What do we lose when we cannot gather together to take in
what we love?
The movie industry, theaters, concert venues and so much more are all in peril as a pandemic shuts down these everyday parts of our lives. Ted Hope has worked in film on a variety of levels, most recently at Amazon Studios. He is one of the industry’s big thinkers on the constant evolution of how we watch movies. Sasha Sullivan is Artistic Director and co-founder of the beloved Telluride Theatre. She will talk about how they managed to strategize and safely perform Shakespeare in the Park in this summer, as well as what happens when these sacred spaces and events go dark.
Musician Dierks Bentley has played to thousands of fans and will speak to the important relationship between the performance of live music and the audience. We further explore collective culture through two thoughtful documentary shorts. Kevin Beasley’s Raw Materials focuses on this dynamic artist who explores the challenging nature and history of an everyday material - cotton. Postman Jim tells the story of Telluride’s own Jim Looney, who retired from the town post office after twenty years and deeply understands the importance of connecting with each other, which is so challenging today.
Speakers
Dierks Bentley
For nearly 20 years, country music star Dierks Bentley has played to thousands of fans around the world. In our show Collective Culture, he will speak to the important relationship between live music and the audience, and how navigating that in a global pandemic has pushed artists to find creative solutions
Ted Hope
Ted Hope has worked in film on a variety of levels, most recently at Amazon Studios. He is one of the industry’s big thinkers on the constant evolution of how we watch movies.
Sasha Sullivan
Sasha Sullivan is the Artistic Director of Telluride Theatre. She's a director, playwright, Burlesque teacher and performer. In Telluride, she started SquidShow Theatre in 2007, which merged with the Telluride Repertory Theatre in 2011 creating Telluride Theatre. She will be speaking to the necessity of the arts in our communities and how her theatre company found creative solutions to continue to perform publicly in the midst of this crippling pandemic.
Film
Kevin Beasley’s Raw Materials
Celebrated Queens-based artist Kevin Beasley juxtaposes sound, silence, and sculpture to examine the personal and historic legacy of cotton in the American South. Set to the beat of his improvised drumming, the film charts the progress of Beasley’s most ambitious work to date - “A view of a landscape” (2019) - from its creation in his Long Island City studio to its final installation at Whitney Museum of American Art.
Postman Jim
For twenty years, Jim Looney worked at the post office in Telluride but the mail was only a small part of what he delivered to this small town. This heart-warming short documentary, directed by Telluride’s Keith Hill (and produced by Original Thinkers ringleader David Holbrooke) tells the story of Jim’s last few weeks at the post office before he retired and is full of the abundant kindness and simple wisdom that is so redolent of this fine man.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 2 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
In this time when human connection feels painfully absent for many, we are forced to confront another silent pandemic that has been plaguing the world for years; loneliness.
This show looks at ways that we can find to build meaningful interactions with one another. Jimmy Ferguson and Catherine Gubernick’s short film Between Strangers explores the delicate line between connection and isolation in modern urbanity. Loneliness expert and author of Un-Lonely Plant, Jillian Richardson shares some strategies she’s developed to foster community. Emily McAllister’s short and thoughtful documentary Wearable Tracy follows artist Lee Kim’s accidental social experiment to connect with fellow New Yorkers who might otherwise forever remain anonymous passersby. We know the COVID pandemic is far from over. We will continue to see this through with health (both mental and physical) at the forefront of our actions, and open discussions around loneliness are included in that.
Speakers
Jimmy Ferguson
Jimmy Ferguson is a multicultural, award-winning film artist with deep experience in all stages of production spanning fiction/narrative, documentary, commercials, and contemporary art. His work investigates how images create collective identities and narratives, and how they influence our physical realities.
Catherine Gubernick
Catherine Gubernick studied film and philosophy at NYU Gallatin, where she came to recognize film as her ideal medium to explore subjective truth and visceral dialogues. Catherine has created four independent short films, six music videos, and a body of photographic works.
Jillian Richardson
Jillian Richardson is a loneliness expert on a mission to make the world a less lonely place. She's the author of Un-Lonely Planet and the founder of The Joy List, a newsletter that gathers people together in shared interests and experiences. She's also a relationship coach and works with people one-on-one and in groups.
