Film & Impact

Toni Kamau is the youngest female African documentary producer to be invited as a member of the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences - Documentary Branch, class of 2020.

As a creative producer, director and founder of "We are not the machine", a Kenyan based production company, she tells stories of outsiders, rebels and change makers. Her past credits include half hour documentaries for Al Jazeera, MTV Europe and BBC Africa.

The Sundance special jury prize winner Softie, produced by Toni and directed/produced by Sam Soko, premiered at Sundance in 2020 in the World Cinema Documentary Feature Competition. I am Samuel, a feature directed by 2019 Rory Peck winner Pete Murimi recently had its world premiere at the 2020 edition of Hot Docs. Toni was also a producer for a Kenyan episode on Earn A Living, an interactive documentary.

In today’s episode we talk about the challenges of producing impact film in East Africa, pushing against boundaries to get stories told and the process of becoming a member of the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences - Documentary Branch class of 2020.

See Toni’s work:

Website: https://www.wearenotthemachine.com/

Connect with Toni:

• Instagram @tonisnap
• Facebook @toni.kamau
• Twitter @Toni_Producer

In this episode, Zephrine meets with Grenadian-American filmmaker and entrepreneur Meschida Philip to talk about about Scars of our Mothers’ Dreams, her touching short film that tells the stories of now-grown children “left behind” by migrating mothers, accepting her calling and the birth of the 1261 Film Festival in Grenada.

Meschida Philip is a Grenadian-American filmmaker and entrepreneur. She founded Mprojekts Creative Productions to tell stories that inspire, preserve legacies while encouraging diversity and equality on set and on-screen. In 2018, Meschida founded the 12ºN 61ºW Film Festival (1261 Film Festival) in Grenada.

Her work focuses on social impact issues, documenting unique experiences to Grenada and, by extension, the Caribbean region, and communities throughout the global Diaspora.

Directing/Producing/Writing Credits include Scars of our Mother's Dreams; and Searching for Crystal; Miles, directed by Cyrille Njikeng, written by Meschida Philip and Za Keeyah Abdul Salam.

Currently In Development: Canary documentary, and Blue Light District feature film.

She received her MFA Master of Arts degree in film from the City University of New York, concentrating on Documentary Filmmaking.

In today’s episode, we talk about Scars of our Mothers’ Dreams, her touching short film that tells the stories of now-grown children “left behind” by migrating mothers, accepting her calling and the birth of the 1261 Film Festival in Grenada.

See Meschida’s work:

Website: https://meschidaphilip.com/

Connect with Meschida:

• Instagram @meschidaphilip
• Facebook @Meschida Philip

In this episode, Zephrine sits with Jasmin Mara López to talk about Silent Beauty, her poetically beautiful autobiographical exploration of her family's history with child sexual abuse and a culture of silence. In today’s episode we talk about revisiting the past through archives, telling an intimate story and finding strength in isolation.

Jasmin Mara López is an award-winning journalist, radio producer, youth media educator and filmmaker that works in the U.S. and Mexico. Born in Los Angeles with familial roots in México, her childhood was impacted by issues experienced on both sides of the U.S.- México border. This instilled in her a strong passion for immigrant rights, youth empowerment, and social change.

In 2007, Jasmin founded Project Luz, an organization that empowers youth to share stories within their communities utilizing audio and photojournalism techniques. The following year, she moved to México where she collaborated with journalists and researched for published documentary projects, including coverage of communities affected by the H1N1 influenza and the disappearance of the Colorado River. Her collaborative audio work surrounding the Colorado River was shared at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, LookBetween Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville and Exposure Gallery in San Francisco.

Jasmin returned to Los Angeles in 2011 to lead a reporting project that introduced adverse health effects caused by air pollution weighing heavily on the historic and predominantly Latino community of Boyle Heights. In that time, she founded Listen Up, Los Angeles – a growing community of over 600 audio producers in the Los Angeles area. Her audio work on noise pollution in Boyle Heights was featured in the first Listen Up, Los Angeles group show in 2012. Before leaving Los Angeles, she worked for USC Annenberg’s Civic Engagement and Journalism Initiative and coordinated a program that trains young adults in journalistic ethics and practice, multimedia storytelling skills, and how their local government works so that they could report on their community while addressing issues they have experienced as immigrant youth.

