Directory of Sponsored Projects

Chicago record store Dusty Groove has been buying vinyl collections for 20 years. But how can one put a price tag on something so personal as another’s music? This is a story about why music matters. How does it shape our lives? Why is it important to us? For the folks that vinyl buyer Rick interacts with, they share the beauty and complexities of their lives as we witness them begin the transition to a new self. Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition is a collection of intimate narratives, akin to a record album of songs. About love, loss and our deep connection to music.

This Body, Too will be a seventy-minute personal documentary that juxtaposes the perspectives of those closest to me regarding gender and sex as I navigate a bodily decision. Through a diaristic form, I question established notions of femininity and womanhood that many in my family, and our culture, hold as fact. The film will include conversations with my mother, aunts, doctors, and sisters as I attempt to understand and unpack our collective relationship to sex and gender.

Little Miss Westie follows two transgender siblings as they navigate puberty, school, dating and transitioning during the Trump era. Ren is competing in the Lil Miss Westie Pageant as the first out trans-girl and her older brother Luca is coaching her on posing, make-up, and talent. He knows his stuff because he competed six years ago when he was living as a girl. Whether Ren wins or loses, this experience will change the family forever offering a rare window into the lives of two very young gender pioneers.

In July of 1950, the FBI arrested Miriam Moskowitz and her boss Abe Brothman. Although the prosecution couldn’t make an espionage charge stick, newspapers headlined the conviction of two dangerous A-Bomb spies in cahoots with the treacherous Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (executed for espionage in 1953). Miriam, who was having an illicit affair with Abe, refused to take the stand for fear the affair would be revealed, thus giving up her only public opportunity to defend herself. Fast-forward more than sixty years. Miriam is age 97, and still a convicted felon. Her age shows, but it is masked by her feisty personality. After decades, Miriam has come forward to reveal her past--and clear her name. The Conviction of Miriam Moskowitz follows Miriam as she seeks justice and personal vindication. She pursues legal recourse, political clemency, and even appeals to the general public and historians to reconsider her place in American history. But in clearing her name, Miriam faces questions and evidence long buried. Is she really a victim of the 1950s era of McCarthy hysteria? Or is there some truth to the charges against her? In exploring Miriam’s past, the film explores the injustice of 1950s America while raising questions about the lengths people are willing to go to ensure they are remembered the way they want to be. And set against current relations with Russia and espionage, it raises interesting questions about international espionage and the effects this has on American society and politics.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES is a speculative documentary about four people finding a sense of belonging in the New Mexican desert. Based in documentary footage, the film takes place in a near future where people have left Earth to colonize new planets. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, NM, the film tells the story of the people who stayed. Their journeys open echoes of New Mexico’s complex history of progress and what gets left behind. Through observational footage, archival, and experimental animations, TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES is a lyrical meditation on striving, memory, and finding what we’re looking for in the unlikeliest of places.

“Marry young, have two children, and get sterilized” - this is the advice women across India have heard for decades. Families, health workers, the central government all spread the same message. What alternatives are there, anyway? With limited information about other forms of birth control, sterilization is the only option for many. This lack of choice is not an oversight by the government; rather, it’s a deliberate policy aimed at controlling India’s alarming population size. Women are corralled into temporary “camps” where hundreds are sterilized at a time. Quality is sacrificed for quantity; individual attention for efficiency. "Small Family, Happy Family" is a short documentary following Mitilesh, a young woman from rural Madhya Pradesh, as she is recruited by health workers in her village to undergo sterilization and decides with her husband to pursue the surgery. Her story is situated in the larger context of population control in India, revealing how these policies affect the lives of women. The film is an immersive, highly personal glimpse into the lives of women positioned at the turbulent nexus of government policy and reproductive rights. In Mitilesh we see so many other women - in India and in our own countries - who also have tenuous control over their bodies and choices.

Marlise Muñoz was 33 years old and 14 weeks pregnant with her second child when she died. She suffered a pulmonary embolism and was pronounced brain-dead in a hospital in Fort Worth, TX. Marlise had told her family that she never wanted to be on life support, under any circumstances. And since a brain-dead patient is in fact legally dead, that should have been the end of this sad story. But the Muñoz family was forced to keep Marlise on mechanical support against their will for 62 days, because of a little known law that states “a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment… from a pregnant patient.” What followed was a painful ordeal, with critical implications about bodily integrity, rights and liberty. The media picked up the story and the press wildly debated what choice the family should make. But the bottom line was: the family didn’t have a choice. The case ignited polarizing opinions; one side argued that if anything could be done to save this fetus, it should. The other claimed that the State was imposing a ghoulish and cruel mandate on the family, using a dead woman’s body to incubate a fetus. The film reveals that this is not an anomaly: there are currently 32 states (and counting) with similar or identical pregnancy exclusion policies. The Muñoz’ personal journey is the jumping-off point for a timely examination of a growing trend of laws that seek to control a pregnant woman’s body. Even her dead body.