Emily McAllister
Emily McAllister is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced work independently as well as for HBO, National Geographic, PBS, and Google. After beginning her career in Brooklyn, in 2018, she moved to the beautiful mountain town of Truckee, California.
Lee Kim
Lee Kim is a Bronx-based designer, engineer, and certified Lego Serious Play facilitator. She founded Design Dream Lab, a community innovation lab where anyone can create an impact and dream of a better future. Lee has taught and facilitated numerous workshops around human-centered design and community building at various universities and organizations.
Films
Between Strangers
Between Strangers is narrated by its protagonist, David, who makes the same 125-mile daily commute to New York City. On the train, a man in cowboy boots sits across from him every day and night for 15 years; but they never speak. The film explores David’s navigation, emotionally and physically, as he wonders so deeply about those next to him, all the while feeling the need to avoid them carefully. In a city where we are in such close proximity to each other, how do we interact with others? The camera travels the streets and subways, exploring the tensions between the desire for privacy and the inherent voyeurism of a crowded metropolis.
Wearable Tracy
In May of 2017, artist Lee Kim found herself riding the subway while wearing a small hat she created out of pipe cleaners, an oddity that could easily pass unnoticed on any kinetic New York morning. Instead, Lee was overwhelmed by the number of human connections that her headpiece in the space of an hour. She began a 365-day project to create and wear a new hat each day, meeting hundreds of curious New Yorkers along the way.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 2 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
In 2012, warlord Joseph Kony captured the world’s attention through a reign of terror across Uganda.
Efforts to end his rampage and capture him - including the memorable and complicated KONY 2012 campaign - were mixed. While he is still at large, his army is extremely diminished today as are his crimes against humanity. Shannon Sedgwick Davis played a key role in this drama and her book, To Stop a Warlord details how people can get involved in ways they never ever expected. A key part of Kony’s strategy was to abduct young children from their villages and force them to commit violent atrocities.
David Ocitti was 16 years old when Kony’s army took him captive, where he remained for six months before he was able to escape. When he returned to his village, he was faced with the challenge of reintegrating into a community that no longer trusted him, leaving him essentially alone and afraid. He persevered and worked assiduously to create a new life for himself that would benefit other refugees who had experienced a similar struggle. The result was an ongoing effort to help others reunite with their own communities while working tirelessly to bring peace to the region. This is not easy but Shannon and David will speak to the real success that they have had for so many of the young people that their work has touched.
Speakers
Shannon Sedgwick
Shannon Sedgwick Davis is the CEO of Bridgeway Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to ending and preventing mass atrocities around the world. As an attorney, activist, and passionate advocate for social justice, she has guided Bridgeway Foundation in pioneering solutions to these seemingly intractable issues. More recently, Ms. Sedgwick Davis and the Bridgeway Foundation have been credited for their pivotal role in mobilizing awareness, civilian protection, and recovery efforts against the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony, the first-ever indictee of the International Criminal Court. She will be speaking in our program “What Wouldn’t You Do?”.
Jane Ferguson
International news correspondent Jane Ferguson is known for front-line dispatches from some of the world’s most intense conflict zones, such as Iraq’s war against ISIS, Houthi-controlled Yemen and battle-torn South Sudan. She will be returning to OT this year to moderate our show, “What Wouldn’t You Do?”.
David Ocitti
Bio coming soon!
Film
Short Film Sneak Preview!
All Shows
Available:
OCT 2 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
The moving feature length documentary Gather features Native Americans who are building their own future while wrestling with past injustices.
What unites these motivated people is something often overlooked in human rights; food and the deep layers of tradition that surround it. Director Sanjay Rawal has found several different stories and interwoven them in an effective way, giving clarity to both the abundant atrocities imposed upon this continent’s indigenous people and the remarkable attempts by a new generation to bring back what has been lost. Following the film, we’ll speak with Elsie Dubray, a 17-year-old Cheyenne River Sioux scientist who looks at the health benefits of buffalo. We’ll also be joined by Chef Nephi Craig, an innovative White Mountain Apache chef who is using traditional ingredients to (re)create food that is traditional, sustainable and healthy for his people. The lessons from this film are wide-ranging with hopeful implications for anyone who believes in justice and appreciates the origins of their food.
