Episoder
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US Air Force JAG Attorney Yvonne Bradley volunteered to defend a man named Binyam Mohamed who was facing a death penalty case at Guantanamo Bay in 2005. Believing the detainees at Guantanamo were ‘the worst of the worst’ in the war on terror, Yvonne’s world was turned upside down as she arrived in Cuba and began to untangle an unimaginable case. Spending the next 4 years battling to uncover the truth, Yvonne’s is a captivating story of taking responsibility in the face of corruption at the highest levels of power, and the dangers of choosing to stand up for what you believe in. What’s the difference between a terrorist sympathizer and a hero? Would you risk it all to do the right thing? WE ARE NOT GHOULS is a feature-length documentary which premiered at the SXSW 2022 Film Festival and won the SXSW Audience Award for the Documentary Spotlight section.
In this episode, Dawn talks with filmmaker Chris Thompson and the subject of the film, Yvonne Bradley. They talked about Chris's personal experience with a friend from college and how that inspired him to make the film, what it was like for Yvonne to stand up for what was right while it was not in her best interest to do so, and the commitment to the bigger picture that they each made during the making of this film and to the trial.
WE ARE NOT GHOULS was acquired for distribution by Gravitas Ventures for commercial release on February 28, 2023.
Follow the film:
Website: https://www.wearenotghouls.com/
Instagram @goodcreditproductions
Watch the film on iTunes, Amazon Prime, Vudo, YouTube, Cable on Demand, and more! https://www.wearenotghouls.com/ for direct links and more info.
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“Home is the center of everything. It is the issue where everyone can come to the table.” - Sara Terry
In this episode we explore the compass that developers, bankers and real estate executives use when making decisions on land use and rights when it comes to others' housing security. Mobile home parks are the lowest rung on the pole of the American Dream, but for many that's all that is feasible. But now that many mobile home parks' land is getting sold to large development companies, that dream is quickly falling apart and there's no way for those mobile home owners to stop it. How can one choose personal wealth and greed while actively destroying others' lives? Dawn and Sara discuss this in addition to comparing photojournalism to documentary filmmaking, and recounting the progress of Sara's career spanning the last several decades.
A DECENT HOME is a feature length documentary film by Sara Terry that addresses urgent issues of class and economic inequity through the lives of mobile home park residents who can’t afford housing anywhere else. The film asks, Who are we becoming as Americans? — as private equity firms and wealthy investors buy up parks, making sky-high returns on their investments while squeezing every last penny out of the mobile home owners who lack rights and protections under local and state laws, and must pay rent for the land they live on.
Follow the film:
Website: https://www.adecenthomefilm.com
Instagram @adecenthomefilm
Facebook @adecenthomefilm
The film premieres on PBS’s America Reframed on World Channel on March 16th. For more info go to: https://worldchannel.org/episode/america-reframed-a-decent-home/
Watch the trailer
Sara Terry’s Nonprofit:
Website: theaftermathproject.org
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A visually stunning narrative documentary, NAKED GARDENS immerses audiences in the complex, unseen world of a family nudist resort in the Florida Everglades. Filmed over one season at this lush tropical campsite, the film follows the stories of individuals drawn to an unusual community, which promises both non-conformist values and, more importantly for some, a cheap place to live. As aging owner Morley and his residents prepare for the largest gathering of nudists in the US, the Mid-Winter Naturist Festival, they are faced with challenges both as a community and as individuals.
Filmmakers Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan (Pahokee) are known for their verité stories that reimagine ways of seeing America, and its people. Embedding themselves within communities typically outside of the media eye, they capture the relational foundations upon which individual lives are built, alongside the historical and economic currents that shape the most intimate aspects of American existence. In NAKED GARDENS, the filmmaking duo creates a portrait of the rebellious retirees, LGBTQ loners, exiles from conservative America and families with young children, all of whom have decided to make this nudist resort their home.
In this episode Dawn talks with Ivete and Patrick about the underground filmmaking scene, American vs European film festivals, opening themselves up in new and vulnerable ways, and the importance of support systems on set for the filmmaking teams and protagonists.
