Directory of Sponsored Projects

Hard Hatted Woman is the first feature documentary film about women in the unionized building trades. They are less than 3% of the construction workforce, yet a few pioneering women continue to pursue this daunting and non-traditional career path. Many of them are seeking personal and economic empowerment. Others are drawn to the innate satisfaction of physically and technically demanding work. But all of them end up fighting to advance in a hyper-masculine arena where only the bold have entered and even fewer will succeed. Lingering stereotypes about women's aptitudes and abilities prevent untold numbers of women from entering the trades, and a jobsite culture rife with gender discrimination and sexual harassment causes many to leave. Taking the viewer into the grit and intensity of construction sites, Hard Hatted Woman follows five women through their lives both on and off the job, creating intimate portraits that reveal how each woman navigates the work’s physical and emotional challenges, how they shape her, and how she decides to shape them back. The women must find strategies for coping and resistance, survival and activism. At the heart of their struggle is an enduring passion for the work itself—pride of craft, joy of building, love of trade.

The Rembetika Blues is a documentary film about the power of music and what makes us human. Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music of the streets and a music of refugees. The film explores the heart and soul of Rembetika music through peoples’ stories of love, loss, and longing.

As Palestinian filmmaker Hala Gabriel grew up in America to refugee parents, trying to assimilate into American society, the questions about her birthplace as well as that of her parents became more persistent. The result of those questions is a thirteen-year journey of documentation and discovery, that led to the production of One Night in Tantura, named after her family’s village in Palestine. Hala’s family and former neighbours from Tantura paint a picture of a beautiful village with good relations with their Jewish neighbours which nonetheless was attacked. She confronts the commanders of the Israeli force that occupied Tantura and who candidly admit to killing over seventy people before expelling everyone else. She hears painful stories about massacres, mass graves, and internment camps where her father (aged fifteen at the time) and others found themselves for months at the start of a journey of being stateless which has transcended multiple generations to this day. The Israeli narrative for the establishment of the state conveniently neglects to mention the Palestinian people, to the extent of saying Palestine was a land without people for a people without a land. Through the story told by survivors of one coastal village, this film dispels that narrative.

On April 2016, 700 law enforcement officers swarmed a housing project in the Bronx, arresting 120 people in what federal prosecutors later said was the “largest gang bust in modern New York history.” TROUBLE FIND YOU tells the story of a Kraig Lewis and his family, whose lives were derailed by this bust and Lewis's subsequent prosecution. The film explores the difficulty of living as a black man in America whose community is highly surveilled and whose friendships and past is weaponized against him.

The film introduces Ven. Mae Chee Sansanee, revered as the Spiritual Leader of Thailand, through archival footage produced for TV5, France in 1997, History Channel Asia in 2009 and on location interviews. It features Sathira Dhammasathan, the center she transformed from a barren plot of land to beautiful tree-covered haven in Bangkok. The two women and young girl featured are representative of the thousands of women whose lives have been saved and transformed through the love, compassion and wisdom of Ven. Mae Chee Sansanee.

Nerds, divas, and jocks alike will compete for the high school fencing championship in New Jersey. Leading up to the controversial state finals between Bernards and Columbia, the girls discover why sports have taught them life’s most important lessons. Filmed in a verite style, we witness the importance of sports in young girls’ lives. Columbia High School of Maplewood is the perennial powerhouse of the state and welcomes all types of kids onto its diverse team. Lead by a highly competitive coach, Bernards High School of Bernardsville is ranked by The Star Ledger as the #1 team in the state going into the season. We experience their year as members of the team go through practices, team dinners, tournaments, school, and adolescent life. Each girl has her own reasons for competing in the sport, which doesn’t penalize them for their race, economic, or gender. When the girls put on their masks, their individual life goals are what drives them to score and beat their opponents.

PIECE OF MIND follows three stories of San Francisco Bay Area families and individuals with serious mental illness, SMI, seeking treatment and normalcy. Linda’s son, Jesse, 38, with schizophrenia, is about to be evicted from his unlivable apartment. Frances and Patricia’s sister, Teresa, 56, diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, did not want to be taken to the hospital. When she picked up a small knife, police shot her seven times. She survived. Jeff lives with bipolar disorder and attempts suicide after losing his job at age 53. The compelling narrative interweaves delusions and real world circumstances, and reveals solutions to this public health crisis. We learn about the first signs of SMI. Jesse and Teresa have anosognosia, a brain disorder that affects 50% of persons with SMI impairing their ability to understand and perceive their mental illness. Dr. Paul Linde, ER psychiatrist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, reveals the unwritten priority to save the shrinking number of psychiatric beds for people who are suicidal or violent, leaving the “gravely disabled” to fend for themselves. Jeff’s plans another suicide attempt. Friends convinced him to go with the police. He gets on medication for the first time. Teresa sues for compensation under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Her case boomerangs from District Court, to U.S. Supreme Court, back to District Court. Glimmers of hope emerge. Jesse is hospitalized for court mandated treatment. Jeff becomes the leader of his bipolar support group and tells his story to police officers in Crisis Intervention Trainings

Hyde Park is a groundbreaking documentary spotlighting the deadly, but often ignored, problem of environmental racism. Of all racial inequalities in the U.S. today, one that is often overlooked, but is perhaps most insidious, is environmental injustice—the fact that blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods with uncontrolled toxic waste. Throughout the last twenty-five years, study after study has confirmed this statistic. Environmental racism is pervasive. In Hyde Park, an African American community in Augusta, Georgia, residents fall ill from industrial contaminants. Surrounded by seven industrial facilities and without funds to relocate, citizens-turned-activists pursue justice with a grit that will inspire thousands of U.S. communities facing environmental racism.

