PETER BELSITO grew up in New York City and graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and from the Masters film program at UCLA where he was a graduate teaching assistant at UCLA Film School.  He was a founding member of Newsreel, a radical anti war student filmmaking collective.  He was a founding member of the Independent Feature Project (IFP) in New York City in 1981 and opened the IFP office in Los Angeles.  He was a founding member of the Chicano Cinema Coalition.

After graduating from UCLA he worked professionally as a cinematographer, produced feature films and feature documentaries and wrote screenplays.  His produced documentary ‘Valley of Tears’ is playing the festival circuit now (LA Latino FF, Margaret Mead FF 2003) and is being distributed US by Seven Arts.  He worked in publishing for ten years for Charles T. Munger, Vice Chairman of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.

In 1988 Peter assisted Sydney Levine in the founding of FILM FINDERS as a blue chip film acquisitions tracking, consulting and publishing firm.  He came on board full time in 1995 as a FILM FINDERS partner, Head of Sales and Marketing as Executive Vice President.   18 years after Ms. Levine’s successful launch of FILM FINDERS, Peter recently founded the growing FILM FINDERS Consulting division.  

Both Peter and Sydney have been involved for the last 19 years in professional education and with young filmmakers via countless festival and market panels and forums and active course involvement with such institutions including Harvard, Wharton, the Maurits Binger Institute of Amsterdam, ACE of Paris, Rotterdam Cinemart, IFP New York, IFP West of Los Angeles etc.  Both have originated and coordinated panels and conferences for various institutions as well as FILM FINDERS.   He lives in West Hollywood, California and travels extensively throughout the year to film festivals and markets worldwide.