14 Nov Cinema as an Act of Resistance
We are joining the nationwide wave of creative resistance called Fall of Freedom on November 21-22, adding our voice against tyranny and for free expression. We will make the bilingual version of BORDERLAND | The Line Within available for FREE on those dates.
And we invite you to a community conversation on Zoom with us on Saturday, November 22 at 4pm ET/ 1pm PT. We’ll talk about cinema as an act of resistance and how information revealed in BORDERLAND | The Line Within can be used by communities to demand transparency from our elected officials about the border industrial complex and to defend the human rights of everyone in our communities.
Register to access the film and to join the Zoom conversation with us.
Woodstock Film Festival’s 2025 Maverick Awards
On October 18th, two memorable things coincided: the national No Kings protest and the Woodstock Film Festival’s 2025 Maverick Awards ceremony. Hundreds came out to protest in Woodstock, thousands in nearby Kingston, and seven million nationally, according to estimates. This year’s Woodstock Film Festival awards were unusually intimate and displayed solidarity and caring that strengthened our bonds. Here are excerpts from two of the most important awards–from those who gave them and those who received them.
THE ART OF ACTIVISM AWARD: presented to Tia Lessin and Carl Deal by us (Pamela Yates and Paco de Onís)
Paco de Onis: What a day for the Art of Activism Award, millions of people out on the streets, being creative, generating art, performing music, and theater. I grew up in Brazil and Argentina under dictatorships and I saw how art made dictators tremble. Carl and Tia, you’re going to make dictators tremble. And Amy Goodman, you’re so inspiring!
Pamela Yates: Paco and I are so pleased to have received the inaugural Art of Activism Award last year. The award recognized how the cinematic arts are at the heart of activism. But the quality that really moves me about Carl and Tia is their generosity to our filmmaking community as a whole. It will continue to lift our whole field as we find our way forward together in these harrowing times.
Tia Lessin: I first met Pam and Paco three decades ago, working on the original true crime series, although the crime was corporate and the perps were on Wall Street..Michael Moore’s “TV Nation” that was my filmmaking bootcamp. Someone else I’ve learned a lot from is Joan Churchill…she told me to point the camera at what interests me. And I’m interested in stories about women who resist. Women like…Amy Goodman!
Carl Deal: We are transformed by everybody whose stories we try to tell. Today, making art is an act of resistance. It’s rebellion and it instills fear in the hearts of the other side. And so, we’re all dangerous. Let’s hold the line together against all the powerful forces that are trying to silence us. Let’s imagine the world the way we want it to be, and let’s work to make it so.
THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD: presented to Laura Poitras by Jehane Noujaim
Jehane Noujaim: It is a deep honor to stand here and celebrate my dear friend and one of the bravest filmmakers I know, Laura Poitras. For so many years we’ve been part of a filmmaking community. For so many years we’ve been part of a community of filmmakers who have relied on each other, supported each other, inspired each other and cared deeply for one another through some of the most difficult and most beautiful moments of our filmmaking life…I see how very rare and how very special this community is. There could not be a more crucial time to have that belief.
Laura Poitras: Nothing that documentary filmmakers do is possible without the people [in our films] who trust us. And I’ve had the privilege of spending time with people who put their lives on the line…and changed the world. We are in dark times, people, and most of us in this room are worried about somebody…of being arrested, of being imprisoned, of being extradited. I feel like we’re really on the frontlines…We need to come together, we need to organize, we need to protect our voices, we need to use our voices to protect alternative futures…We must not ever preemptively capitulate to threats. We need to stand together. We must call out the institutions that abandon us, and abandon students.
