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In July 1969, much of the world celebrated “one giant leap for mankind.” Fifty years later, nothing is quite so straightforward. In Event of Moon Disaster illustrates the possibilities of deepfake technologies by reimagining this seminal event. What if the Apollo 11 mission had gone wrong and the astronauts had not been able to return home? A contingency speech for this possibility was prepared for, but never delivered by, President Nixon – until now. In Event of Moon Disaster invites you into an alternative history, asking us all to consider how new technologies can bend, redirect and obfuscate the truth around us.

The project is open to the public and can be viewed here: https://moondisaster.org

Francesca Panetta  is a Creative Director MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality. She was executive editor of virtual reality at The Guardian. An multi-award winning digital artist and journalist, she lead immersive innovation at the Guardian for the last 10 years including running the Guardian’s in house virtual reality production studio.

Halsey Burgund is a sound artist and technologist whose work focuses on the combination of modern technologies – from mobile phones to artificial intelligence – with fundamentally human “technologies”, primarily language, music and the spoken voice. He is the creator of Roundware, the open source contributory audio AR platform, which has been used to create art and educational installations for cultural organizations internationally.

Please join us for this online screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor in the School of Media Studies.

The well-paced, tightly constructed, often crushingly emotional documentary is stirring and compelling throughout, illuminating both a dark chapter of New York City history and an all-too-common example of the extent to which inner-city people can be unjustly victimized by those in power. 

• Nick Rocco Scalia, Film Threat

Denying us access to our history and replacing it with a narrative that justifies things as they are is a real act of violence—a real weapon. Telling history like Decade of Fire does is a real way to take power back.

• Susanna Blankley, The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition

Throughout the 1970’s, fires consumed the South Bronx. Black and Puerto Rican residents were blamed for the devastation even as they battled daily to save their neighborhoods. In DECADE OF FIRE, Bronx-born Vivian Vázquez Irizarry pursues the truth surrounding the fires – uncovering policies of racism and neglect that still shape our cities, and offering hope to communities on the brink today. Through a rich seam of archival and home movie footage, DECADE OF FIRE confronts the racially-charged stereotypes that dehumanized residents of the South Bronx in the 1970’s, and rationalized their abandonment by city, state and federal governments. Vázquez Irizarry, in her role as the film’s central character and co-director seeks not only healing for her community, but to redeem them from the harmful mythology spread by the media that has continued largely unchallenged to this day. 

Vivian Vázquez Irizarry (Director / Producer)

An educator and facilitator, Vivian ran educational and youth leadership development programs at the Coro Foundation, Bronxworks, and is currently the director of community-school partnerships at the New Settlement Community Campus. Vázquez Irizarry managed educational youth development models in GED completion and college access programs across New York City. A former member of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, she is a member of 52 People for Progress, a community organization that saved her childhood playground and revitalized the South Bronx for the last 35 years.

Gretchen Hildebran (Director / Producer)

Gretchen is a documentary filmmaker and editor whose work lives at the intersection of politics, policy and human experience. Credits include: WORTH SAVING (2004), which was presented in HBO’s Frame by Frame showcase; OUT IN THE HEARTLAND (2005) which explored anti-gay legislation in Kentucky. A 2005 graduate of Stanford’s documentary program, Gretchen shot Ramona Diaz’s THE LEARNING (2011) and has edited for the History Channel, PBS and the United Nations Development Programme, as well as on independent documentaries. Gretchen has also made a series of short documentaries used to educate communities across the country about life-saving interventions such as needle exchange and overdose prevention.

Neyda Martinez (Producer)

Neyda Martinez is the communications strategist for public television’s documentary series, AMERICA REFRAMED. For 7 years, Neyda worked at POV supporting campaigns of over 65 acclaimed films. She earned an MPA from Columbia University in 2008. She was Director of National Engagement for PBS’ documentary, LATINO AMERICANS and she produced the documentary film LUCKY. As a consultant, she’s served Hachette Book Group USA, NYC’s Mayor’s Office of Adult Education, and WNYC and NPR’s “The Takeaway.” She is on the board of directors of The Association of American Cultures, Women Make Movies and Bronx-based dance company, Pepatian. Prior board service includes Third World Newsreel and NALIP/National Association of Latino Independent Producers. jksdlsdkj .

Award winning writer and Oscar®nominated director David France (“How to Survive a Plague,” “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”) continues to bring important LGBTQ issues to the fore in WELCOME TO CHECHNYA, his searing documentary about an ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Russian republic of Chechnya. Employing a guerilla filmmaking style, France takes us inside the fraught, day-to-day workings of an underground pipeline of activists who face unimaginable risks to rescue LGBTQ victims from Chechnya’s brutal government-directed campaign. In a republic where being gay or transgender is unspeakable, the LGBTQ community lives in the utmost secrecy and fear, under threat of detention, torture and death, often at the hands of the authorities. Extensive access to a remarkable group of activists – from the Russian LGBT Network and the Moscow Community Center for LGBTI+ Initiatives – and alarmingly brutal footage of abuse, bring to light the underreported atrocities and the dangers of exposing them.

David France is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, New York Times bestselling author, and award-winning investigative journalist. His directorial debut, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, is hailed as an innovative and influential piece of storytelling and is regularly screened in university classrooms, and by community groups and AIDS service organizations. Appearing on over 20 “Best of the Year” lists, including Time and Entertainment Weekly, the documentary earned a GLAAD Awardand top honors from the Gotham Awards, the International Documentary Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the Provincetown Film Festival, among many others. After a theatrical run reaching over 30 cities, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE was aired on PBS’ Independent Lens, reaching an audience of millions and garnering Academy and Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award. His 2017 film, THE DEATH & LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, a Netflix Original Documentary, won numerous festival prizes and was awarded the Outfest “Freedom Award” and a special jury recognition from Sheffield International Documentary Festival. Critics put it on multiple “Best of the Year” lists (and gave it a 96% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes). David’s latest book, also titled HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (Knopf, 2016), received the Baillie Gifford Prize for best nonfiction book published in the English Language. In addition, France has seen his journalistic work inspire several films, including the Peabody-winning Showtime film SOLDIER’S GIRL, based on his New York Times Magazine story of the transgender girlfriend of a soldier killed in an anti-gay attack.

Igor Myakotin is a filmmaker from the Russian Far East based in Brooklyn. He is a co-producer of Welcome to Chechnya (Sundance 2020, US Documentary Competition, Special Jury Award for Editing; Berlin International Film Festival, Panorama, Teddy Activist Award). His latest short documentary Swan Song was invited to premiere at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival ‘18 and received an award for Outstanding Documentary Filmmaking at the 38th FINE CUTS at The New School in New York City. Igor is an alumnus of The New School’s Documentary Studies Graduate Certificate program and NextDoc, a year-long fellowship.

Please join us for this online screening and Q&A, hosted and moderated by Amir Husak, Director of Documentary Studies and Assistant Professor in the School of Media Studies.

Presented by the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies

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