Follow the film:
Website
Instagram @ivetepatrick
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Wildcat follows the emotional and inspiring story of a young veteran on his journey into the Amazon. Once there, he meets a young woman running a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and his life finds new meaning as he is entrusted with the life of an orphaned baby ocelot. What was meant to be an attempt to escape from life, turns out to be an unexpected journey of love, discovery, and healing.
In this episode, Dawn talks with co-Directors Melissa Lesh and Trevor Beck Frost about making a conservation-focused film that has other touch-points for audiences through sharing a veteran's story, childhood trauma and mental health struggles. They also discuss the logistics of making a film in the Amazon, like bathing in a stream with a bucket, and the emotional toll documentary filmmaking can take on its makers.
Follow the film:
Website
Instagram @wildcatdocfilm
Watch the film:
Watch the trailer
In US Theatres December 21st
In UK Theatres December 23rd
Watch on Amazon Prime starting December 30th
Support the conservation program in the film:
Website
Instagram @hojanueva
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RANGER is a story about rite of passage. Set within Kenya’s Maasai homeland, an intimate and contemporary story of self-discovery unfolds, as 12 women become East Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit. Upending the male-dominated, reliance upon military-style training to make a wildlife ranger, Virginia, Liz, Momina and Damaris instead undergo a year-long program of deep trauma-release and healing, triggering profound transformation within themselves and sending shockwaves through their communities. The film screened at the Mountainfilm Fest 2022 in Telluride, CO.
In this episode, Dawn and Austin talk about the importance of being present, his wife's midwifery work complimenting his making of this film, and the ethics of intervention when you're a documentarian.
Follow the film:
Website
Instagram @rangerfilm
Watch the film:
Human Rights x Arts Presents Ranger Dec 7, 2022 ONLINE
Frozen River Film Festival Feb 5-12, 2023
Victoria Film Festival in British Columbia Feb. 3-12, 2023
Support the conservation program in the film:
Website
Instagram @zeitzfoundation
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Emelie Mahdavian's sweeping documentary BITTERBRUSH follows Hollyn Patterson and Colie Moline, range riders who are spending their last summer herding cattle in remote Idaho. Totally off the grid with only their dogs as companions, Hollyn and Colie brave inclement weather and perilous work conditions while pondering their futures. A portrait of friendship, life transitions, and the work of two skilled young women in the isolated and beautiful landscape of the American West, BITTERBRUSH is an intimate portrayal of a way of life rarely seen on film.
On this episode, Dawn and Emelie talk about being a woman in a male-dominated profession, shooting a film in remote locations, and balancing filmmaking and motherhood. This film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, and is now available to stream on Hulu.
Follow the film:
Now streaming on Hulu
Website
Watch the trailer
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At the heart of THE HOLLY is Terrance Roberts, an ex-member of the Bloods, who had since raised funds to open a youth center in his neighborhood, The Holly. Gang-member-turned-activist Terrance ends up shooting a man at a community event he organized focusing on non-violence. What unfolds is not black and white. The film reveals multi-level corruption in Denver's government, police force, and local media to weave narratives about gang violence in the city. THE HOLLY is the directorial debut from journalist and writer Julian Rubinstein. The film is based on his book, The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood, which was a NYTime's Book Review Editors' Choice.
In this episode, Dawn sits down with both journalist Julian Rubinstein and the film's protagonist, Terrance Roberts, to have an open conversation about what it means to participate in a documentary that is so revealing and intertwined with powerful and dangerous people, the role toxic masculinity plays in gang culture, and what we can all do to help better communities like The Holly. The conversation around who is ethically allowed to tell stories about various communities has come up in several episode of this podcast, and continues in this episode.
The film premiered at Mountainfilm Fest where it won the Audience Choice award
TW: Discussion around gun violence.
Follow the film:
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
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When a young woman turns to the camera for refuge, she ends up with a firsthand account of what will become the deadliest man-made epidemic in United States history. Filmed over thirty years, ANONYMOUS SISTER is director, Jamie Boyle's chronicle of her family's fall into opioid addiction, providing a poignant and timely study of what it means to experience life in all its beauty and pain.
On this episode Dawn and Jamie talk about the balance of healing and pain that comes from making a film so personal, self care in filmmaking, the value of storytelling in this epidemic, and how it can be taken a step further with post-screening Narcan trainings.
