Directory of Sponsored Projects

When was the last time you thought about where your electricity comes from? When a hurricane destroyed your power grid? Or when someone repossessed your streetlights? Do you live next door to a power plant? Are you a visionary early adopter of solar or wind, and creating new businesses that take people into account as well as profit? In a series of vignettes in six locations, “How to Power A City: stories from the front lines of the clean energy revolution” follows a diverse cast fighting to bring clean energy to their communities. Some are fighting extreme challenges like rebuilding after hurricanes. Others are in battles with traditional fossil fuel power. Still others are visionary early adopters of solar and wind power. All shed new light on how we power our cities and homes. In a humanizing insider view of what it takes to get solar, wind, and other types of clean energy into daily use, the diverse cast accepts no excuses as they navigate hurdles of technology, business, and political red tape to realize their visions of a clean energy future.

LITTLE SALLIE WALKER is a documentary project that shares the stories of how black women across the generations have found pleasure, refuge and power in childhood play. For the central characters Patricia, Billie Jean, Raisha, and Kristi, surviving life in America as black girls involved imagining and creating worlds-of-make-believe through different types of play like patty cake, dress up, double dutch, tag, doll-making, hop-scotch and hide-and-seek. Intimate interviews and cinema vérité scenes interlaced with archival footage, rare home movies, and story reenactments shape this narrative. The LITTLE SALLIE WALKER film, which unfolds in Alabama, California, New York, and Washington State, also shows why having a voice in a world-of-your-own-making is crucial for black women and girls marginalized by race and gender discrimination, poverty, and abuse. A supporting character, reiterates a key premise of the film, “Play is not about going outside and playing in the play yard. It’s literally about having a sense of freedom.” The film questions does play have the ability to save the women featured within LITTLE SALLIE WALKER? And if play was so essential for these women in childhood, how significant is it for their self-care as black women living in America?

Decades of industrial waste and raw sewage have turned Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal into one of the nation’s most polluted bodies of water. Now on the verge of an EPA Superfund cleanup, but still dangerously contaminated, the neighborhood along its banks is attracting boutique hotels, farm-to-table restaurants, and luxury apartments. Squeezed between two of the borough’s most desirable neighborhoods, Gowanus’s role as a place for manufacturing and a home for working class New Yorkers is changing fast. A graffiti dispatch to new residents sums up the conflict, “Welcome to Venice, Jerko.” GOWANUS CURRENT will ask, Who are the winners and losers in this transformation? Is the neighborhood finally realizing its potential with an injection of money and energy, or is it being hollowed out as its deep-rooted jobs, artists, and residents are forced elsewhere? What do we attach value to in our communities, and what are we willing to give up? Gowanus is a microcosm of the rest of urban America, and what is currently happening here will resonate with people across this country, and even abroad. The film takes a dual approach to immerse the viewer in the neighborhood, layering passages of sensory details with verite scenes featuring the people of Gowanus and their struggles. We want the audience to feel like they are there, imagine what changes to the neighborhood may bring, and consider what is most important in a community.

The vivid and deeply personal stories at the heart of "Unlocked" have not been heard before. Because of the power and diversity of these stories, we believe Unlocked has the authenticity and breadth of vision to inspire the deep shift in values and attitudes needed to realize a healthcare system rooted in principles of recovery. Accounts are shared from very different perspectives. Former patients, people of lived experience, peers, family members, direct care staff, clinicians, administrators, inmates, law enforcement, and corrections personnel share markedly different realities. Seen together, these varied points of view provide an overview that supports better understanding and open dialogue. Even the most painful stories offer hope. Since the release of "Kings Park" in 2012, we have seen over and over the power of putting a human face on the story of public mental healthcare. The response to our screenings nationwide has been overwhelmingly positive and equally passionate in colleges, hospitals, peer organizations, national conferences, jails, provider settings, and advocacy groups. With the help of a generous grant from The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care we have completed a project prototype consisting of: • A sample 2-part Video Curriculum which includes including featured videos of personal stories, topic essays and other teaching resources; • A sample Video Library of viewable and searchable clips of uncut documentary scenes and interviews; • Streaming access to the documentary "Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution." We are now seeking funds to complete the digital learning site.

