Josh Sapan, the former CEO of AMC Networks, left the entertainment company he had led through the peak TV era in 2021. He had helped transform the network devoted to reruns of classic movies into a programming powerhouse responsible for some of the biggest shows of the aughts — a list that includes “Breaking Bad,” “The Walking Dead” and “Mad Men.” What, Sapan wondered, would be his followup?
“I’ve always been interested in what you do after you do what you do,” Sapan says over Zoom.
The answer is a mixture of art and advocacy. For the past five years, Sapan has devoted much of his time to championing disability on screen through founding Marvels of Media Festival with the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), which celebrates the work of autistic media makers. On Saturday, Marvels will partner with the Academy Museum to present and program Disabilities, Representation, and Film Sensory Session. It brings together neurodivergent filmmakers, showcasing their short films, hosting a panel discussion and offering programming with sound and lighting adjustments in order to provide a more sensory-friendly experience.
“The work is amazing and uplifting, and the filmmakers are really quite extraordinary,” Sapan says. “I have always been interested in people who see things a little differently. The greatest successes that I’ve been associated with are things that were probably considered unlikely, as opposed to likely. And neurodivergent artists, because of who they are, just bring something unique in how they see the world and how they tell a story.”
It’s a perspective that Sapan understands intimately, because his son, Nate, is on the spectrum. The goal of Marvels of Media isn’t just to highlight autistic filmmakers. It also offers them workshops and gives them a platform so they can get funding for their next projects.
“I see it as a virtuous exercise,” Sapan says.
Since it launched, Marvels of Media has partnered with roughly ten theaters around the country, which serve as satellites for the program by showing movies and content from the media makers who are selected for the festival.
Sapan hasn’t given up on the media business. After leaving AMC, he launched Sapan Studios. In short order, it has backed several acclaimed indie films, including “Ghostlight,” “The Baltimorons” and “The Taste of Things” through a partnership with Independent Film Company, which is owned by AMC. That deal was recently extended and upcoming releases include “Mouse,” which is from the “Ghostlight” team of Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson and earned raves when it debuted at the Berlin Film Festival. Sapan also has a television development deal with Warner Bros.
“It’s something that I wanted to do early on, but then I got on the executive track,” Sapan says. “This gets me a few steps closer to the actual artistic process.”
Now Sapan finds himself pitching projects instead of greenlighting them. That means having to navigate a business that is contracting because of mergers and consolidation.
“It’s not great that these legacy studios are going away,” he says. “But that disruption is not without its creative potential. It presents opportunities, too.”
He’s also turned to writing, publishing “RX,” a collection of poetry in 2023, and “Third Act: Reinventing Your Next Chapter,” which profiles celebrities, government officials and business executives who have reached retirement age, checking in with everyone from Gloria Steinem to Rita Moreno and Alan Alda.
“We don’t always think of our lives as multi-chapter experiences, but they really are,” Sapan says. “When I was thinking of stepping down from AMC, the big question was what am I going to do? What’s my identity going to be? What you find out is it’s interesting to see what the world might invite you to do next or what you can make happen.”
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