Game Changers: Documentaries That Make A Difference

Documentaries record the theater of the world and make waves. At New York Women in Film & Television's upcoming panel, filmmakers and creative partners discuss the collaborative process from inception to the film's afterlife. Come meet documentary filmmakers Dee Dee Ricks, Perri Peltz, Al Sutton, Jeanne McGill, Nicole Franklin and Elisabeth Sperling, and hear them talk about their personal journeys that led them to tell these unique stories through film. The discussion will be moderated by Rose Rosenblatt. Learn more at http://nywift.org/.

 

Nicole Franklin, former NYWIFT Board Member, is an award-winning filmmaker, an editor and director of television and theater, and an educator. For more than a decade, her company Epiphany Inc. has been producing independent films for corporations and numerous cable networks. Her credits include The Double Dutch Divas!, Journeys In Black: the Jamie Foxx Biography, CBS Sunday Morning, Black Enterprise Business Report, Meet BESS and Little Brother.

 

Jeanne McGill is the publicist for Al Sutton Productions. Her public relations work with Sutton has led to awards for his short doc, Equality: I Am Woman, a film narrated by Gloria Steinem that has been exhibited at several museums and is widely promoted within the feminist movement. A human rights activist and Board Member of the Veteran Feminists of America, McGill is currently production manager for Sutton’s The Most Dangerous Animal, a multimedia production which has inspired the anti-genocide/war and human rights movements.

 

Perri Peltz, director of the HBO documentary The Education of Dee Dee Ricks, is a public health advocate and distinguished television news journalist for NBC, ABC and CNN. The feature film she produced, The Knights of the South Bronx, about a Bronx public school chess team that became national champions, began as a CNN report. Perri currently hosts Dr. Radio Reports, a weekly program about public health issues for the Sirius-XM Network. She was honored by the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center and continues to serve on the boards of the Medicare Rights Center and Singlestop USA.

 

Dee Dee Ricks, activist, philanthropist and chairman of the board of the Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute, successfully lobbied Congress to reenact the Patient Navigation Act, a healthcare reform policy for The Affordable Care Act. Dee Dee is active with the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention and the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, a part of the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Center, where she is a member of the Board of Directors. Dee Dee is the founder of Ricks Consulting Group, Inc., which serves and advises hedge funds. The Education of DeeDee Ricks, which was first shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, can be seen on HBO.

 

Elisabeth Sperling, producer/director, has been working in documentary film since 2005. One Night Stand is her directorial debut. Her film credits include Scapegoat on Trial, Jewish-Americans for Obama, Perfect Disasters and The Witnesses. Before making films, she taught history at The Horace Mann School.

 

Al Sutton produced a medical film, Fraternal Twins: the First Year of Life, that was widely distributed to universities in the 1980s when he was a practicing physician. Equality: I Am Woman, consisting of unique footage of the historic 1970 women’s liberation march, won Best Short Documentary at the World Music Independent Film Festival. All in a Row, a World Music and Independent Film Festival Award winner, featured original music by legendary jazz pianist Chris Anderson. The Most Dangerous Animal, a short film, was awarded Honorable Mention at the L.A. Movie Awards.

 

Moderator Rose Rosenblatt wears multiple hats as a producer, director and editor. In 1991, she formed Incite Pictures/Cine Qua Non with Marion Lipschutz. Projects include: Young Lakota, The Education of Shelby Knox, Live Free or Die, Fatherhood USA, The Abortion Pill, The Trenchcoat Gang and Code Blue: New Orleans.

 

 

Produced by Barbara Masry and Maggie Hame.

 

Special thanks to David Linton and Maggie Hame of Marymount Manhattan College.