Food is a central part of people’s lives, a social experience that engages communities around the globe. Based on that premise, Feed Me a Story, the transmedia project - film, interactive and performative - created by the interdisciplinary artist Laura Nova and the interactive media artist Theresa Loong, explores the diverse multicultural and intergenerational character of the United States through cooking. Feed Me a Story combines different media, from fleeting public interventions, documentary video, video animations to a website and the development of a memory collection App, connecting with people from different cultural background and ages. Using a re-fashioned airline cart fitted with an iPad and video camera, they travel and intervene in public spaces, meeting people and collecting their stories and memories related to food. The project ranges from the Essex Street Market in New York City during Thanksgiving, where they engaged with vendors and customers and created video recipes like Irma’s combination of Mexican Mole with Turkey, Cara’s Norwegian Lefse, and Michael’s Californian sushi, to a documentary video cookbook created with the Laguardia Senior Center. Underneath these interventions, there is a process of research on the history and characteristics of the places they work in order to be able to engage with the local communities. They have also partnered with art and cultural institutions in New York like the Brooklyn Museum and Museum of Chinese in America. All their experiences are available on their website.

Set in Berlin and New York, With Wings and Roots interweaves the stories of Tania, Miman, Sonny and Akim – artists and activists raised in the Global North to parents from the Global South. This longitudinal documentary accompanies them as they move from their 20’s into their 30’s, facing major turning points: fighting for citizenship, creating a family, surviving violence, and finding creative expression. As each individual’s journey unfolds, they all face exclusion and the search for identity while learning to define belonging for themselves. Beautifully shot over the course of seven years, the film weaves back and forth between their lives. It offers intimate and tender portraits of these global citizens envisioning new possibilities of belonging, in a world increasingly hostile to their existence. The film is complemented by a robust transmedia and education initiative that includes a web platform, workshops, curricula, and live events. Learn more: reimaginebelonging.org

A multi-character portrait of growing up, 13 weaves together ten personal stories of thirteen-year-olds spread across the globe. Through their eyes, we see firsthand how pressing sociopolitical issues – gender identity, religion, economic status and gun control – are shaping our youth. And despite personal and national differences, certain familiar experiences of growing up cross all borders. Presented as a series of intimate vignettes, each thirteen-year-old guides us through their world, creating a lyrical impression of a new generation. In a time of ubiquitous school shootings in the United States, Landon, of the American South owns six guns and is very proud of his ability to use them. In France, Oren is getting bar mitzvahed but cannot wear his yarmulke on the short walk to his synagogue for fear of an anti-Semitic attack. Australian Evie, née Ethan, got hormone blockers for her thirteenth birthday and proudly identifies as trans. Arti, in Kathmandu, is the first member of her family of 9 to attend school. Despite the polarizing issues characterizing the world today, each teen struggles with timeworn themes that symbolize coming of age – dating, new responsibilities, puberty. Landon has his first girlfriend, Arti worries about her popularity in school, Awa stresses about grades and her future. 13 offers poetic evidence that humanity is indeed universal and borders are truly artificial.

Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, 93QUEEN follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. With unprecedented — and insider — access, 93QUEEN offers up a unique portrayal of empowered women who are taking matters into their own hands to change their own community from within.

On January 16, 2018 I spent the day with the classical ballet company, ACOSTA DANZA while they were in rehearsals at their newly renovated studios in the center of Havana, Cuba. The film takes an intimate look at the company as they rehearse for their upcoming tour and New York Debut. Six of the dancers are interviewed showing the range of background, economic and otherwise and general pride that Cuban dancers hold for their country's free, high quality education and arts training under the socialist regime,. The primarily "black" Cuban dancers speak about their path to becoming dancers, classical Ballet versus modern or contemporary dance and whether or not they had an awareness of race in their professional and culture trajectory. The goal of the film is to give a glimpse into the artistic stories and paths of these 6 dancers while also highlighting a larger lens on the tradition of excellence in Cuban dance and the cultural phenomenon of one of Cuba’s biggest stars returning home to Cuba to start an exciting new company.