Speakers
Nephi Craig
On the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona, Nephi Craig, acclaimed chef and founder of the Native American Culinary Association, is attempting to establish a first-of-its-kind indigenous cafe where Apache chefs prepare Apache grown produce for Apache diners.
As a legacy of his foray into the high-paced world of fine dining and French cuisine, Nephi has personally had to battle addictive and violent behavior that destroyed his last marriage and threatened to estrange his son. Through this period of recovery, Nephi realizes the importance of reconnecting with his Apache identity through food. His story is shared in the film Gather - he will join us for a Q&A in our show “The Drum Is Calling.”
Elsie Dubray
A gifted 17-year old scientist, Elsie is taking a research project to the Regional ScienceFair, analyzing the comparative health effects of eating a beef-based diet versus a traditional Lakota diet based on Buffalo.
Her father Fred has dedicated his life to bring the buffalo back to traditional lands. Fighting the powerful cattle industry has been an uphill battle though, and Elsie is performing research that directly threatens that industry. Despite this, Elsie holds steadfast in her unshakeable belief that Native wisdom and food practices can begin to heal the scourge of health disparities that plague Native communities. We follow her story in the film Gather, and she joins us for a Q&A in our show, “The Drum Is Calling.”
Sanjay Rawal
Sanjay Rawal spent 15 years working on human rights campaigns globally. He also ran initiatives for acclaimed artists and philanthropists, one of whom encouraged him to start making films. Sanjay’s work has been supported by Ford, Bertha, BritDoc, Fledgling, 11th Hour Project, NoVo, and the Omidyar Network. His work has won an assortment of honors, including a James Beard Media Award. His most recent film, Gather is at the center of our show, “The Drum Is Calling.”
Raye Zaragoza
Raye Zaragoza is a galvanizing presence, a self-assured artist making music to fight for, represent, and celebrate those left too long outside the spotlight. Known for tenacious feminist anthems and fearless protest folk, her stage presence teems with determined morale. She will open our show, “The Drum is Calling” with an original song she wrote for the film Gather.
Learn more: rayezaragoza.com
Film
Gather
Gather follows the stories of natives on the frontlines of a growing movement to re connect with spiritual and cultural identities that were devastated by genocide.
A indigenous chef embarks on a ambitious project to reclaim ancient food ways on the Apache reservation; in South Dakota a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is proving her tribes native wisdom through her passion for science; and a group of young men of the Yurok tribe in Northern California are struggling to keep their culture alive and rehabilitate the habitat of their sacred salmon.
All these stories combine to show how the reclaiming and recovery of ancient food ways is a way forward for native Americans to bring back health and vitality to their people.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 3 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
This show explores two themes with its title.
The first is how most storytellers, including documentary filmmakers are forced – understandably – to tell a story with an end. While this may be considered “good storytelling”, these parameters are not entirely faithful to the ongoing narrative. The other issue we look at in this show is America’s long-running internal conflict with immigration, which continues to be a fierce and stark dividing line in this country.
Joe Richman founded the program Radio Diaries well before podcasts existed. What he did was simple: he gave his carefully chosen subjects a microphone and a recorder and asked them to share their stories. In 1992, he met a young man named Juan, who had recently arrived in US. For the next 25 years, Joe followed Juan’s story, garnering a non-narrated audio history. The bond that formed between storyteller and subject fostered an ongoing openness, allowing listeners to stay with something long after most stories have – in a way – artificially ended. That relationship will be explored as well as Juan’s longtime struggle to become a legal resident of this country he has given so much to.
This show also includes the stirring short documentary, The Undocumented Lawyer, which follows Lizbeth Mateo, who has never let her immigration status stop her from pursuing her dreams and helping those in need. This film reveals so much about why the issue of immigration remains so volatile and unresolved, it’s own never-ending story.
Our stories matter and while it would be nice to have a clear and concise beginning, middle and end to them, that is not generally how life works.