NETIZENS delves into the lives of three women who have been transformed by online harassment. Carrie Goldberg is an attorney in New York City, who launches an internet privacy and sexual assault law firm in the wake of her own cyber harassment. Tina, in West Palm Beach, is a successful businesswoman whose career is derailed after an ex-boyfriend creates numerous reputation-harming websites. San Francisco-based Anita Sarkeesian is the creator of a popular web-series, “Feminist Frequency,” critiquing representations of women in video games, who is the target of a cyber-mob’s ongoing campaign of rape and death threats. Through an intimate, vérité approach, NETIZENS depicts the many forms digital abuse can take: non-consensual pornography, cyber-stalking, threats of violence, privacy invasions, impersonation, character attacks. The film challenges the notion cyber harassment is “only” online, showing the repercussions on targets’ lives: lost jobs, thwarted educations, damaged reputations, offline harassment and stalking, and countless hours devoted to containing attacks against a backdrop of mounting legal fees and psychological distress. While law enforcement lags far behind the crimes, the film’s subjects seek justice on their own terms. Carrie's law firm takes off in the midst of the #MeToo movement; Tina speaks out about her experiences and breaks back into the finance industry; and Anita creates a new series about race, gender and inequality in America. NETIZENS bears witness as a courageous wave of individuals transform the web as we know it.

ALL WE’VE GOT is a feature-length documentary that shines a light on a group long at the center of fights for social justice - LGBTQ women. Often dismissed by their peers, subject to social and economic inequality, and rarely acknowledged in the larger culture, this film tells stories about LGBTQ women’s communities, cultures, and social justice work through a particular lens - the spaces they create, from bars to bookstores to arts and political hubs. And this documentary comes at a time when many of those spaces are closing. Access to space is an epicenter of inequality in the US. Though most people know this issue best when it comes to homes, it also has a dramatic impact on social groups who rely on physical spaces to meet, build connections, and form political alliances. On this journey you’ll meet the couple who recently took ownership of a lesbian bar in Oklahoma City. You’ll see performances by and hear from queer and trans artists carrying on the traditions of a 30-year old queer arts venue in New York City. You’ll sit down with queer Latinas who help run one of the oldest and most politically progressive community organizations in San Antonio, Texas. And you’ll join a table of volunteers, including one of the founders, at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY. You’ll hear additional insights from scholar Jen Jack Gieseking, as well as two women who helped shape the Trans Ladies Picnics, social gatherings created by and for trans women.

Send Us Your Brother is a feature-length documentary about Masculinity in India. It weaves together three, interconnected storylines: Nikhil, a young 14 year old who dreams of becoming a soldier; Mahendra, an activist challenging men and boys across India to rethink masculinity; and Ranjit, a determined father combating social pressure and death threats as he seeks justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a violent gang rape. Filmed over two and a half years, the documentary is a rich, and deeply intimate look at what it means to be male in India today. It’s a confusing time to be a man in most parts of the world, especially after the avalanche of #MeToo (which has just recently gripped India). In spite of the triumph of Trump, or the grim victory of Kavanagh, the deep and sustained rage of millions around the world has ushered in a new cultural moment and it feels like we’re witnessing the last, desperate gasps of patriarchy. Whether they verbally acknowledge it or not, men simply cannot ignore that the tides have turned and there are seismic changes afoot. In India, these fault lines emerged six years ago after a young, female student was gang raped and murdered on a bus driving through Delhi. The brutality of the incident stunned the country and within hours India erupted in protests. No longer could the system deny India’s deep, entrenched culture of toxic masculinity. Something had to change—primarily, men. Send Us Your Brother is a film that captures that change, as imperfect and fraught as it is.

In Beijing, Hua Ze discovers a friend is sentenced for exposing government corruption. This uncovers an underground of Chinese political prisoners that she thought was abolished at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Hua Ze cannot ignore this unjust China she never knew existed and becomes deeply involved in the human rights movement. Her activism does not go unnoticed; she is violently abducted and illegally jailed. Held for 55 days, she escapes to the U.S. where she currently lives in exile. She continues her activism work but by doing so, she sacrifices returning home and seeing her family again.

This is a story about four women who spent various lengths of time in jail or prison and explores the challenges they face as returning citizens. 25-year-old Jessica lost custody of her son for a crime she committed to support her drug habit. When her mother died of a heroin overdose, Jessica she said she would never do heroin, but eventually succumbed to the drug. She’s been clean for the last two years and gets to see her son every weekend. Nicole, 34, was under the influence when she was arrested for assisting in a series of robberies in an attempt to supplement her husband’s income to provide for their two children. She has not been able to return to her job with the VA, but is managing to juggle a couple of part-time jobs. Kim is 54. She stole money from her organization, only enough she says, to feed her family and pay some bills. She has had difficulty finding work and housing and is currently living with friends. Alfreda, 60, spent almost 10 years in Federal prison on conspiracy charges for making a phone call to assist her son who was arrested for selling drugs. She is no longer able to use her degrees in Education to teach in the Baltimore City School system. Although these stories are about women in Baltimore, they could be in any city in America where the criminal justice system inadequately addresses the needs of women, inside or out.