Alejandra, an Indigenous, transgender woman from Oaxaca, Mexico escaped violence in her hometown and fled to the U.S. 28-years-ago. Today, Alejandra prepares for several long-awaited events in her life before her first homecoming trip: her gender-confirmation surgery, completing a degree, opening a restaurant and making peace with the Catholic Church. Alejandra's lifelong quest for a safe place through her intersecting identities has turned her into a beacon of solidarity to many and a testament to the importance –and sometimes limits- of solidarity.

While you may not know his name, chances are high you know his work. Laurie Olin is responsible for many of the most iconic and beloved parks, gardens and public spaces in the country, including the Getty Center gardens, Battery Park City, Columbus Circle, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, the Washington Monument grounds, Bryant Park, Mission Bay, and Independence Mall to name a few. But his imprint on cityscapes extends all over the globe. Olin’s motivation has always come from the social aspects of urban design, working passionately to keep cities viable for all citizens with a special focus on the economically marginalized. Over the course of a career spanning fifty years, Olin has aspired to create a level playing field—a more democratic, egalitarian society through shared public spaces. Given the disproportionate growth of the world’s largest metropolises with more people than ever before being born, living and dying in cities, Olin and his collaborators like Frank Gehry, urge us to take a closer look at the health and survival of our cities. They reveal how our sense of place is either degraded diminished through overbuilding and neglect, or enhanced through purposeful design and social encounter. Olin's life story will become a launching pad for the exploration of themes and ideas about the world in which we live: the overwhelming disconnect with nature, the effects of population explosion, the failed promise of the suburbs, the global water and climate crisis, and building economically-driven environments instead of human ones.

Wisdom Gone Wild - is a personal documentary following a sixteen year caregiving journey into dementia for Rose Noda, a Japanese-American woman and her filmmaker-daughter Rea. The film follows a non-linear structure going between hospice, early onset, and mid-term dementia; mirroring Rose’s own erratic ‘travels through time’. To ‘enter the world’ of the person living with the condition - Rea enters Rose’s world, sitting calmly during her dramatic outbursts, listening deeply to her fragmented anecdotes, believing in her visions of animals, and joining her in spontaneous musical serenades. Unexpectedly, she finds a deeper connection to a mother who had previously been distant throughout her childhood. She discovers that like herself, her mother was at heart an artist and a creative. Rea is also able to connect the dots of Rose’s seemingly nonsensical stories to real events in Rose’s history; in particular her incarceration in U.S. concentrations camps during WWII and the FBI surveillance of Japanese Buddhist priests. Accepting her mother’s cognitive changes, Rea discovers a poetic language to communicate with Rose. They develop a vibrant relationship based on play, connection and humor. Rose’s dementia is revealed as a form of wisdom that has gone wild.

RED HEAVEN is the first feature-length documentary to seriously consider what life will be like for the humans who make the first footprints on Mars. The film follows the six crew members of a simulated mission on the red planet as they live in isolation for one year. We uncover the experience of living on Mars from a human perspective — full of adventure and excitement, but also solitude and alienation from their lives on Earth. RED HEAVEN goes beyond the technological challenges of space exploration and looks at what actually happens when we reach our extraterrestrial destination. Are we capable of adapting to life on a hostile planet? In another world, can we hold on to our humanity?

An Elephant in the Room is a feature documentary, that tells the story of children who through alternative measures learn to overcome the loss of a parent or sibling. In New Jersey, the Good Grief community focuses on more holistic and physical ways of dealing with grief than the traditional conversation-focused support groups. The film follows a small group of children in different stages of grief: From a pair of twins in the completely raw and vulnerable state right after losing a loved one; to a child in the middle of the process; and finally a boy who has been through the various stages of sorrow, and is now on the other side with more hope for the future, ready to say goodbye to the weekly support and solidarity at Good Grief. During a year of weekly meetings, we get to know the children and their grief and through the many forms of activities the audience will see how children interact, comprehend and adapt to the new situation. Grief is high and heavy as a mountain, but it helps you understand what has happened, and that death is irreversible. The coming and going of great feelings will be reflected in the changing seasons as we stay with the kids throughout a full year.

How far would you go for your family? DREAMS OF DARAA poses this central question. It’s a riveting, personal portrait of the Syrian conflict, told through the eyes of a young mother named Hanadi. At 25-years-old, she finds herself in Jordan’s Zaatari Refugee Camp. Two years have passed since she’s seen her beloved husband, who was abducted by Assad’s soldiers and vanished without a trace. Working full-time to support her girls while fighting an immense internal fear, she still tries to give them a chance at a childhood. Hanadi even befriends a visiting girl clown, who brings laughter back into their home. But as war drags on, camp life becomes increasingly dire and Hanadi makes the harrowing decision to return to Syria. Back in Daraa, the threat of airstrikes is constant. When Hanadi finally learns of her husband’s fate, it leads to a rare invitation to testify before the UN. Determined to share her story and speak on behalf of Syrian women, Hanadi once again leaves everything behind. Told through a unique combination of verité footage and watercolor animation based on Hanadi’s children’s drawings, their tumultuous four-year journey brings to life what so many want most—a place to call home.