through thesite – Christian Camargo’s modern retelling of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull to shoot this summer with Allison Janney, William Hurt and Katie Holmes in the cast, and Marina Zenovich’s documentary Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out.

Brown added: “As someone who has spent years chronicling the financial challenges faced by filmmakers across the globe, I immediately recognised Slated’s fantastic potential for unlocking new sources of film money and for serving as a communal laboratory for transparent business models that will help fuel the world’s content explosion. The genius of Slated’s new platform is that it harnesses the same social technologies that have revolutionized the funding of Silicon Valley start-ups, but does so in a way that plays to the discretion, trust mechanics and relationship-based peculiarities of this wonderfully crazy business called cinema.”

Co-founded by Duncan Cork, Stephan Paternot, William Mapother and Gavan Gravesen, Slated was launched this year to enable interaction between seasoned filmmakers, accredited investors and industry professionals through a carefully vetted web-based community that is designed to channel new and sustainable sources of film financing into high-quality independent feature films.