Maria Tanjala
co-founder of FilmChain
Maria Tanjala is a UK-based, Romanian-born producer and co-founder of FilmChain - winner of "Startup of the Year" at London Business Awards 2020. Prior to founding FilmChain, Maria worked in the film industry, mainly as a producer, for 12 years: creating and managing budgets, assembling and managing crews, and creating marketing and distribution strategies. She was nominated for “Rising Star” Screen Awards 2018 and has an MA in Filmmaking.
Together with her childhood friend Irina Albita, the two founded FilmChain - a platform that collects, allocates and analyses revenues for film, TV and digital content on the blockchain, replacing the traditional collection services with transparent, real-time payments from viewers to filmmakers. Transactions are recorded on a private Ethereum blockchain ledger and the automatic system distributes monies (in dollars, Euros, and pounds) near real-time to stakeholders' digital wallets. They work with Hannah Leader and her team at Preiskel & Co, as well as Lewis Silkin to manage complex waterfalls with tens of beneficiaries.
They won multiple film and tech awards and were Screen Awards "Gamechangers" nominees 2019.
FilmChain won the Zinemaldia Startup challenge at the San Sebastian Film Festival in September 2020, Startup of the Year at London Business Awards 2020, Best Woman-led Investment in Innovation UKBAA 2019, and was SXSW Finalist in 2020. Clients using the platform end-to-end include Council of Europe Eurimages, Ffilm Cymru, FFHSH Film Fund Hamburg, Screen Australia, HBO Europe, and numerous funds, production companies and sales agents from UK, Europe, US, Canada, Australia, Israel.
Maria is a keynote speaker and holds masterclasses in film finance and film recoupment at major film markets. She is passionate about creating level playing fields between industry professionals to leverage the power of technology and take better ownership of their work and data.