BeBe Zahara Benet is a drag performer originally from Cameroon in Central Africa, now living in the U.S. She’s magnetic, and 6’3”– before hair and heels. We chart BeBe’s story across 10+ years: from her early amateur days in Minneapolis, to winning ​the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009, to struggling to make ends meet in New York​. Behind BeBe (the diva) is Marshall (the man). ​The heart of our story takes place one hot and stressful summer in New York City. Marshall feels tremendous pressure to get his career back on track in the face of dwindling opportunities, a shrinking bank account, and the overwhelming competition of over 100+ ​RuPaul’s Drag Race​ queens whose careers have launched since BeBe’s original win. He’s not sure he can afford to keep living in New York, a dream he’d been so proud to achieve. At the height of precariousness and self-doubt, Marshall puts his remaining savings into one last live BeBe show called “Reveal.” As part of his process for “Reveal,” he takes an intense and unconventional acting class about accessing your most authentic self. Even though he lives in the U.S. now, this vulnerable work is particularly challenging for Marshall, coming from Cameroon, where the mere suspicion of homosexuality is grounds for imprisonment. The creative process leads to powerful revelations and shifts, made all the more impactful by the rich context that the film provides around Marshall's history and internal conflicts.

The ripple effects of over four million women who demonstrated worldwide in January of 2017 for women’s rights are placing women’s activism front and center. Women are on the move, responding with motivation to the deep challenges of the 2017 election here in the U.S. and crises around the world. Looking back, today's women are not the first to feel they live at a moment of crisis or to respond with action. For more than a century, women - from Jane Adams to Coretta King to Malala Yousafzai, and in 2017, to the founders of the Women’s March - have organized globally to speak and act for peace and justice. What better way to empower today’s women than to review 100 years of accomplishments in advancing women’s voices and leadership? We think a brilliant, efficient and highly effective way to do this is work from the expertly researched and grounded play, Most Dangerous Women. In the movie, rich archival images of headlines, photos, video, and protest signs set context for the times, enlivening historic stories while contemporary activists and artists perform the actual words women spoke, shouted and sang, beginning with international protests of WW1 and extending to the Women’s March of 2017. Performers and audiences connecting with their future-oriented foremothers’ past actions represent new generations, creating a fresh space where histories and dreams collide to envision and enact new ways of being. Stirring music from the play helps drive the film narrative.

In NORMAL ISN'T REAL, four young adults share their stories of coming to terms with their learning disabilities and ADHD. They differ in backgrounds, strengths, schools, and career choices, but each has become an expert on themselves and what they need to succeed. Viewers witness their talents, frustrations, and strategies for managing their challenges. The results are inspiring and instructive.

Filmed over five years, FREEDOM FIELDS follows three women and their football team in post-revolution Libya, as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the Arab Spring begin to fade. Through the eyes of these accidental activists, we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love and aspirations collide with History. An intimate film about hope, struggle and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. A love letter to sisterhood and the power of team.

The Prospect Park Women’s Softball League ("PPWSL") was formed in Brooklyn, New York in 1981 with a mission to welcome all women to play regardless of prior experience. The founders had a simple yet radical vision; to support and encourage women to participate in a sports league built on acceptance and instruction. The PPWSL continues to be a place where women meet across differences of race, economic class, sexual orientation, education, religion, and gender identity to play softball. Grounders is a documentary film that takes an intimate look at this league and the community that has formed around it. During the course of production some themes emerged: the impact of Title IX, how messages women received in their families of origin impacts their relationship to sports and their bodies, the importance of belonging to a team, and the empowerment gained from being part of a woman-led community. For some, playing has a therapeutic effect of undoing negative experiences endured as girls during schoolyard recess. For some being out on the softball field has always been a place of empowerment and joy. For every woman playing there is an obstacle to overcome, but once they get out to the field and play it all seems to make sense.

