NYWIFT Salon Conversation: ‘The New Mainstream’ presented in partnership with The New School

Join NYWIFT in partnership with The New School for a salon conversation: ‘The New Mainstream.’

Explore the growing influence of emerging and niche markets that are reshaping the media and film industries. Learn from trailblazing executives and storytellers Carla Gutiérrez (RBG, FRIDA), Christina Norman (The Moth), Leslie Fields-Cruz (Black Public Media), and Michèle Stephenson (Rada Studio) as they share insights on balancing creativity, storytelling, and strategic business approaches to achieve success in their projects.

Each speaker will offer best practices for authentically connecting with audiences who are often overlooked yet central to the American mosaic. The discussants will also share how they merge subject and audience in their storytelling, ensuring that the media they create inspires empathy and fosters connection by addressing our shared human need to be seen, heard, and valued. 

Moderated by NYWIFT Board Member Neyda Martinez.

Networking cocktail reception with light bites to follow.

Date:
Monday, April 21, 2025

Time:
6:30 – 7:45pm ET (Panel)
8:00 – 9:00pm ET (Networking Reception)

Location:
Wollman Hall, Eugene Lang Building, room B500 (65 West 11th Street)

Price:
Free

Register

Panelists

Carla Gutiérrez is a Peruvian-American filmmaker. Her directorial debut FRIDA, about the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and won the prestigious Jonathan Oppenheim Editing award. FRIDA was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar and received multiple nominations for the Critic’s Choice, Cinema Eye, Independent Spirit, NAACP, Imagen, and IDA awards. Carla’s work as an editor includes the Oscar nominated films RBG, about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and La Corona, about a beauty pageant in Colombia’s largest female prison. She edited Julia, about renowned chef Julia Child (Telluride, TIFF); and the Netflix Original film Pray Away (Tribeca, Telluride). Carla’s work has also received awards at Sundance, Tribeca, Berlinale, Outfest, the National Board of Review Awards and the DuPont Columbia Awards. Carla has been a creative adviser for the Sundance Edit Lab and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the American Cinema Editors. She received a Masters in Documentary Film from Stanford University.

Christina Norman currently serves as the Chief Creative Officer of The Moth, a non-profit that celebrates the connections formed when people share true, personal stories. The Moth presents 600 live events annually around the world, teaches storytelling to students, community groups and business leaders, and produces the Moth Radio Hour and The Moth Podcast, heard by millions people each year.

An accomplished creative and business leader with a successful track record building and managing world-class media brands, Christina has held leadership positions across the media industry, including CEO of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, and President of both MTV and VH1. As Head of Content for The National Basketball Players Association, she Created and Produced the documentary Game Change Game, an official selection of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

Christina has been recognized with a variety of industry honors including Multichannel News’ “Wonder Women,” named to Cable Fax’s Most Powerful Women and Influential Minorities lists and has been included in The Hollywood Reporter “Power100 Women in Entertainment,” and a Governor’s Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for MTV’s “Fight For Rights” campaign. Christina is on the Board of BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn.

Leslie Fields-Cruz is the Executive Director of Black Public Media and Executive Producer of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange.
Leslie joined Black Public Media in 2001 to manage its program development fund, which supports the production of documentaries about the Black experience. She was named director of programs in 2005, to supervise the distribution of BPM-funded programs to public television. It was during this time that BPM created its award-winning anthology series of stories from the African Diaspora, AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, now in its 13th season. In 2008 Leslie was tapped to serve as VP of programs and operations. In 2014, she was appointed BPM’s third-ever executive director. Under her leadership, BPM has cultivated new partnerships, diversified revenues, and initiated vital new programs (360 Incubator+, PitchBLACK Forum, BPM plus, Black Media Story Summit) that support visionary talent and Black content development. Leslie has been featured in Crain’s New York’s 2021 list of Notable Black Business Leaders. She serves on the board of directors for New Era Creative Space and was the board president of New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) 2022-2024.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker, artist, and author Michèle Stephenson draws from her Haitian and Panamanian heritage and experience as a social justice lawyer to transform non-fiction storytelling. Through a Black Atlantic lens anchored in the Black radical tradition, Stephenson creates emotionally powerful narratives of resistance and healing that emphasize the lived experiences of communities of color across the Americas and the Black diaspora. Stephenson reimagines storytelling by weaving together fiction, immersive, experimental, and hybrid forms in her work. In 2023, her films Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project and Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games were Oscar-shortlisted, with Going To Mars winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the prestigious Creative Arts Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Black Girls Play received significant accolades, including the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video and Best Short Doc at Tribeca. Her feature, American Promise, earned three Emmy nominations and won the Jury Prize at Sundance, while Stateless was nominated for a Canadian Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Stephenson co-directed The Changing Same, a magical realist VR trilogy that premiered at Sundance’s New Frontier XR Program, won the Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative, and was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Interactive Media: Immersive. In 2024, she received the NYWIFT Nancy Malone Directing Award at the Muse Awards, and is currently in post-production on True North, a feature hybrid doc on the Black Power movement in Canada. She is a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, Creative Capital Artist, and member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Neyda Martinez is a producer whose films examine culture, equity, and social justice. Documentaries in production include Bartolo, A Chasm in Chinatown, and The People vs. Austerity. Past credits include Lucky and Decade of Fire.

An Associate Professor and Director of the Media Management Graduate Program at The New School, Neyda’s board service includes PEPATIÁN: Bronx Arts ColLABorative, Intervenxions’ Editorial Board (an online publication of NYU’s Latinx Project), UPROSE, Women Make Movies and New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT).

Thank you to our partner:

The New School, founded in 1919 has redrawn and redefined the boundaries of intellectual and creative thought as a preeminent academic center. Its rigorous, multidimensional approach to education dissolves walls between disciplines and helps nurture progressive minds. At The New School and Parsons, students have the academic freedom to shape their unique, individual paths for a complex and rapidly changing world. The university’s students and faculty continue to challenge the status quo and continue to redefine higher education almost a century later.