Follow the film:
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Follow MKE Overdose Prevention:
Instagram
Facebook
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After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies, and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen, his sister, and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, NORTH BY CURRENT is a visual rumination on the understated relationships between mothers and children, truths and myths, losses and gains.
In this episode Madsen and Dawn discuss how trust was built in his family in making this film, the link (or lack thereof) between gender transition and death, and how you cope when having to discuss and relive traumatic events many times over.
TW: Death, substance abuse
Follow the film:
Website: http://www.northbycurrent.com/
Instagram: @angelomadsen
Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/north-by-current
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SPIRIT OF THE PEAKS is a film about the struggle for balance between two worlds. For Hunkpapa Lakota skier Connor Ryan, skiing in Ute Territory has always raised questions about being in reciprocity with the land and its people. As a skier who connects with the land through sport, he empathizes with the injustices that have displaced the Utes and ongoing colonization, erasure and extraction impacting the Ute people. This story connects conflicted pasts to an awakening in cultural awareness that can create an equitable future for Indigenous people and skiers.
I am putting out this episode as a direct response to Utah's annual July 24th holiday Pioneer Day. Pioneer Day celebrates the arrival of Brigham Young and the white Mormon settlers to the lands of the Diné, Hopi, Goshute, Paiute, Pueblo, Shoshone, Timpanogos and Ute people. Living in this state, it is uncomfortable to have folks around me celebrating the arrival of colonizers who brought mass eradication, forced assimilation, boarding schools, and generations of trauma to the Indigenous people who were already living here.
Please take a listen to this episode to hear more about how we can develop a reciprocal relationship with the land, what reclamation to Native culture can feel like, and who are other inspiring Indigenous activists and artists out there right now.
Follow the film:
Watch the film for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSwmJMH04Ww&t=1s
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredstoke/ + https://www.instagram.com/nativesoutdoors/
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Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region's natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.
Follow the film:
Watch the film in theatres: https://kinomarquee.com/film/venue/62685abbfbed6a000159fa76?utm_source=neptunefrost
Watch the film at home: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B3S7JQ1W/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dedzafilms/ + https://www.instagram.com/dreamstatesmeta/ + https://www.instagram.com/p/CfxmEXGosh4/
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MAXIMA follows Peruvian indigenous farmer Máxima Acuña in her fight to protect her land as she stands up to the largest gold producer in the world: US-based Newmont Mining Corporation.
Throughout Máxima’s fight for justice, the film provides an illustrative case study in the tactics used by transnational corporations to commit human rights violations and environmental crimes, the role played by non-profits and The World Bank, and, ultimately, the resilience of one woman who refuses to back down. Dawn and filmmaker Claudia Sparrow talk about the challenges Claudia had to navigate in making a film in a remote area of the Andes Mountains, the difference each of us can make in fighting for what we believe in, and how Máxima has inspired and forever changed Claudia's outlook on life.
Follow the film:
Instagram: @standwithmaxima
Facebook: @standwithmaxima
Website: https://www.standwithmaxima.com/
Watch now on Appletv, Tubi or Google Play.
Stand with Maxima:
Sign the petition
Donate on Gofundme
Support Taleen Kali:
Taleen Kali is the artist behind our podcast song Lost & Bound, and she is fundraising on Kickstarter to create her new album independently!
Support her Kickstarter
Listen to Taleen Kali on Spotify
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GIRL PICTURE is a coming-of-age film from Finland that focuses on three young women over the course of three weekends. The girls are questioning their sexuality, and for one girl her lack of sexuality, navigating their relationships with their parents and each other, and reconciling with the idea that their childhood dreams may not be the direction they still want to go in.
Dawn and Alli talk about the stylistic choices made for the film, how you can storyboard and plan so much but unexpected moments still happen that can make the film feel more real, and the importance of complex female characters on screen. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it went on to win the Audience Award for the World Cinema Dramatic category.
Follow the film:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/citizenjaneproductions/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citizenjaneproductions/
Website: https://citizenjaneproductions.fi/
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A coming-of-golden-age film about Florida's most dedicated dance team for women over 60 - The Calendar Girls. A film that is shaking up the outdated image of "the little old lady", and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can.
Dawn talks with documentary filmmaking couple Love Martinsen and Maria Loohufvud about how they were drawn to this dance group and built relationships with them, how The Calendar Girls inspired them in their own lives, and what lessons we can all take away from these women. The film just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and will go on to have a theatrical distribution later this Spring.