It explores the Korean and Japanese “sea women” or “free dive women,” (referred to as “Haenyeo” in Korean and “Ama” in Japanese) making their living from the sea by harvesting the ocean floor. Known for their proud independence and fierce determination the women are the providers for their families, which has led to a rare feminist and matriarchal culture. This ancient fishing tradition is a rapidly disappearing practice that dates back over 1,500 years. and now exits only in Korea and Japan in its original form. The challenging and dangerous work, involves free driving for as long as 6 minutes or more to depths as great as 40 feet, without the use of any artificial breathing apparatus whatsoever. On Jeju Island,the diving tradition dates back to at least 434 A.D. and has been inscribed into the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Today most of the women are in their 70’s and 80’s yet still diving, and only about 4000 sea women remain. The Japanese diving tradition is recorded as early as 750 AD in one of the oldest Japanese anthologies of poetry, the Man’yoshu, and includes rituals such as the “Watima Grand Festival” in Hegura island, in which they transport a massive shrine, out to sea. In the end the film will tell the sea women’s stories, and preserve awareness of these unique cultural lifeways, that have much to teach us about our own contemporary world and how to thrive within it.

In the 1970s, with the swagger of unapologetic Indianness, organizers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) fought for Native liberation as a community of extended families. Warrior Women is the story Madonna Thunder Hawk, one such AIM leader who cultivated a rag-tag gang of activist children - including her daughter Marcy - into a group called the "We Will Remember" survival group. Together, Madonna and Marcy fought for Native rights in an environment that made them more comrades than mother-daughter. Today, with Marcy now a mother herself, both women are still at the forefront of Native issues, fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. Through their story, the film explores what it means to balance a movement with motherhood and how activist legacies are passed down from generation to generation in the face of a government that has continually met native resistance with mass violence.

Pat Steir is best known for her mesmerizing Waterfall Paintings, which she poured, splashed, and threw onto the canvas beginning in the late 1980s. Yet she’s been at the forefront of American painting for decades, with an artistic practice that spans half a century. In Pat Steir: Artist, Steir herself evokes her difficult childhood in New Jersey, her youth in NY as part of the NY 70's art scene, and her friendships with the most groundbreaking artists and poets of her generation. Steir discusses her relationships with her artistic mentors including John Cage and his ideas of chance and non-intervention; Sol LeWitt, who as Steir's partner for many years influenced her development of Conceptual Painting; and Agnes Martin’s minimalism and deep spirituality. Pat Steir: Artist is a first-person, character-driven documentary. There are no talking heads, but rather a story of self that unfolds over the course of the film. It is organized in chapters that cover Pat’s family, her artistic friendships, her painting practice, her experience as a woman artist in a field that is very much dominated by men, and feminism more generally. Pat’s relationship to books and poetry, and, finally, the success she’s meeting with at this late stage in her career. It is only now, at nearly eighty, that Steir’s career is truly taking off, as she has become one of the highest grossing living women artists. In her own words, “Now that I’m over 70, I’m like an honorary man.”

Mariluz Canaquiri says her river is the “ɨa” (ee-ah)—the center, life force and mother. Her river deep in Peru’s Amazon provides her with fish to eat, water to drink, a transport route and a place to swim and relax. But it is also much more. Underneath the surface live the Karuara, which means “people of the river” in Kukama, Mariluz’s native tongue. If a person disappears in the river and their body is never found, it means they have transformed into a Karuara. These spiritual beings live in underwater villages in a parallel universe. They lounge in hammocks made of boa constrictors, smoke sardines and wear crayfish watches, stingray hats and catfish shoes. Behind their playfulness, the Karuara are powerful spirits. When their human relatives are ill or in trouble, the people of the river are called upon to heal and provide help. But oil pipelines, hydroelectric dams and other mega development projects threaten the river and the spiritual world beneath the surface. The indigenous people’s survival depends on the Karuara spirits: they have co-existed for centuries. One cannot live without the other and both are guardians of the river and forest. This film follows Mariluz, a remarkable Kukama grandmother, and her community, as they struggle to adapt to the modern world and save their river and culture.