Consulting Producer
"Detroit 48202" examines the rise, demise and contested resurgence of Detroit through the lens of mail carrier Wendell Watkins and the residents he has faithfully served for 30 years. The resilient Detroiters on Wendell’s route share stories of pushing against racial segregation in housing, challenging industrial and political disinvestment and living on reduced pensions as a result of Detroit’s bankruptcy. They also share stories of hope and propose creative ways to re-imagine an inclusive, equitable and productive city. Foregrounding the voices of African-American working class Detroiters, it offers a nuanced and complex understanding of a city at the crossroads.
Cinematography
"Detroit 48202" examines the rise, demise and contested resurgence of Detroit through the lens of mail carrier Wendell Watkins and the residents he has faithfully served for 30 years. The resilient Detroiters on Wendell’s route share stories of pushing against racial segregation in housing, challenging industrial and political disinvestment and living on reduced pensions as a result of Detroit’s bankruptcy. They also share stories of hope and propose creative ways to re-imagine an inclusive, equitable and productive city. Foregrounding the voices of African-American working class Detroiters, it offers a nuanced and complex understanding of a city at the crossroads.
Additional Camera
Director Kelly Anderson's personal journey as a Brooklyn 'gentrifier' to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class. The film reframes the gentrification debate to expose the corporate actors and government policies driving displacement and neighborhood change.
Director
As civil rights for LGBT and other minority groups are won violent backlashes have been known to increase. Today LGBT people are far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crimes. PUZZLES tells the story of a hate crime in a gay bar called Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, MA when a teenager entered and brutally attacked its patrons. As a result two different worlds collide, a homophobic hate crime offender and his victims. Puzzles explores the correlation between American economic desperation and homophobia, intolerance, and, ultimately, violence.
Director
Anthony Baez died during a football game when an officer put him in an illegal chokehold. Amadou Diallo was unarmed when he was shot at 41 times by police in his doorway. Gary (Gidone) Busch was pepper-sprayed and shot to death while holding a small hammer, though witnesses said he posed no threat. Their stories are tragic and the courage shown by the mothers heroic. As one witness says, "As long a there's a mother, we'll continue to fight."
Director
When Emily (the daughter of Holocaust concentration camp survivors) meets Gitta (a German-raised woman who considers herself removed from the events of the Holocaust), their burgeoning passion for one another is threatened by their markedly different relationships to history and memory. Negotiating, coping with, and transcending the past are the hallmarks of this compelling drama.
Director
In 1992 Cheryl Summerville, a cook at a Cracker Barrel restaurant outside Atlanta, received a termination paper stating that she was fired for "failing to demonstrate normal heterosexual values." She was shocked to discover that in more than 40 American states it was legal to fire workers simply because of their sexual orientation. OUT AT WORK chronicles the stories of a cook, an auto worker and a librarian as they seek workplace safety, job security and benefits for gay and lesbian workers.
Camera Operator
A documentary film examining the treatment of lesbians and gay men during the early years of the Cuban Revolution and perspectives of current residents of Cuba on questions of political ideology and sexual identity
Director
Features Jennifer Miller, juggler and director of Circus Amok. Miller speaks of her life and struggle as a lesbian woman who happens to have a moustache and beard. Includes scenes of circus performances, a gay rights parade, Miller interacting with friends, family, and strangers.
Director
In the late 1980s, Shelterforce produced a series of films around housing justice and tenants’ rights. One of the movies in that series was "Techos y Derechos" (“Roofs and Rights”), a Spanish-language film on tenant organizing and tenants’ rights, featuring the stories and experiences and victories of tenants in Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey. Produced in partnership with La Casa De Don Pedro and Newark Media Works and directed and filmed by Tami Gold, the short documentary was aired on Spanish-language TV stations to encourage tenants to understand and stick up for their rights. Despite the film being over 30 years old, the problems—and the solutions—featured in it will be quite familiar to anyone who works in tenant organizing.