Join us for Week 3 of the NYWIFT Women Who Dared Documentary Series in partnership with International Documentary Association (IDA) and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
A six-week screening series of captivating documentaries by women filmmakers starting on Friday, October 23, 2020 and every Friday to follow.
Week 3: And She Could Be Next
In a polarized America, where the dual forces of white supremacy and patriarchy threaten to further erode our democracy, a game-changing transformation is happening at the grassroots. As demographics shift toward a non-white majority, elections will be decided by Americans inspired to vote for the first time. Many of these voters, who are often black, brown, immigrant or poor, are ignored by politicians and journalists alike. And She Could Be Next a two-part documentary series directed by Peabody Award-winner Grace Lee (American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs) and Iranian documentary filmmaker Marjan Safinia (Seeds), tells the story of a defiant movement of women of color who are transforming American politics from the ground up. The documentary series, filmed from 2018 through 2019, follows forward-thinking candidates and organizers across the country, asking whether democracy itself can be preserved —and made stronger— by those most marginalized. The series is centered on individuals at the heart of the movement behind the New American Majority.
About Episode 2:
“Episode Two: Claiming Power” takes us to the weeks leading up to election day and focuses on how organizers combat voter suppression in their own communities. At the heart of the episode is a growing multi-ethnic coalition in Georgia, a state with a rich history of civil rights organizing and poised to be a “majority minority” state as early as 2025. In addition to the New Georgia Project, groups like Mijente and Asians for Abrams put boots on the ground to address language barriers, poll purges and “exact match” laws that impact thousands of voters across the state. As results roll in, there is celebration for some and disappointment for others–but for these community organizers, the work does not stop when the polls close. Through it all, these women present a collective vision of political power that is rooted in care, dignity and joy, and remind us that there is an organizer in all of us.
Watch the film: starting Friday, November 6th throughout the weekend provided by PBS.
Then join us on Monday, November 9th at 4 PM EST for a conversation with Co-Directors Grace Lee, Marjan Safinia, and producer Jyoti Sarda.
Moderated by Anna Pasztor
Free to watch and attend. Register to receive links on Friday.
Panelists
Grace Lee’s most recent credits are as director/producer of POV’s first broadcast series And She Could Be Next as well as producer/director on the PBS series Asian Americans. She also directed and produced the Peabody Award-winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs about the legendary civil rights activist which The Hollywood Reporter called “an entertainingly revealing portrait of the power of a single individual to effect change.” The film won multiple festival audience awards and was broadcast on the PBS documentary series POV. Other directing credits include the Emmy-nominated Makers: Women in Politics for PBS; the interactive online documentary K-Town ‘92 about the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest, Off the Menu: Asian America; and the feature film Janeane from Des Moines, set during the 2012 presidential campaign, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Grace is a member of the Documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is co-founder of the Asian American Documentary Network.
Marjan Safinia is an Iranian documentary filmmaker whose films examine identity, community and social justice. Most recently, with Grace Lee, she produced and directed And She Could Be Next, a two-part documentary series about women of color transforming American politics, which debuted as POV’s first ever series in 2020. Until 2018, Marjan was the longest-serving President of the Board of the International Documentary Association (and the first woman of color to lead IDA since its founding in 1982.) She is a Board Member of Chicken & Egg Pictures and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Jyoti Sarda brings twenty years as a senior-level global marketing executive with major studios and blue-chip brands to the development of impact-creating, documentary and narrative content. She is Co-Executive Producer of Equal Means Equal, an award-winning documentary feature that is an unflinching examination of the discrimination against women built into the US legal system. Until recently, Jyoti was Vice President of Marketing at Paramount Home Media where she led all facets of global marketing operations for Paramount partner brands, while overseeing international acquisitions. Prior to Paramount, she worked at Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Jyoti serves on the boards of GlobalGirl Media, an organization that trains young women to become civically engaged through citizen journalism and LAANE, a leading LA-based social justice nonprofit. She is intently focused on improving the diversity of elected officials and the electorate.
Anna Pasztor (moderator) is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. She has been living in New York City since 2003, where she earned a certification of Laban Movement Analysis from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. In the last decade, her interest moved towards the visual arts, more specifically towards multimedia, video and film production and she created her boutique production company. Prisma Photo-Video-New Media, LLC. She was the recipient of grants, awards, and scholarships from the Puffin Foundation, Harvestworks, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Foundation of Arts, Outpost Artists’ Resources, Luso-American Foundation, Gulbenkian Foundation, Portuguese Cultural Ministry, Hungarian Ministry of Education, and Portuguese Cultural Institute among others. Her recent installations and videos were shown in several festivals and galleries in the US and in Europe.
Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for funding for the
NYWIFT Women Who Dared Documentary Series.
And She Could Be Next provided by
The NYWIFT Women Who Dared Documentary Series is presented in partnership with International Documentary Association (IDA) and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
A six-week screening series of captivating documentaries by women filmmakers starting on Friday, October 23, 2020 and every Friday to follow.
This screening series is part of NYWIFT’s Creative Workforce Summit scheduled October 20-23, 2020. This year’s theme celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote and recognize the contributions made by Women Documentary Makers that document creators of social, cultural and economic change in history.
Additional films to be announced soon.
A special thank you to our Summit supporters:
Join the conversation on social media:
#nywift | @nywift
NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