Follow the film:
Instagram: @calendargirlsfilm
Website: https://calendargirlsfilm.com/
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Rita Baghdadi's documentary SIRENS premiered today, on her birthday, at the Sundance Film Festival! What a way to celebrate a birthday! The film follows the Middle East's first all-female metal band in Beirut as they wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars. In this episode we talk about the value of multi-faceted female representation on screen, intergenerational trauma associated with political and familial histories, and some of the more tender moments that are captured between these badass rock stars.
Follow the film:
Instagram: @sirensdocumentary
Facebook: @sirensdocumentary
Twitter: @sirensdoc
Website: https://www.sirensdocumentary.com/
Watch the film at Sundance
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An intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma, JACINTA follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime. Now streaming on Hulu.
Follow the film:
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbcehOCClU
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacintafilm/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacintafilm/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacintafilm
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On this episode Dawn sits down with Colombian-American filmmaker Emily Cohen Ibañez for her documentary FRUITS OF LABOR. They discuss trickle down issues from systemic racism and immigration policies, children of immigrants having to step up to help support their families, food insecurity, and finding peace in connecting to our food and land.
A Mexican-American teenager dreams of graduating high school, when increased ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her to become the breadwinner for her family. She works long days in the strawberry fields and the night shift at a food processing factory. Set in an agricultural town on the central coast of California, FRUITS OF LABOR is a coming of age story about an American teenager traversing the seen and unseen forces that keep her family trapped in poverty. A lyrical meditation on adolescence, nature and ancestral forces, the film asks, what does it mean to come into one’s power as a working young woman of color in the wealthiest nation in the world?
The film is now available on PBS's POV series.
Follow the film:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fruitsoflaborfilm/
Website: https://www.fruitsoflaborfilm.com/
Watch the film: https://www.pbs.org/pov/watch/fruitsoflabor/
Support the garden: https://canunite.org/our-work/projects-2/growing-justice/
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On this episode Dawn talks with documentary filmmaker Brooke Swaney for her newest film DAUGHTER OF A LOST BIRD. The film follows adoptee Kendra as she discovers her Native culture that she didn't grow up with, is welcomed in, meets her birth mother and other blood relatives, and learns more about how her story fits in with the bigger picture of ICWA, boarding schools and assimilation practices forced upon Indigenous people. Dawn and Brooke talk about making a film from an emotional place of empathy, share stories of their own Native backgrounds, and discuss the importance of representation in media.
Follow the film:
https://www.facebook.com/daughterofalostbird
https://www.instagram.com/daughterofalostbirddoc/
https://www.daughterofalostbird.com/
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On this episode Dawn chats with Director Adam Nawrot and Producer Sonia Szczesna for their debut feature doc GODSPEED, LOS POLACOS! They talk about their sense of adventure that matches the subjects of their film, some behind the scenes stories, and their Polish roots.
The film tells the story of five kayakers on the edge of adulthood who skillfully pull the strings of the Soviet system, and find themselves on a kayaking expedition in the Americas with a six-wheeled military truck, homemade equipment, and little to no whitewater skills. The story follows their epic two-year journey that culminates in the record-breaking first descent of the world’s deepest canyon, and finds the kayakers in Soviet cross-hairs after they leverage their newfound fame to fight for democracy in the Eastern Bloc.
Follow the film:
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/461667982
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/godspeedlospolacos/
Website: https://sourlandstudios.com/
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On this episode, Dawn has a powerful conversation with filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein and film protagonist Claude Motely about gun violence in their home city of Milwaukee, trauma and its ripple effects, healing, the justice system, and the importance of community, friendship and family.
Claude Motley thought he’d beaten the odds: a business owner who moved his family from the violence of Milwaukee to the suburbs of Charlotte. Yet there he is on a trip home for a high school reunion: black male victim, 43, shot in the face during a carjacking. Two nights later, Claude’s assailant tries to rob nurse Victoria Davison, but she has a gun and shoots him during the struggle. A rush of guilt overcomes her as she overhears the paramedics – the boy she shot, Nathan King, is only 15 years old.
Follow the film:
Website: https://www.371productions.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/371productions/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/371Productions
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