PERSONAL STATEMENT is an observational, feature-length documentary about three high school seniors who are determined to get their entire classes to college, even though they aren't even sure they are going to make it there themselves. They are working as college counselors in their three schools because many of their friends have nowhere else to turn for support. They struggle and they stumble, but refuse to succumb to the barriers that prevent so many low-income students from attending and graduating from college. Karoline, Christine and Enoch spend much of their senior year helping their peers get to college, even though they must overcome obstacles of their own that could easily prevent them from going to college themselves. The film follows them through their senior year and into college as they attempt to navigate the college process on a terribly uneven playing field. The film sheds light on both the systemic barriers that keep so many young people from attaining a college degree, and the power that already exists within historically marginalized communities to address problems of inequality. The film's engagement and impact campaign seek to use the film to support efforts to increase access to college for low-income students by encouraging more young people to persist to college and building support for more resources to close the college counseling gap and to eliminate other systemic barriers to college. Additional information about the film, including the film's trailer, can be found on the film's website.

A one-year-old boy eats milk and cereal from a bowl while the caption reads ‘‘this is my first movie don’t laugh please’’. Henry Schloss, the son of a tailor and a dressmaker, tells the story of how the Germans separated him from his parents when he was 17 years old, to never see them again. After surviving the camps, Henry starts to rebuild his life in America thanks to a visa he wins in 1948. In Montreal, he marries Bella, a Jewish girl from Paris. Two years later, his son Marc is born. Having a child triggers the obsession of shooting films and taking photographs, of every happy moment in his son’s life. For more than 17 years, he shoots family parties, trips and more than anything his son growing up. Henry has a new family and a comfortable life, but he fears another separation. He is so obsessively attached to his son that he controls his time completely; the son is allowed to have one friend only. The family decides to move to Miami in 1976. When Marc is 21 years old, he falls into a depression that forces him to look for help. The family goes to a therapist together, but the doctor says that he cannot help them as long as Henry denies help. Marc moves to Montreal to be independent and to build his life as an adult while Henry stays living in Miami.

Happy Birthday, Marsha! commemorates Black trans activist and performer Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson and her role in instigating the 1969 anti-policing riots at the Stonewall Inn, a watershed event for the gay liberation movement. The film interweaves imagined scenes with found archival footage to counter the endemic erasure of trans women of color from narratives of political resistance.The film stars Independent Spirit Award Winner Mya Taylor as Johnson with cinematography by Sundance winner Arthur Jafa and an original score by Geo Wyeth.

My So-Called Selfish Life chronicles the rise of a growing community of women who don’t want children and who reject the message that a woman’s most important–and most natural–role is to be a mother. Almost half of American women between 15 and 44 have never had children according to 2016 statistics, an all-time high. Yet choosing not to have children is still seen by many as a deviant decision made by the immoral, the unfeminine...the selfish. But beyond the name-calling, the real struggle at the heart of the choice to be childfree is bodily autonomy through reproductive rights, and access to contraception and abortion. It’s also a particularly timely topic given that our media is full of warring headlines about declining populations, on one hand, and unsustainable overpopulation on the other. The film gives voice to a community challenging our most fundamental ideas about female identity, including a 19-year-old student determined to get her tubes tied, a woman “coming out” about her regret at becoming a mother, and a reproductive rights activist whose unsuccessful fertility treatments lead to a life transformation. Through a vivid pop culture tour that spans vintage postcards of storks chasing young women, to the rise of "Instagram moms," the film connects the dots between the cultural forces that push a message of maternal inevitability so ingrained, we no longer notice it. Join us on the front lines of a seismic societal shift about how women control their bodies and their lives.

In the early 20th century, propelled by a popular belief in eugenics, the U.S. proposed sterilization as a means of controlling the overpopulation in Puerto Rico. Over the years, it became a Puerto Rican woman’s preferred choice of contraception. It was so routine, it was called simply, la operación (the operation). Reproductive Choices: Revisiting La Operación takes a nuanced look at sterilization’s impact on 20th century Puerto Rico by exploring the factors that led women to choose it as a means of birth control.

The Super d! Show videos are short form narratives and all the actors are kids with learning disabilities. The style is relatable, the themes are universal, and the kids are instantly likable and seriously funny. The narrative skits “trigger’ discussions about sensitive subjects. Digital & hands-on activities extend learning through participation. The Super d! Show web series target audience is kids age 7-12 years old and supports the growth of essential traits for achievement and well-being of LD kids in this age group.