Speakers
Joe Richman
Joe Richman is a Peabody Award-winning producer and reporter and the founder of Radio Diaries, a non-profit organization. For two decades, Radio Diaries has helped to pioneer a model for working with people to document their own lives for public radio. Joe has collaborated with teenagers and octogenarians, prisoners and prison guards, gospel preachers and bra saleswomen, the famous and the unknown. Through his career, he has interviewed hundreds of people, from a seltzer delivery man to a Civil War widow to Nelson Mandela. The LA Times called Joe “a kind of Studs Terkel of the airwaves.”
Juan
Juan has been the subject of several Radio Diaries. By most measures he is an American success story with a thriving business and a loving family. However, he remains undocumented, making his time in this country constantly uneasy.
Lizbeth Mateo
Lizbeth Mateo is the subject of the inspiring short documentary, The Undocumented Lawyer, which tells of her own life as a practicing attorney who remains undocumented. Despite this uncertainty about her own status, she remains insistent on working to help others achieve legality in this country, even though it gets harder and harder to do so.
Film
The Undocumented Lawyer
Directed by Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci
This short documentary follows Lizbeth Mateo who has a law degree and a practice in immigration law yet is undocumented. She crossed the border at 14 and has become fully American except in the (crossed) eyes of the law. Both frustrated and inspired by her own experiences, she works tirelessly to change a system she sees as deeply unjust, helping others who do not have her education or experience.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 3 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
While there is much we don’t know about our brains, the understanding of our most complex organism is always deepening.
Working towards that elusive goal are the speakers in this show who have delved into some of the unseen spaces of what’s inside our heads. Alexandra Rieger, a neuroscientist at the renowned MIT Media Lab, is concerned that we are losing touch with ourselves as “We live in a decade where we have more interest in human-to-computer interaction when we haven’t scratched the surface of human-to-human interaction.” She has invented a musi-medical instrument designed for what she calls “ecologically holistic rehabilitation.”
Her colleague at the MIT Media Lab Adam Horowitz studies dreams, which “often tell us stories we cannot hear with language alone” and believes that “technology can show us part of ourselves that remain otherwise invisible, opening doors to introspection, wellness and wonder.” The dark side of technology and our brains will be explored by filmmaker Jeff Orlowski whose most recent film is The Social Dilemma, which can be seen on Netflix and looks at the pernicious effects of social media.
His previous documentaries Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral looked at climate change but he says that this topic was even more frightening to see how these enormous and powerful companies target their users, especially the developing and vulnerable minds of children. Rounding out this show is The Missfits, an inspiring documentary about a squad of girls who aspire to be scientists. This journey into our own unknown will make you reconsider so much of what happens inside our heads when we are awake and asleep.
Speakers
Adam Horowitz
Adam Horowitz is a PhD student in MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group whose work aims to augment human awareness, translating advances in neuroscience into design of interventions and experiences. He focuses on how brain science can expand to interact with art, technology and policy. As he says,“The organized understanding of the self is fertile territory for those of us guiding experience (i.e. artists), those guiding behavior (i.e. policymakers, technologists), and those guiding introspection (i.e. therapists, citizen scientists, and you). Now I’m most excited about spending time bringing my tools to other labs for guiding dreams and nightmare treatment, working on neuroscience based prison policy change, and bridging art and neuroscience in a form that goes beyond ornamental.”
Jeff Orlowski
Jeff Orlowski is a documentary filmmaker whose work has primarily focused on the biggest challenge of our times – the climate crisis. He got involved with photographer James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey as a senior at Stanford and then ended up directing Chasing Ice, one of the seminal films looking at this paramount issue and followed that up with Chasing Coral about the dying reefs in our oceans. His latest is The Social Dilemma, which delves into what social media is doing to our brains and how it is rewiring the way we think. All of this is produced through his robust company, Exposure Labs, which works thoughtfully and diligently to maximize impact of social issues documentaries.
Alexandra Rieger
Alexandra Rieger is a cognitive neuroscientist, engineer, cross-modal researcher, multi-instrumentalist musician, doctoral student, instrument inventor, multimedia creator, and instructor at the MIT Media Lab. She is passionate about promoting neurodiversity, ecologically holistic rehabilitation, and improving upon our global experience by creating pathways between the fields of neuroscience, technology, music, accessible design, symbiotic rehabilitation, and multisensory studies. She is the inventor of the world’s first series of medical-musical instruments: non-invasive devices to heal the brain, engage the senses, and support novel musical creativity (also experienced by musical artists ranging from Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead) to Rihanna).
