Karen Lauder

Karen Lauder is an Emmy Award winning producer and Partner and Co-Founder of Priority Pictures, a production company dedicated to developing, producing and financing films and television shows. In addition, she is the Co-Founder of Abandon Entertainment and AE Capital Partners, LLC. As chairman of Abandon’s film production company, Abandon Pictures, she has served as Producer or Executive Producer on well over a dozen films, including: RIDE directed by and starring Helen Hunt. MAX PAYNE starring Mark Wahlberg. THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT starring Ezra Miller and Billy Crudup. Along with her partners, Greg Little and Lizzie Friedman, Priority has produced films including: THE LAND, BEL CANTO, MOMENTUM GENERATION and is currently in pre-production on THE BELL JAR for Showtime.

Lauder is a founding partner in City State Entertainment, a game studio that pushes the boundaries of MMORPG gaming and creates unique intellectual properties including board games and graphic novels. In addition, as a managing partner of AE Capital, Lauder worked with her partner Marcus Ticotin to guide the expansion of Abandon Entertainment through investments in Collision Entertainment and Mythic Entertainment, one of the largest developers and publishers of multi-player online games.

Prior to her partnership in Abandon Entertainment, Lauder worked as an investment banker with Metropolitan Asset Group, a division of Insignia Financial Corporation. Lauder has served on several prestigious boards, including: The Sundance Institute, The New York Restoration Project, The American Museum of Natural History, and New Yorker for Parks.

Lizzie Friedman

Emmy award-winning producer Lizzie Friedman was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Duke University with a degree in Literature.

Friedman started her career at Jersey Films as an assistant to producer Stacey Sher. Later, she moved into production, working on films including GET SHORTY, MATILDA, OUT OF SIGHT, and GATTACA.

Over the past 12 years, Friedman has produced and financed both independent and studio feature films through her companies Sandbar Pictures and later Priority Pictures, started in 2015 with her partners Karen Lauder and Greg Little.Throughout her career, She has overseen every creative and financial aspect of filmmaking from development, financing, overseeing production, managing distribution to overseeing corporate partnerships and managing studio relationships around the globe.

Friedman’s past credits include: BEL CANTO, starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe. The Emmy award-winner HBO documentary MOMENTUM GENERATION, featuring Kelly Slater. THE LAND, directed by Steven Caple Jr., starring Erykah Badu, and executive produced by Nas. THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT, directed by Kyle Alvarez and starring Ezra Miller and Billy Crudup, winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting award at Sundance. ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT, broadcast on OWN. Additional credits include: EMILIE, directed by Michael Thelin. RIDE, Helen Hunt’s directorial debut. AND SOON THE DARKNESS with Studio Canal, starring Amber Heard and Karl Urban. SILENT WITNESS on TNT.

Friedman is currently in pre-production on a groundbreaking miniseries adapted from THE BELL JAR, the iconic novel from famed poet Sylvia Plath. THE BELL JAR, which will air on Showtime, stars Dakota Fanning and was created by Frankie Shaw.

Greg Little

Emmy award-winning producer Greg Little was born and raised in New York City. Little began his career at GLOBE TV, where he worked on feature-length and short-form documentaries, including a Peabody Award winner. He then moved onto Sony Pictures New Technologies, where he worked as a Manager of large-format feature films. During his time at Sony, Little played an integral role in the production of early large-format 3D films, including WINGS OF COURAGE (Sony Pictures Classics) and ACROSS THE SEA OF TIME (Sony New Technologies).

Little’s credits include documentaries such as Lisanne Skyler’s DREAMLAND, George Hickenlooper’s MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP, as well as feature films such as WHIZ KIDS, ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT, and SEX AND DEATH 101, starring Winona Ryder and Simon Baker. Little’s television credits include executive producing the film SILENT WITNESS for TNT, which starred Dermot Mulroney and Anne Heche. For Lifetime, he produced LEFT TO DIE, starring Barbara Hershey, and A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS, starring Dolly Parton.

In 2015, Little formed Priority Pictures with partners Lizzie Friedman and Karen Lauder. Priority is a production company dedicated to the development, production and financing of high-quality films. Its first project was THE LAND, directed by Steven Caple Jr., starring Erykah Badu and executive produced by Nas. Later projects at Priority include: RIDE, directed and starred in by Oscar-winner Helen Hunt alongside Luke Wilson. EMELIE, starring Sarah Bolger. THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT, directed by Kyle Alvarez, starring Billy Crudup and Ezra Miller. Recent projects at Priority include: BEL CANTO, starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe and adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name. The Emmy award-winning documentary MOMENTUM GENERATION, directed by Jeff and Mike Zimbalist and featuring Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and Shane Dorrian. Projects in development at Priority include: feature film MOTHER’S MILK, written and to be directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and THE BELL JAR, adapted from the Sylvia Plath novel for Showtime and starring Dakota Fanning.