Doors 6:30p
Program 7:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

We’re delighted to present an evening of cinema and conversation with Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster’s formally adventurous documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project!

“This visually poetic portrait of an enigmatic literary icon masterfully weaves archival materials with observational footage to celebrate Nikki Giovanni and her importance to black artistic expression and American culture today.” –- FRAMELINE

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition, this beguiling documentary portrait follows poet and activist Nikki Giovanni as she approaches 80. The film explores Giovanni’s Afrofuturist-feminist philosophical outlook as well as her poignant relationship with her family, her political audacity, and her poetic eloquence, all knit together with a constant eye and ear for its subject’s own aesthetic verve. Looking back at a personal life and history cast in the long shadow of American racism, and forward to hopeful, possible futures, Giovanni acts as our guide and narrator, with refreshingly unorthodox filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson refraining from traditional chronologies or talking-head conventions. Going to Mars is fueled by constant intellectual engagement and radical imagination in the search for emotional and political fulfillment in a world of disenfranchisement.

The screening will be preceded by a presentation by the filmmakers discussing the inception of the film, where the idea came from and their initial encounters with the film’s subject.

Note: We’re overjoyed that this year’s Documentary Fundamentals course is led by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster! Going to Mars will serve as a case-study for DOC FUNDAMENTALS, our annual six session professional development series, across all the sessions including FINANCING, ARCHIVAL, EDITING, MUSIC and RELEASING your documentary. Each session features a range of exciting, advanced and award-winning professionals from the field and many from this film who represent all aspects of producing a documentary feature. It is perfect as a primer or a way to refocus and rethink your project in today’s changing landscape! You can attend all sessions with a SERIES PASS or just tackle the hurdles where you need help with a single session.

Program

Opening Session – The Vision

60 min

Directing, Getting into Nikki’s head, vision of the film and overall idea of the film

Film Screening — Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

96 min

Program Duration: 154 mins

Bios

Emmy award-winning filmmaker, artist, and author Michèle Stephenson draws from her Haitian and Panamanian heritage and experience as a social justice lawyer to transform non-fiction storytelling. She creates emotionally powerful narratives of resistance and healing that emphasize the lived experiences of communities of color across the Americas and the Black diaspora. Through a Black Atlantic perspective, Stephenson reimagines storytelling to provoke thought and inspire action against systemic oppression, weaving together fiction, immersive, experimental, and hybrid forms. In 2023, her films Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project and Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games were Oscar-shortlisted, with Going To Mars winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the prestigious Emmy Award for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Black Girls Play received significant accolades, including the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video and Best Short Doc at Tribeca. Her feature American Promise earned three Emmy nominations and won the Jury Prize at Sundance, while Stateless was nominated for a Canadian Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Stephenson co-directed The Changing Same, a magical realist VR trilogy that premiered at Sundance’s New Frontier XR Program, won the Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative, and was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Interactive Media. In 2024, she received the NYWIFT Nancy Malone Muse Directing Award and is currently in post-production on a feature on the Black Power movement in Canada. She is a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, Creative Capital Artist, and member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker Joe Brewster is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who applies his medical expertise to explore social issues through his cinematic work. He made his directorial debut with The Keeper (1995), drawing on his experience as a prison psychiatrist at the Brooklyn House of Detention, and the film received numerous awards, including Spirit Award nominations. Over the past three decades, Brewster has directed and produced narrative and documentary films, as well as immersive media. His feature documentary American Promise (2014) earned three Emmy nominations and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. His film Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project was Oscar-shortlisted, won the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and received over 30 awards, including two Cinema Eye Awards and the prestigious Emmy for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (2023) won the Cinema Eye Best Short Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video, and was also Oscar-shortlisted. Brewster’s groundbreaking room-scale production The Changing Same premiered at Sundance and won the 2021 Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Experience. His subsequent AR/VR projects include O-Dogg: On Othello, featuring Tariq Trotter, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Brewster has also produced documentary works for PBS, HBO, Amazon, Al Jazeera, Vice, Sundance Channel, Comcast, Disney, and the World Channel. He has received fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, MacArthur Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has won multiple Emmys.