Enjoy one or both of these films/discussions! Tickets sold separately.
LEWIS ERSKINE
(1957-2021)
With a sensibility that was honed by listening to 1970s Black radio stations and watching the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Lewis Erskine edited such watershed films as The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (Stanley Nelson; 1999), Jazz (Ken Burns; 2000), The Murder of Emmett Till (Stanley Nelson, 2003), Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch; 2012), and Cesar's Last Fast (Richard Ray Perez; 2014), among countless others he advised and consulted on.
His legacy, beyond the films he worked on, is one of love and generosity of spirit, coupled with a relentless and fiery fight to make the documentary ecosystem more just and equitable. "The structure of racism remains in our community," he said in a 2017 Sundance speech. “If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Who's in the room where it happens? We need to disrupt the cycle.” It is this spirit of disruption that is Erskine’s greatest legacy.
-Bedatri D. Choudhury
2pm
FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
2012 | Documentary | 1h 42m | Shola Lynch
A documentary that chronicles the life of young college professor Angela Davis, and how her social activism implicates her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ends with a shootout, four dead, and her name on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.
Followed by a conversation with director Shola Lynch and filmmakers Natalie Bullock Brown and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon
5pm
MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL
2019 | Documentary/Music | 1h 55m | Stanley Nelson
Musicians, scholars, family and friends reflect on the life of jazzer Miles Davis to reveal the man behind the legend. Full access to Davis' estate provides rare footage and photos, outtakes from recording sessions and new interviews.
Q&A with director Stanley Nelson moderated by Carla Gutierrez
Natalie Bullock Brown is an award-winning producer, an Assistant Teaching Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at North Carolina State University, and a 2021 Rockwood Institute JustFilms Fellow. She is director/producer of a documentary work-in-progress that explores the impact of the beauty standard on Black women and girls; and is a producer on award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt’s PBS documentary, Hazing, as well as his upcoming NOVA film, Lee and Liza’s Family Tree. Natalie is also a proud member of the Documentary Accountability Working Group, which released a values-informed framework for documentary filmmakers that emphasizes care, consent, and collaboration as a pathway to ethical storytelling. Natalie was the StoryShift Strategist for Working Films, where she guided the organization’s work in promoting accountable documentary storytelling. Natalie was also a regular guest and contributor for #BackChannel, a monthly segment on North Carolina public radio’s The State of Things. And for nearly 12 years, Natalie was an assistant professor of film and broadcast media in the Department of Media & Communications at Saint Augustine's University. She also served 12 years as co- host of Black Issues Forum, a public affairs program on UNC-TV, North Carolina’s statewide public television network. Natalie was also an associate producer on documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ 10-part PBS series, Jazz. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from Howard University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Northwestern University. Natalie is a native Chicagoan but a New Yorker in her heart
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is a Haitian-American documentary filmmaker and impact strategist from NYC. Since her Emmy-winning editing debut, she has distinguished herself as a producer, editor, and director. Sabrina is a Women at Sundance Fellow, recipient of the Dear Producer Award for excellence in independent filmmaking, and a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Sabrina is the producer of critically-acclaimed films Quest and To the End,both of which premiered at Sundance. Her most recent film, Victim/Suspect, produced with the Center for Investigative Reporting, premiered at Sundance in January and is being released by Netflix on May 23rd. She is the co-director, producer and editor of the Emmy-nominated BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez, and producer and editor of both Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a Sundance premiere named on MSNBC’s 10 Most Important Black Films of the decade, and Documented, which had record-breaking viewership on CNN.
Carla Gutiérrez ACE is an Emmy and Eddie nominated documentary editor. She edited the Oscar nominated films RBG and La Corona. Her latest film, Julia, about renowned chef, and television personality Julia Child, premiered at Telluride and was an official selection of the Toronto Film Festival. She also edited the Emmy nominated Pray Away (Netflix Original, Tribeca premiere). Carla’s work has received awards at Sundance, Tribeca, Berlinale, Outfest, the Critic’s Choice Awards, the National Board of Review Awards and the DuPont Columbia Awards. She has been a creative adviser for the Sundance Edit Lab, and a mentor for the Firelight Producers’ Lab, The Karen Schmeer Diversity Program, and the Tribeca Film Fellows program. Carla is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the American Cinema Editors. She received a Masters in Documentary Film from Stanford University.
Shola Lynch is an award-winning American Filmmaker best known for the feature documentary Free Angela & All Political Prisoners and the Peabody Award winning documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed. Her independent film body of work and her other collaborative projects feed her passion to bring history alive with captivating stories of people, places, and events. Since 2013 she has also served as the Curator of the Moving Image & Recorded Sound division of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2016, Shola became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Shola is currently finishing a documentary about the American sprinter, cultural icon and still World Record holder, Flo Jo. She is in production on an Apple Original film, Number One on the Call Sheet, which will celebrate Black achievement in the film industry, and explore what it takes for Black actresses to find success in Hollywood. She has also been tapped to helm an upcoming documentary on Reverend Jesse Jackson. In addition to her more than 25 years making documentaries, Shola holds a Master’s in American History and Public History Management from the University of California, Riverside and a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University. Shola believes deeply in the value of preserving history and its power in storytelling.
Stanley Nelson is today’s leading documentarian of the African American experience. His films combine compelling narratives with rich historical detail to shine new light on the under-explored American past. Awards received over the course of his career include a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, five Primetime Emmy Awards, and lifetime achievement awards from the Emmys and IDA. In 2013, Nelson received the National Medal in the Humanities from President Obama. In 2019, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool was nominated by the GRAMMYs for Best Music Film and went on to win two Emmy® Awards at the 42nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards. Nelson’s latest documentary Attica, for SHOWTIME Documentary Films, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 94th Academy Awards® and earned him the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. In 2021, Nelson also directed the feature film Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy for Netflix, which was a 2022 duPont-Columbia Awards Finalist, and Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre, with co-director Marco Williams, for the HISTORY Channel, which was nominated for three Primetime Emmy® Awards. In 2000, Mr. Nelson, and his wife, Marcia Smith, co-founded Firelight Media, a non-profit production company dedicated to advancing contemporary social justice issues, amplifying underrepresented narratives, and fostering a new generation of diverse filmmakers.