Jasmin’s clients and collaborations have included Audible, Al Jazeera, Brandon Thibodeaux Photography, Brian L. Frank Photography, HealthyCal.org, Hechinger Report, El Tecolote Newspaper, Folger Shakespeare Library, Immigrant Defense Project/Indefensible Podcast, KALW, KCRW’s Sonic Trace, KPCC, KPFA/Cronicas de la Raza, KQED’s The California Report, KUSP, Marketplace, Lantigua Williams Co., Monocle Radio, Newsdesk.org, New Village Charter School, North Carolina Public Radio, NPR, NPR’s Latino USA, Scalawag Magazine, Southern Poverty Law Center, The Times-Picayune, Voice of Witness, WWNO, and Zackary Canepari Photography.

Jasmin was selected to participate in the 2018 UnionDocs Documentary Lab, 2017 New Orleans Film Society Emerging Voices Mentorship, 2017 Third Coast Radio Residency at Ragdale, 2015 American Society of News Editors’ Minority Leadership Institute, 2012 Association of Independents in Radio New Voices Scholarship, and the 2012 Society of Environmental Journalists “Translating Science/Telling Stories” Fellowship. Jasmin was awarded the 2015 Society of Professional Journalists’ Excellence in Journalism Award for her documentary Deadly Divide: Migrant Death on the Border, and the 2014 Pacific Media Workers Guild Freelance Student Journalism Award for her feature on an undocumented student and activist in Boyle Heights.

Jasmin is working on her first film, Silent Beauty, about her family’s history with child sexual abuse and their culture of silence. Jasmin disclosed abuse she endured as a child in 2014.

See Jasmin’s work:

Website: https://jasminlopez.wordpress.com/

Connect with Jasmin:

• Instagram @jasminmara
• Twitter @jasminmara
• Facebook @jasminmara

In this episode of Film & Impact, Zephrine meets up with Michèle Stephenson, a badass filmmaker, artist and author who pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling deeply personal stories in a variety of media that resonate beyond the margins.

In today’s episode, we talk about making American Promise, her 13-year, Emmy-nominated documentary, the ethical challenges of telling a documentary story, the key role of advocates when approaching gatekeepers for funding, and looking at the intersections between art and politics.

Co-founder of the Rada Film Group, Michèle’s work has appeared on a variety of broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime and MTV. Her most recent film, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary and Best News Coverage of a Contemporary Issue. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festivals’ Main Slate Program. Stephenson was recently awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her current work, Hispaniola, is supported by the likes of the National Film Board of Canada, the MacArthur Foundation, Telefilm Canada, the Ford Foundation and the Sundance Documentary Fund.

Michèle Stephenson is one of the founders of and has co-produced several short documentaries in The Conversation, a series of Op Ed documentaries for the New York Times, including An Education in Equality, A Conversation With White People on Race, and A Conversation with Black Women on Race.

Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, a Revere Award Nomination from the American Publishers Association, and she is a fellow of Skoll Storytellers of Change. Promises Kept, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.

See Michèle’s work:

Website: http://radastudio.org/projects/

Connect with Michèle:

• Instagram @michele_0608
• Twitter @michele0608
• Facebook @Michèle Stephenson

For the very first time on Film & Impact Zephrine has the pleasure of speaking with not one, but two filmmakers! She sits down with Kira Dane and Katelyn Rebelo, the makers of the award-winning film Mizuko to talk about co-directing their first film, using experimentation to bring stories to life and using animation in documentary to tell a very personal story. They share what it was like to get their first grant, being “scrappy filmmakers”, receiving recognition for their work for the first time, and having a surreal experience with the “voice of the NYC metro”!

Kira Dane is a half-Japanese filmmaker from New York, currently based in Nara, Japan. Having been shaped and informed by two extremely different cultures, she is most comfortable in gray areas. And as an artist, she's most interested in telling stories that dig for nuance in overlooked places. With a background in illustration, she often utilizes animation and experimental form in her work. Kira is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Film & TV. In 2019 she was named a fellow of the Sundance Ignite Program, and she is an active member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. Most recently, Kira co-directed the short animated documentary “Mizuko", supported by Tribeca Institute’s If/Then Short Documentary Program. The film received Special Jury Awards at SXSW and IDFA, and was selected to screen at AFI DOCS, Atlanta Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest, and others.

Katelyn Rebelo is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her work sits at the intersection of documentary & experimental film, often exploring stories that reimagine concepts of femininity, politics, and personal freedom. She is currently the Spring 2020 Womxn Filmmaker Fellow at Jacob Burns Film Center, and holds a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a major in Film & Television and minor in Social & Cultural Analysis. Most recently she co-directed, animated, and shot "Mizuko" supported by Tribeca Film Institute's If/Then Short Documentary Program & the Sundance Ignite Program. The film received special jury awards at IDFA and SXSW, and has been selected for AFI DOCS, Atlanta Film Festival, and Palm Springs Shortfest.