Ellie Wen
Ellie Wen is an award-winning filmmaker from Hong Kong and Los Angeles. She is an alumna of Film Independent's Project Involve fellowship program and recently completed her MFA in Documentary Film at Stanford University. Her films have been featured on The Guardian, The New York Times, Short of the Week, SoulPancake, selected as Vimeo Staff Pick, and screened at premier festivals around the world. She lives in San Francisco and is developing her next documentary as an artist-in-residence in the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency Program.
Film
The Missfits
Directed by Ellie Wen
This charming and inspiring documentary follows the challenging path that an all-girls robotics team takes to succeed in an organized competition. It’s a male-dominated field but these girls know they are just as talented and capable as any of the boys and are determined to prove that to the world, while also trying to get through high school. Director Ellie Wen says, “With The Missfits, my intention is to tell the story of how adolescent girls – through their actions and choices – can redefine gender and race expectations for STEM. I address this larger theme while focusing on the personal experience of the girls and what they are going through on a more intimate level.”
All Shows
Available:
OCT 3 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
One of the things we talk about is windows and mirrors.
A Black child in a typical school in America, they get windows...from the literature that's put in front of them, from their teacher, from all the messages, they get windows to other people's world, like this other world where people are better than you. Not a shared humanity, but a separate level of humanity. White children typically get the mirror...who's in front of them, the literature that they read, the posters on the wall. Everything reinforces their whiteness and their superiority." - Sharif El-Mekki.
A film for this historical moment, BLACK BOYS exposes the dehumanization of Black boys and men in America at the intersection of sports, education and criminal justice in a nation still struggling to rectify its past. The story is anchored by Greg Scruggs, a 2X Super Bowl champion and young father who recently returned to his hometown of Cincinnati to impress upon young Black athletes the importance of education first. Supporting storylines follow Sharif El-Mekki, a principal at a nearly all Black charter school in West Philadelphia, and Malcolm London, a young poet activist fighting for criminal justice reform in Chicago. Other notable voices in the film include Malcolm Jenkins, Carmelo Anthony, Jemele Hill, Dr. Harry Edwards, former Secretary of Education John King, and more. Ultimately, the film serves as a rare glimpse into the emotional landscape of Black boys and men, illuminating their full humanity, vulnerability and resilience.
Speakers
Keme Nzerem
For the past two decades, Keme Nzerem has reported around the globe (Washington - Moscow - Johannesburg - Rio - London) for British network TV on issues from corruption, politics, and human rights - to sport. His focus is always on people, and how global events impact the lives of ordinary folk.
When Keme’s not filming news stories, he is typically cycling or backcountry skiing, whether it’s in the Himalaya or Scotland. Keme returns to OT2020 to moderate our show “Windows and Mirrors.”
Sonia Lowman
Sonia Lowman is a filmmaker, fighting for social justice through film and storytelling. Her recent Directorial project, Black Boys, is at the center of our show “Windows and Mirrors.” Sonia will join moderator Keme Nzerem, as well as Sharif El-Mekki for a Q&A within the show.
Film
Black Boys
A film for this historical moment, BLACK BOYS exposes the dehumanization of Black boys and men in America at the intersection of sports, education and criminal justice in a nation still struggling to rectify its past. The story is anchored by Greg Scruggs, a 2X Super Bowl champion and young father who recently returned to his hometown of Cincinnati to impress upon young Black athletes the importance of education first. Supporting storylines follow Sharif El Mekki, a principal at a nearly all Black charter school in West Philadelphia, and Malcolm London, a young poet activist fighting for criminal justice reform in Chicago. Other notable voices in the film include Malcolm Jenkins, Carmelo Anthony, Jemele Hill, Dr. Harry Edwards, former Secretary of Education John King, and more. Ultimately, the film serves as a rare glimpse into the emotional landscape of Black boys and men, illuminating their full humanity, vulnerability and resilience.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 4 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
Creating meaningful change is not something that most people are willing to take on, which stems from a general reluctance to take chances and create something new out of uncertainty.
