Justin Balsamo and Cari Sanders, two of the top awards strategists in Hollywood, have teamed up and launched their own full-service awards consulting operation, Tenth House PR, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. They intend to work on Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and major guild campaigns.

Sanders has spent the past 18 years working under renowned awards strategist Tony Angellotti at The Angellotti Company, where she was most recently VP publicity and awards. There, she contributed not only to the campaigns for eventual best picture Oscar winners Green Book and Oppenheimer and other major winners such as Get Out, 1917, Inside Out and Wicked, but also worked closely with filmmakers, production companies and corporate clients such as the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She began her career at the Walt Disney Company, where she worked in both national publicity and home entertainment. Balsamo comes to the new shingle from Amazon MGM Studios, where he has worked since 2022, most recently as head of film and series awards strategy, with a hand in both films (such as Saltburn, Frida and Argentina, 1985) and television (including toile, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Lord of the Rings). Prior to that, he was VP awards and publicity at Focus Features dating back to 2017, working on Oscar-winning campaigns for the likes of BlacKkKlansman, Belfast, Promising Young Woman and Phantom Thread; and senior manager of integrated marketing and awards at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which he joined in 2013.

Tenth House PR is the culmination of everything weve learned over 30-plus combined years of building and executing awards campaigns of every shape and size, Balsamo and Sanders tell THR. After working across both the studio and agency sides, we were ready to launch something of our own. This is a venture shaped by our experiences, and grounded in a distinct, strategic point of view. We truly love what we do, and we hope the creative energy, passion and joy we bring to the work is felt by those we collaborate with in this next chapter.