About

Danny Costa runs Direct Current Laboratories as its principal. His work experience falls into three categories: Licensing, Sales & Consulting and Distribution.

Licensing 

Danny’s current work includes licensing all film and video content for SAGE Publishing’s video arm, SAGE Video. His work at SAGE has included licensing several hundred hours of documentary film & video content from national broadcasters like the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Company and independent film distributors like Passion River Films, the Media Education Foundation and the Center for New American Media as well as over one hundred other content partners ranging in size and type.

Sales & Consulting

Danny has spent the previous decade  offering  distribution consulting and sales services to filmmakers, distributors and other entities working in content distribution under the banner of Direct Current Labs and before that, DeLarge Films.

Recent clients under the banner of Direct Current Laboratories include films from festivals like the Tribeca Film Festival (THE MANY SAD FATES OF MR. TOLEDANO), SXSW (SWIM, LITTLE FISH, SWIM), DOC NYC (UNORTHODOX), Sheffield Docfest (BRUK OUT!) the Maryland Film Festival (THE LEGEND OF SWEE’PEA) and many, many more. For these clients, he provided sales and consulting services including rights management, contract negotiation and release strategy.

Prior to founding Direct Current Labs, Danny ran DeLarge Films, working for clients including independent filmmakers like Academy-Award winning filmmaker Damien Chazelle (on his first film GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH) SXSW-alumi Andrew Bowser (JIMMY TUPPER VS.THE GOATMAN OF BOWIE ) in addition to international and domestic film distribution companies–like The Orchard, Inc.–which delivers content to digital retailer, ipTV, mobile, and proprietary systems worldwide as well as distribution facilitators like Gracenote (formerly CDDB).

Danny’s early work included managing operations at The Cinema Guild. Before leaving The Cinema Guild, Danny played an integral part in acquiring Cinema Guild’s first domestic narrative feature for theatrical distribution–cult filmmaker Andrew Bujalski’s most recent feature, BEESWAX.

Distribution

Before founding Direct Current Labs, Danny was Director of Distribution at Alexander Street Press, where his work included the aquisition of and distribution of single film/video titles. During his time at Alexander Street Press, Danny distributed films from independent distributors like Zeitgeist Films, The Cinema Guild, Kino Lorber, First Run Features, The Global Film Initiative as well as film & video content sourced from well-known media brands like HBO, PBS and The Smithsonian.  

Additional, Danny previously ran Alexander Street’s boutique, full-service educational & non-theatrical distributor, Filmakers Library where he acquired and managed the non-theatrical & educational/library releases of nearly 50 films including top-tier documentary titles including award-winners like LOST AND SOUND, SHOLEM ALEICHEM: LAUGHING IN THE DARKNESS, THE BIG FIX, HIS & HERS, THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED, ELECTORAL DYSFUNCTION and (A)SEXUAL.

Danny holds an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and holds a B.S. in Television & Film from Boston University’s College of Communications