That is where the chaos pilots come in - the rare people who can take action and creatively lead a project through ambivalence. It’s not easy, but it’s essential says Zenia Tata. Zenia is the Chief Impact Officer at XPrize, which looks to create solutions to some of our biggest global problems through “large-scale global incentive competitions.” Her perspective on our need for chaos pilots and how to become one is at the center of this show. Joining her are a few short documentaries profiling folks who are doing this work in their own artistic way.
Bird’s Eye! showcases Petra Leary, a skater girl from New Zealand with no formal education, who learned to cope with ADHD and applied it as an asset to become an acclaimed aerial photographer.
Yves & Variation tells the story of Manhattan concierge Yves Deshommes, who helps his apartment building’s residents with their everyday, while practicing his violin and then, returning to his homeland to help those way less fortunate. One Window focuses on artist Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann who believes art “is a gift that makes the world, and the people who view it, weirder - and as an artist, you get to spend your whole day straining to imagine ways to break your own ossified shortcuts and assumptions.” This show will be moderated by New Orleans-based journalist, writer and OT all-star, Gwen Thompkins.
Speakers
Zenia Tata
Originally from Mumbai, India, Zenia Tata is passionate about her work with economically disadvantaged populations, believes in the innate entrepreneurial qualities of the poor, and is constantly searching for innovative solutions to global problems. She is bold, brimming with optimism, and determined to change the world. Zenia is also an avid scuba diver, lover of the outdoors, and a pilot. She will be speaking in our show “How To Be A Chaos Pilot” about just that - finding purpose and motivation in the midst of chaos.
Gwen Thompkins
Gwen Thompkins is a journalist and writer, based in New Orleans. She was the longtime senior editor of NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon and later became NPR’s East Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2011, she was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Thompkins is a contributor to NPR’s news magazines and NPR Music, as well as The New Yorker online. She’s also the New Orleans correspondent for WXPN’s World Café. Since 2012, she’s been the executive producer and host of the weekly public radio program Music Inside Out with Gwen Thompkins, which showcases the unusually varied musical landscape of Louisiana. A full archive of the show can be found at musicinsideout.org.
Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann
In her sweeping, explosive abstract paintings, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann merges traditional Chinese and Japanese ink painting techniques with an approach rooted in Western abstractionism. She was originally trained in sumi ink painting, which forms the basis for her work. Describing her process, Mann says, “I begin each piece with a stain of color. . . From this shape, I nourish the landscape of each painting, coaxing from this organic foundation the development of diverse, decorative forms: braids of hair, details from Beijing opera costuming, lattice-work, sequined patterns.” These forms coalesce into compositions that appear alive and churning on the paper, sometimes spilling off the page and into site-specific installations. In addition to sumi ink, Mann uses a range of materials and techniques, including acrylic, graphite, collage, etching, and silkscreen.
Film
Bird’s Eye!
Life’s about how you see it. Petra Leary sees the world from above, seeking startling heights to create stunning art, all while trying to make sense of the complex and challenging world around her. Having pushed back against traditional education and now an ADHD New Zealand ambassador, Petra sets out with her skateboard, drone and dog Kodak to defy the odds and create her own artistic legacy.
One Window
Katherine Mann's art starts with an act of chaos, an act of chance — and then seeks to impose order around it. Her work invites people to take their shoes off and step into another world. Funded by Adobe, One Window is an experimental documentary short that seeks to use the creative methods behind Katherine's own art to produce a film about it. By the end of the film, viewers won't have any trouble seeing how a seventy foot-long abstract mural is a work of detailed self-portraiture about one of the most extraordinary artists of our time.
Yves & Variation
Every day, concierge Yves Deshommes practices his violin behind the front desk of a Manhattan office building. But during the hours outside his shift, Yves’s life is revealed to be equal parts intrepid and inspiring.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 4 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
A powerful, almost invisible force has radically altered the world over the past year. It’s hard to believe something as small as the COVID-19 virus could be so potent.
How this virus came to affect our everyday lives is something we are still grappling with globally as we also work to understand how it came to be. David Quammen spoke memorably at OT 2018 and now returns to explain the complicated and unnerving threat of zoonoses. As he prophetically wrote in his 2012 book, Spillover, “The next big and murderous human pandemic, the one that kills us in millions, will be caused by a new disease—new to humans, anyway. The bug that's responsible will be strange, unfamiliar, but it won't come from outer space. Odds are that the killer pathogen—most likely a virus—will spill over into humans from a nonhuman animal.”
