and which teamed with Focus Features this year on Jim Jarmusch’s Cannes Film Festival opener, the former director of curation at Vimeo, has been hired to run it.
In addition, the Brooklyn-based company said Thursday it has hired Gabby Green as a manager in the department, reporting to Morrill. “Over the past seven years, Animal Kingdom has prided itself on the work of identifying, supporting and collaborating with emerging talent,” company partners Joshua Astrachan and David Kaplan said.
A 10-year veteran at Vimeo, Morrill was one of the principal curators of the Staff Picks channel over the past decade, and oversaw Vimeo’s in-house curation team for the last three years. The short-form content featured the early work of the likes of Hiro Murai, Romain Gavras, The Daniels, Jordan Vogt Roberts, Dave Green, Dean Fleischer-Camp, Ari Aster, Crystal Moselle, Kogonada and Julia Pott.
“As a longtime steward of the Staff Picks brand, Sam consistently displayed a keen eye for the sort of original, inventive storytelling that is always in short supply,” Astrachan and Kaplan said. “We feel genuinely fortunate to have found someone with Sam’s curatorial instincts, deep affection for and knowledge of cinema, and humble appreciation for how hard it is to make good and meaningful work.