Go Energistics (GoE) has supported Cinema Without Borders (CWB) as the official sponsor of the global GoE Bridging the Borders Award since 2018. This month, President and CEO Adam Shepherd sat down with CWB’s Bjjan Tehrani to discuss his experience.
Cinema Without Borders: We at CWB are so grateful to GoE for your support of the Bridging the Borders Award. Over the past three years of your sponsorship, the award has thrived and grown to be internationally recognized. What motivated you to support the Bridging the Borders Award in the first place?
Adam Shepherd: First let me say, the feeling of gratitude is absolutely mutual. Working with CWB over the past three years has been such a privilege and I’d like to thank you and your team for your support throughout this partnership.
When first approached with the opportunity, I was of course excited to support up and coming filmmakers as the owner of a small business, and a lover of the arts. I founded Go Energistics (GoE) with a mission of Serving Those Who Serve in order to champion the ideals of service learned throughout my career in the military. Even in the most challenging times, I have seen how the act coming together with the common goal of supporting our fellow man can impact the world at large. At GoE, we do this through our support of VA/DoD healthcare projects and Community Outreach throughout the U.S., and I jumped at the chance to take this further by sponsoring the Bridging the Borders Award. I believe art is one of the most powerful tools we have to spread unity and understanding, and working with CWB has offered us a global platform to promote this message.
CWB: Please tell us about your experience with Cinema Without Borders during the last three years. In your time as our partner, you attended several festivals, screenings and award ceremonies – how did it feel to meet with the filmmakers?
Adam: It was a joy to join in the fun! I had the chance to meet many interesting people involved in film production, from screenwriters and editors to actors and costume designers. Getting to hear from the filmmakers themselves really opened my eyes to all the work that goes into producing films from inception through final cut. It made it all the more exciting to be able to reward their hard work through the Bridging the Borders Award recognition.
CWB: Beside supporting the award, in most of the festivals you were a jury member, and almost every time came up with very interesting choices and arguments about the winner of the award. Please tell us about this experience
ADAM: Thank you Bijan, I appreciate that. I have always loved cinema and I really enjoyed getting to watch so many exceptional films. Whenever assigned to the jury, I was conscious that my feedback would have a lasting impact for the filmmakers and took great care to review each submission carefully before making a decision. Often, the biggest challenge was choosing a favorite among so many excellent submissions, and I was glad to have other jury members with whom to confer in making these tough choices. Today, I am proud that films we recognized with the Bridging the Borders award have since gone on to be nominated for other prestigious awards, including Golden Globes and even Oscars. I like to think that their success at smaller festivals, aided by CWB, helped further their success.
CWB: GoE is involved in humanitarian acts. Please tell us about this company that was behind supporting GoE Bridging the Borders Award in the last three years.
ADAM: We at GoE are dedicated to giving back within our communities. As I shared previously, GoE was founded with a mission of Serving Those Who Serve. As a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small business, with many Veterans among our staff, we truly live by this mission and have partnered with the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which assists in the rehabilitation of injured serves members when they return home, for several years. We are passionate about being a voice for Veterans in all that we do, including through our work within VA/DoD healthcare, where we apply our best-in-class project management capabilities to transform healing environments and ensure they get the healthcare they deserve. We have expanded this mission to include support for healthcare service providers through our private-sector healthcare work. As our business grows, we plan on continuing that trajectory to support service providers across a multitude of industries.