How we deal with the consequences of COVID is key to Laurie Garrett’s everyday thinking. An expert on global public health and a regular on MSNBC, Garrett was profiled by the New York Times in an article titled, “She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next?”. Her talk will focus on the original thinking needs to be done to build something that will save us all if we only listen to her. COVID-19 is not the first or the last virus to come at humanity, so what we understand about this unseen attacker is ever more critical.
Speakers
Laurie Garrett
Laurie Garrett wrote her first bestselling book, THE COMING PLAGUE: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, while splitting her time between the Harvard School of Public Health and the New York newspaper, Newsday. An expert on global public health and a regular on MSNBC, Garrett was profiled by the New York Times in an article titled, “She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next?”. She will be speaking to COVID19 from the lens of global public health in our show, “What Do Viruses Really Want From Us?”, available Sunday, October 4 - Sunday, October 11.
David Quammen
David Quammen is an award-winning author who spoke memorably at OT 2018. He returns to our festival this year to explain the complicated and unnerving threat of zoonoses. As he prophetically wrote in his 2012 book, Spillover, “The next big and murderous human pandemic, the one that kills us in millions, will be caused by a new disease--new to humans, anyway. The bug that's responsible will be strange, unfamiliar, but it won't come from outer space. Odds are that the killer pathogen--most likely a virus--will spill over into humans from a nonhuman animal.”
Film
The Italian Doctor
A young Italian medical resident volunteers to serve on the frontlines of the coronavirus epicentre in Europe during the first wave of the global pandemic. To cope with the onslaught of coronavirus cases, Italy rushed 10,000 resident doctors into service. Dr. Alessandro Galli, 31, is one of them.
At the renowned Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, Dr. Galli joins other physicians looking after COVID-19 patients in critical condition in intensive care. His daily encounters with death and isolation, forces him to question his actions and the need for control and balance during this time of unprecedented uncertainty.
All Shows
Available:
OCT 4 @ 10A MT - OCT 11 @ 11:45P MT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND TO VIEW
Rarely have we seen this country so roiled and on the edge as it is today.
Earlier this year, when legendary Congressman John Lewis died, President Obama said “America is a constant work in progress” and added that Lewis was a “founding father” of a “fuller, fairer, better America.” This closing show looks at how we progress as a nation towards Lewis’ beautiful vision. Regan Byrd is an anti-racism expert and consultant who works with different entities to understand how they can contribute towards a more equal society. The short documentaries, Affurmative Action and Vote Neil take very different approaches to demonstrate the ongoing effort that is needed in pursuit of equity. Vali Nasr is a foreign policy expert and the author of The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat and will talk about how America’s own struggles and instability affect the rest of the world.
Speakers
Regan Byrd
Regan Byrd is an award-winning anti-oppression activist, speaker, and trainer who has trained dozens of organizations on anti-oppression and allyship. Regan has served as the morning keynote speaker for the DU Women’s Conference in 2017, the afternoon keynote for the 2018 League of Women Voters annual conference, and was a trainer at the 2018 White Privilege Symposium in Denver. She participated in various expert panels on topics ranging from critical race theory, to the history of police, to housing justice.
Vali Nasr
Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Between 2012 and 2019 he served as the Dean of the School, and between 2009 and 2011 as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
Film
Affurmative Action
An exploration of workplace diversity or the lack there of, told through meet the team pages.
Vote Neil
Two gay Marines in Birmingham, Alabama battle their hardest mission: Election Week 2018. Neil Rafferty is a first time politician running for State House. Michael Rudulph is his fiancé and campaign manager searching for purpose.
Equal parts political drama and relationship story, VOTE NEIL exposes the frustrations of fighting for change in a blue city in a red state and also examines these men’s personal journeys growing up gay in Alabama and finding each other. (Neil even joined the Marines for Mike during “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” so Mike wouldn’t have to go to war again alone.) This short documentary is an intimate portrait about politics, the Southern LGBTQ experience, and one incredible love story.
All Shows