IN CINEMA
Wednesday, June 25th 7PM
PRIDE at MAYSLES: GOING TO MARS:
THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT
Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson, 2023, 96 min.
A look at the life of poet, Nikki Giovanni and the revolutionary historical periods through which she lived, from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition, this beguiling documentary portrait follows poet and activist Nikki Giovanni. 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. An HBO Documentary Films release.
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.
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 codirected 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.
+ Post screening discussion with Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson!
PRIDE AT MAYSLES seeks to celebrate, commemorate, and reflect upon black queer histories this Pride. The seven featured programs foster intergenerational gathering and discussion, and the celebration of queer ancestors through music, dance, and photography. Collaboratively curated by Nia Whitmal, Kazembe Balagun, Vanguard DocMaker Students, Thomas Allen Harris, Sonnet Carter, and Darah Martin.
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
