CHAD BURRIS 

Chad Burris belongs to the Chickasaw Nation and is a native of Oklahoma, where he currently resides.  He has produced the award winning films Goodnight Irene by writer/director Sterlin Harjo, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin, Tribeca, Los Angeles Film Festival, Aspen Short Fest and many other notable festivals around the world and Four Sheets to the Wind by Harjo.  Four Sheets was invited to participate in the competition section of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.  Burris was awarded the Sundance Institute’s Mark Silverman Award for 2007 for his work on independent film projects and is in development on three other feature films.   In 2009, Burris had his third project, the feature film Barking Water, accepted to the Sundance Film Festival.  Burris is currently producing a project with award winning filmmaker Aurora Guerrero titled Mosquita y Mari.

Burris is a graduate of the University of Tulsa Law School, where he received his J.D. with an emphasis in Indian Law. He devoted much of his time in law school toward developing programs that would attract, through federal economic development incentives, film production to lower income areas of Oklahoma and other states.  He was a member of the Phi Delta Phi honors organization and Moot court team.  

Upon graduation, Burris founded the Oklahoma based Indion Entertainment Group (IEG).  IEG facilitates financing and production for projects shooting in Oklahoma.  The company utilizes Oklahoma state tax incentives to encourage local investment in film projects.  Having a background in both film production and law, Burris realized the value of local incentives for film production and set out to construct a business model that would accommodate both in Oklahoma.  At present, the company has participated in the financing of three feature films within the state providing over $2M in financing, most notably the horror film Splinter which opened to rave reviews in October of 2008.  IEG is also in negotiations to bring three more films to Oklahoma in the first part of 2009 with budgets totaling approximately $35M.

Burris has been a speaker for several organizations and industry panels on film, entertainment law, and film finance.  He has sat for discussions and presentations in front of the Sundance film festival, the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the American Indian film festival, the Producers Guild of America, and the Incentive Office in Los Angeles. 

Burris serves as an Of Counsel attorney for the law firm of Doerner, Saunders, Daniel and Anderson in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The law firm is Oklahoma’s oldest and most honored, serving the community, state, and region in the practice of numerous fields of law.  Burris practices in the areas of Entertainment, Indian law, and Corporate Transactional law.