After an inspiring meeting following the results of the election, we felt it important to keep energy and momentum up around motivating filmmakers, and artists to organize, share resources, and keep the dialogue going about how to respond in our current political moment.

In the past couple of weeks there has not been much comfort from the incoming transitional news. Taking this into account we feel it is more important than ever to build on our list of COLLECTED IDEAS at the first NEXT STEPS NOW and advance forward. We have boiled the list down to a few overarching categories that we will cover at our follow up session along with a team of filmmakers, activists, and local organizations to parse each of these topics: BUBBLE BURSTING, PROTEST & MAKE VISIBLE, CHANGING PERSPECTIVES, SHARE & SUPPORT. Discussion will be moderated by Melvin Estrella and include representatives from Opportunity Agenda, The New Media Advocacy Project, the Black Documentary Collective, Skylight Pictures, Witness, and UnionDocs.

Our goal with this second session is to harness the energy of our filmmaking community toward political action, to hold each other accountable and motivated to continue these dialogues and work toward productive solutions and projects to strengthen our community goals. Price of admission is one resource whether that be an organization to support, a skill to offer, relevant resources or information to share, just bring something to add! Come ready to participate!

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS

POV (a cinema term for “point of view”) is television’s longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 300 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.

Meerkat Media Collective is an arts collective and worker co-op production company, committed to making artful and thought-provoking films through a non-hierarchical collaborative process.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is co-founder and executive director of Cinema Tropical. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinématek, and the IFC Center, among others. In 2007, he co-curated the 53rd edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar under the banner “South of the Other”. He is a contributing editor to BOMB magazine and has served as a member of the jury for various film festivals including the Morelia, SANFIC, DocsDF, Austin’s Cine Las Americas, and the Havana Film Festival in New York. He has served as both expert nominator and panelist for the Rockefeller Fellowship Program for Mexican Film & Media Arts, Sundance Documentary Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute’s LatinAmerica Media Arts Fund, and The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Edwin Pagán is a New York-based filmmaker, producer, photographer, cinematographer, screenwriter and cultural activist with over 25-years of hands-on experience in content creation, film production, design concurrence and branding, and social media manager in both the documentary and narrative film sectors.

His extensive experience with arts groups includes working at the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA), Association of Hispanic Arts (AHA), and Black Filmmaker Foundation. He also co-founded the PAX Theatre Community artist collective as a means of expanding community-based arts participation in the South Bronx.

Pagán has served on the boards of various organizations including the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) and was president of its New York chapter, and more recently the Hispanic Organization of Latino Actors (HOLA). He has also served on numerous juries, selection and curatorial committees for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), New York International Latino Film Festival and prestigious Tribeca Institutes’ Tribeca All Access Connects initiative, among others. He has also curated the NewLatino Filmmakers Screening Series at Anthology Film Archives for the past 11 years.

Founded by documentarian St. Clair Bourne, The Black Documentary Collective (BDC) provides filmmakers, video producers and media professionals of African descent, with the opportunity to network and promote each others’ work.

Skylight Pictures has been committed for over 30 years to producing artistic, challenging and socially relevant media to strengthen human rights and the quest for justice. Through the use of media, technology and digital tools, we seek to engage, educate and increase understanding of human rights and social justice amongst the public at large, educators, and  policy makers. Skylight is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

WITNESS trains and supports activists and citizens around the world to use video safely, ethically, and effectively to expose human rights abuse and fight for human rights change.