See Kira’s work:

Website: https://www.kiradane.com/

Connect with Kira:

• Instagram @kira.dane

See Katelyn’s work:

Website: http://katelynrebelo.com/

Connect with Katelyn:

• Instagram @rebeloke
• Facebook @katelyn.rebelo

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Today I welcome Carver Bacchus, a fellow Caribbean filmmaker and festival organizer to Film & Impact! Carver has over fifteen years’ experience in the areas of Communication and Film Production. He has worked as a communications consultant since 2008 and has directed and produced documentaries, animations and corporate videos for a wide range of clients including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme, The German Embassy (Port of Spain), The University of the West Indies and the Institute of Marine Affairs (Trinidad and Tobago).

Carver is the Founder and Managing Director of Sustain T&T, a not-for-profit focussed on environmental and economic sustainability education. He is also the Founder and Festival Director of Green Screen the Environmental Film Festival, the only environmental and sustainability themed film festival in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Carver served on the Board of Directors of the Asa Wright Nature Centre (Trinidad) from 2012 to 2015.

He is also a member of the NextGen Board, constituted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Trinidad and Tobago office in 2018. A first of its kind for the IADB, this group of cross-sectoral change-makers was assembled to take action on the sustainable development agenda in Trinidad and Tobago. NextGen focuses on creating solutions through partnerships to address some of the most pressing challenges T&T faces - Crime, Transportation, Mental Health and Environmental concerns.

Carver holds a BSc in Communications and other specialist training including a Diploma in Motion Picture Directing and a Certificate in Integrated Marketing Communication for Behavioral Impact in Health and Social Development (COMBI).

In today’s episode, we talk about creating and running a successful film festival in Trinidad, changing mindsets and shifting towards a future of sustainability in the Caribbean, “doing more” and bringing more of “us” to the big screen.

Visit the Green Screen Film Festival:

Website: https://www.greenscreenfest.com/

Connect with Carver:

• Instagram @carver.bacchus

Watch this episode here: https://bit.ly/2yy0lp7

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www.filmandimpact.com

Adriana is a Mexican-Brazilian filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her work focuses on non-fiction cinema, experimental and hybrid narratives, addressing themes like immigration, colonization, LGBTQ+ rights, latino communities and faith.

She recently moved from São Paulo, Brazil, where she was part of the film collective “Cinefusão'' and where she started her own production company "en caliente films”, in 2014. She produced the narrative feature films Young and Miserable and a film of cinema directed by Thiago B. Mendonça. She directed Ferroada (Bite), a short film about the Brazilian marginal writer/undertaker named Tico. In 2018 she co-directed along with Thiago Zanato La Flaca (The Bony Lady), a short film about a Mexican transgender woman and leader of the Santa Muerte cult in Queens, NY. The film was highly acclaimed and entered over 100 film festivals around the world. Among them: 43th Frameline, 37th Outfest, 21th Guanajuato International Film Festival, 35th Kasseler Dokfest, 40th Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine-latinoamericano de la Habana, 25th Encounters Film Festival, 28th Message to man.

Also in 2018, she directed with Bruno Mello Castanho the feature documentary Madrigal For a Living Poet in Brazil. She also directs with Fernanda Pessoa the short film Same/Different/Both/Neither, a video correspondence between the filmmakers living in Los Angeles (USA) and São Paulo (Brazil), aiming for a premiere in 2021.

She is currently producing the feature documentary Esu and the Universe, a co-production between Brazil and Nigeria, and continues her research on a documentary about Mexican traditions related to death.

In today’s episode, we talk about her short film La Flaca, telling stories about under-represented groups, challenging norms in documentary cinema, and using limitations creatively.

See Adriana’s work:

Website: https://chicabarbosa.com/adriana

Connect with Adriana:

• Instagram @chica_barbosa

Watch this episode here: https://bit.ly/2yy0lp7

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www.filmandimpact.com

Sam Soko is a director and producer based in Nairobi Kenya. His work on sociopolitical projects in music and film has allowed him to connect and work with artists around the world. He is co-founder of LBx Africa, a Kenyan production company that produced the 2018 Academy Award–nominated short fiction film Watu Wote.

