NYWIFT Talks: Earth Month

NYWIFT Talks Earth Month: Filmmakers Advocating for Environmental Justice April 28, 2023 from NYWIFT on Vimeo.

Welcome to NYWIFT Talks, a weekly series to bring updated news and vital information about the impact of COVID-19 and current events on the media and entertainment industry. Industry professionals will be in conversation discussing what you need to know about theatrical releases, digital advances, virtual tools, festival opportunities, production updates and more. 

NYWIFT Talks are virtual and free for all to attend.

NYWIFT Talks: Earth Month recognizes filmmakers who are using their media platform to advocate for environmental justice. Directors and producers whose work has explored climate change from various perspectives – from man-made disasters to natural disasters to wildlife endangerment – will discuss how filmmaking can shine a light on how these issues impact our society, particularly marginalized communities.

Speakers include Natalie Cash, Judith Helfand, Audrey Rosenberg, and Charlie Tetiyevsky. Moderated by NYWIFT Senior Director of Community & Public Relations Katie Chambers.

Date: Friday, April 28, 2023
Time: 4PM ET
Cost: Free
Event Platform: Zoom

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Panelists

Natalie Cash is the Executive Video Producer for the Wildlife Conservation Society, a 128-year-old organization that harnesses the power of its worldwide conservation programs and its zoos and aquarium in New York to save wildlife and wild places. Prior to joining WCS, Cash served as a Series Producer and Writer at the Emmy Award-winning documentary production company Pangolin Pictures and sold her short film, Blues in C, to the Arte Channel for broadcast in France and Germany. Cash is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and co-chair of its conservation committee, a member of New York Women in Film & Television, and serves on the Advisory Boards of Jackson Wild and the New York WILD Film Festival. Cash will graduate from Stephens College next month with an MFA in Screenwriting for Television and Film.

Judith Helfand is best known for her open-hearted, artfully self-deprecating and very transparent approach to non-fiction filmmaking. Her genre: “serious fun” meets “toxic comedy”. Her mission: explore and expose the long term impact of cynical “business as usual” profit-driven decision making and the systemic denial of man-made public health crises from climate change to structural racism. Her strategy: balance the horror with unexpected humor, humility and chutzpah – tools she used to create an award winning crowd pleasing body of work that has helped broaden the definition of “environmental” including A Healthy Baby Girl to Blue Vinyl  to Cooked: Survival by Zip Code. Her most recent feature film is Love & Stuff, a piece that intricately weaves Helfand’s family-footage-turned-seamless-cinematic portal, in which she explores the blessing/privilege of living “a good death” followed by very good, communally embraced grief, and what it is we really need to leave our children.  
Helfand has  taught the  art and craft of documentary to undergraduate film majors at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, to environmental studies majors at UW/Madison, to emerging filmmakers at Detroits’ Wayne State University, and most recently she was a visiting professor at Columbia University’s “J” School with a focus on visual journalism. She is as much a field-builder as she is a filmmaker and  educator, which led her to  co-found  two foundational non-fiction organizations, Working Films in 1999 and Chicken & Egg Pictures in 2005. She is currently co-creating a NYC Five Borough World Premiere of her new short Together, Not Alone that she made as part of the Zip Code Memory Project – which builds directly on the engagement she has been doing with COOKED: Survival By Zip Code and a campaign called Beyond Declarations.

Audrey Rosenberg is a Peabody-Award-winning, Emmy-nominated producer known for her ability to cultivate talent, develop material, and champion projects from inception to release. She is lead producer on the award-winning HBO Original documentary Katrina Babies that premiered at Tribeca 2022 in competition and aired on HBO August 2022. She co-founded Invisible Pictures, a NY-based woman-led production company focused on authentic representation. For Invisible, Audrey produced the award-winning film BULL, which premiered at Cannes 2019, EP’d the series Soul City  (with Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy directors Coodie & Chike) which premiered on Topic in 2020, and produced the feature Long Weekend, which was released by Sony in 2021. Other credits include EP (with Steven Soderbergh) on the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary His Way, and EP on HBO’s Emmy-winning By the People: The Election of Barack Obama (with Edward Norton). Audrey was part of the producing team on Douglas McGrath’s Infamous (starring Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, and Toby Jones). She produced Sean Gullette’s award-winning feature Traitors, Co-EP’d Dawn Porter’s award-winning Trapped, and was Consulting Producer for the multi-award winning and Academy-Award nominated I am Not Your Negro. Audrey’s upcoming projects include a limited series with Sharon Stone and Killer Films, Lydia Dean Plicher’s feature film Songs of the Gorilla Nation and Dominique Morriseau’s feature debut Foot Soldiers,  producing alongside Andre’ Holland’s  Harper Road Films. Audrey is a member of the Television Academy, the Producers Guild of America and serves  on the board of New York Women In Film and Television.

Charline “Charlie” Tetiyevsky is a writer, producer, and artist living in Queens. They wrote and co-produced the family-friendly nature documentary short Birds? What Are They Good For?, which is now streaming on Flixwest and will be broadcast in Ireland and England in May 2023 through the Inheritance Ecological Festival and their partner Virgin Media. Charlie worked as a journalist in NYC, Los Angeles, and Sydney covering everything from breaking news and psychedelics to porn stars and Grammy-winning musicians. Their poetry collection Saturn Returns was published in March and they are writing a forthcoming novel. Charlie’s photographs have been published by National Geographic Kids, CBS News, the New York Daily News, Rutgers University, and others. They are also a longtime occasional actor, recently appearing in episodes of Succession, City on Fire, Gossip Girl, and other shows. Charlie’s one-hour supernatural horror television pilot Demon of Kings was selected as a quarter-finalist in the WeScreenplay TV Contest and ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship as well as a semi-finalist at the Big Apple Film Festival. Charlie graduated from Columbia University in 2012 and has worked for many local art organizations including the Whitney Museum and the New York Neo-Futurists.

Katie Chambers (Moderator) is a communications executive and event producer with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. She is currently the Senior Director of Community & Public Relations at New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT), where she manages both Communications and Membership and produces Special Events including the Muse Awards for Women of Vision & Achievement. She has received national recognition for her work at NYWIFT as one of Association Trends’ top “Young and Aspiring Executives” at their Salute to Excellence in Washington, DC, and was recognized by New York Society of Association Executives with their “Rising Star” award at the Synergy Awards. She was named Communications Chair of one of New Jersey’s leading volunteer organizations, the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs, in 2022. Katie was previously a talent agent at Abrams Artists Agency in New York City, representing young actors in theatre, film, and television, and has worked for leading entertainment companies including Buchwald, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Scott Rudin Productions. She has served on the Next Generation Committee of the NY Television Festival, produced a critically acclaimed play at the NY Fringe Festival, and her writing has appeared in Huff Post, Honeysuckle Magazine and several printed essay collections. Katie graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Drew University with a double major in English and Theatre Arts.