Brian Welk

Brian Welk is the Senior Reporter for IndieWire’s business team, covering entertainment industry news and analysis along with festival and awards coverage, primarily focused on the movies. Prior to joining IndieWire, Welk spent six years at the Hollywood trade publication TheWrap, eventually working his way up to the role of Senior Film Reporter. In that time, he’s attended and covered the Oscars, Sundance, TIFF, SXSW, the Golden Globes and more. He’s also served as a moderator for industry panel discussions at SXSW and elsewhere and appeared as an expert on “Good Morning America,” BBC News, and for other outlets. Welk in 2022 won the New York Press Club Award for National Entertainment News (online) for his series of pieces focused on opportunities for deaf actors in Hollywood. That year, he was also nominated for online entertainment journalist of the year from the Los Angeles Press Club. Prior to that, he wrote for the IT and business podcast CIO Talk Radio. Welk received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University with a concentration in culture and communications and a master’s degree in Specialized Journalism: The Arts from the University of Southern California. Welk began his career in film criticism, and some of his freelance work has appeared in the Village Voice, LA Weekly, Consequence, and other publications, as well as on his own personal blog. For over two years and over 150 episodes, Welk also co-hosted an independent film news podcast called The News Reel, which featured guest journalists and critics discussing the biggest stories from that week in film news. Welk is native to the Chicagoland area and is based in Los Angeles.