The film Softie is his first feature documentary project and focuses on activism in Kenya. Working on this film strengthened his belief to continue to expose elements of humanity through narratives that dare to defy the status quo and indeed ourselves.

Softie made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2020 where it won the Special Jury Award for editing. It was the Opening night film at Hot Docs and took Best documentary at the Durban International Film Festival in September 2020.

In today’s episode we talk about the unexpected journey of making his award-winning documentary Softie, dealing with film censorship in a politically tense climate, the renaissance of documentary in East Africa, and how collaborations enrichen the experience of making a film and telling a story.

See Soko’s work:

https://www.lbxafrica.com/

https://www.softiethefilm.com/

Connect with Soko:

• Instagram @soko_sam
• Facebook @Soko Sam

Watch the episode here: http://bit.ly/sunyoutube

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Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz is an award-winning, Iranian-American documentary filmmaker and educator with interests in diasporic identity, feminism, co-creative practices, and the interchange of form and content in documentary engagements. Her work aims to articulate documentary complicity in oppressive regimes while optimizing documentary power to undermine those regimes.

Aggie's first film, Inheritance (2012, 27 min), a poetic autobiography on the relationship between political and personal revolts, earned the Loni Ding Award for Social Issue Documentary at CAAMFest 2013 and the Best Short Film award at the 2015 Indie Grits Film Festival. In 2013, Bazaz was one of seven Iranian filmmakers invited by the Iran Heritage Foundation to write and direct one segment of a multi-vocal documentary about the first-ever U.S. tour of the Cylinder of Cyrus the Great.

Her most recent film, “How to Tell a True Immigrant Story” (2019, 13min) was the first-ever VR film to be programmed in the Pardi di Domani shorts competition at the Locarno International Film Festival. Aggie has been artist-in-residence at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Skidmore Storytellers Institute, and Interlochen Center for the Arts, and in 2016 was named a BAVC National Mediamaker Fellow. She earned a University Fellowship to pursue her M.F.A. in film and media arts from Temple University and holds a master’s degree in multicultural literature and women’s studies from the University of Georgia, where she served as a researcher for the Emmy Award-winning digital humanities project, the Civil Rights Digital Library. Aggie currently serves as Assistant Professor of filmmaking at Georgia State University and continues work on a long-term project embedded within a community of migratory families who live and work in California's Central Valley, as well as a multimedia project about family homes built around the world through remittances, Mi Casa My Home.

In today’s episode, we talk about art and activism, documentary as a way of processing and theorising our realities, how documentary and the way we tell stories can maintain power dynamics and How to Tell a True Immigrant Story, which is also the title of her last short film.

See Aggie’s work:

Website: https://aggiebazaz.com/

Connect with Aggie:

• Instagram @agg_star
• Facebook @Aggie Ebrahimi

Watch it the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxHPzAzN0Ak&t=7s

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Monica Wise Robles (Director/Producer/DP) is a Colombian-American documentary filmmaker and video journalist based in Mexico City. Her work focuses on intimate stories of resistance across borders to highlight feminist, LGBTQ, migrant, and indigenous narratives. Monica’s work can be seen in the Guardian, the Intercept, the Atlantic, Washington Post, AJ+, PBS and the BBC, among other outlets. Her first short documentary Lupita premiered online with the Ambulante festival in Mexico, and internationally in the Sheffield Doc/Fest 2020 programme. It will soon launch online on the Guardian Documentaries online channel. Monica worked on Pamela Yates’ 500 Years, a feature documentary chronicling indigenous resistance in Guatemala which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Monica was also a producer and cinematographer on The New Deciders, a 2016 PBS election special with journalist Maria Hinojosa. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she has also produced work from Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador. For the past two years, she has been directing Niñas, another documentary exposing state human rights abuses in Guatemala through the eyes of female survivors seeking justice. Monica is an International Women’s Media Foundation Adelante fellow, a Ford Foundation and Sundance Institute grantee, a UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program Associate, and was selected for Take The Lead’s 2018 #50WomenCan program for women working to change the gender gap in the media industry. She is a member of the Brown Girls Doc Mafia and the Video Consortium México. Monica also runs a virtual coffee session for filmmakers wanting to get into video journalism in the region or just looking for tips.

Today we’re talking about getting work distributed in prominent channels, the importance of building networks and navigating the intersection of journalism and filmmaking.

See Monica’s work:

Website: http://monicawiserobles.com/

Connect with Monica:

Instagram @monicawiserobles

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCctioeuk_CmuiPC25RkB76g?

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