NYWIFT Blog

NYWIFT @ Tribeca: In Conversation with Festival Director Cara Cusumano

We kick off our Tribeca coverage with a conversation with Cara Cusumano, Festival Director and VP of Programming! Cara previews exciting changes to this year's festival - including a new name! - as well as some special appearances and events.

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Robin Noonan-Price

In this new blog series, we spotlight some of the newest members to join the New York Women in Film & Television community: all of them creators, innovators, and changemakers working to build a better and brighter media landscape. First up, we welcome Robin Noonan-Price, a new Dual Member from WIFV-DC (and their former President!) who discusses her passion for educational media, how she discovered producing, and what brings her to New York.

READ MORE

What’s in Your Toolkit: Naomi Wolff Lachter

NYWIFT and USA Local 829 member Naomi Wolff Lachter has designed the costumes for feature films, dozens of plays and musicals, and assistant designed on several major TV series. Every day she is on the job, Naomi posts a motivational saying from her whiteboard on her Instagram account, @wolffie78. She offered us insight into her philosophy – and why good vibes are contagious.

READ MORE

Frannie’s Favorites from The Producer’s Palate

Frannie Montagnino shares her favorite highlights from "The Producer's Palate," a new printed recipe collection from NYWIFT. Featuring recipes and personal stories from NYWIFT community leaders, the book is available to purchase now with proceeds supporting the organization's professional development and advocacy initiatives.

READ MORE

Deeply Moved by CODA

Kristin Reiber Harris shares her heartfelt reaction to CODA - and why she is thrilled it took home Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

READ MORE

My Virtual Night at the Oscars: 94th Academy Awards Takeaways

Tammy Reese recaps the Oscars and describes her experience covering this year's groundbreaking show.

READ MORE

What’s in Your Toolkit: Nora Armani

The Socially Relevant Film Festival was founded in 2013 by actress/filmmaker and NYWIFT member Nora Armani in response to the proliferation of violence and violent forms of storytelling. In advance of the festival's return this week, Armani shared insights into her creative process with a unique peak into her toolkit!

READ MORE

NYWIFT at Sundance: Spotlight on Paula Eiselt

An alarmingly disproportionate number of Black women are failed every year by the U.S. maternal health system – and it is a crisis that has been largely ignored thus far. In the Sundance 2022 documentary Aftershock, Directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee follow the bereaved partners of two of these women as they fight for justice and build communities of support, bonding especially with other surviving Black fathers. The story is presented within the historical context of racism throughout the U.S. healthcare system, and the deadly tendency to ignore or minimize Black women’s pain and concerns.

NYWIFT Member Paula Eiselt spoke to us about how she and Lewis Lee approached this harrowing topic, and why community activists are the natural heroes of her creative work.  

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Board Members: Sibyl Santiago

New NYWIFT Board Member Sibyl Santiago says, 'I am humbled and I am very proud to be part of NYWIFT. I’m very proud of this organization. These women are working very hard for all of you and I’m really happy to be able to give back and hopefully work for you as well.'

READ MORE

NYWIFT at Sundance: Spotlight on Sara Bernstein

13 members played a key creative role in 11 different projects featured in Sundance this year – and two of them fall under the Executive Producer expertise of prolific NYWIFT Member Sara Bernstein! Bernstein heads to Sundance with Amy Poehler’s documentary Lucy and Desi, which brings the iconic pair’s humanity to life through an exploration of their personal and professional partnership, as well as Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, comprehensive investigation into the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and a look at the families and officials fighting for justice.

We spoke to Bernstein specifically about Downfall and how she hopes her team’s work will make an impact.

READ MORE

NYWIFT at Sundance: Spotlight on Rachel Lears

Rachel Lears returns to Sundance on the heels of her 2019 festival smash-hit Knock Down the House, which sold to Netflix for a record $10 million, making it the biggest documentary sale ever brokered at a film festival. The film followed female insurgent candidates hoping to topple incumbents in an electric primary race for Congress, and focused heavily on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she became the youngest member of the U.S. Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez now appears again in Lears’s To the End, this time as an established leader raising up another generation of young activists. We spoke to Lears about her process, watching Ocasio-Cortez develop as a politician, and why she still has hope in the face of the climate crisis.

READ MORE

NYWIFT at Sundance: Spotlight on Jen Heck

NYWIFT member Jen Heck returns to Sundance this year as part of a special retrospective celebrating the 40th anniversary of the festival’s short film program that welcomes back past Sundance projects. Heck wrote and associate produced the comedic short Hold Up, in which a robber is after more than just money during an NYC convenience store hold up. It originally premiered at Sundance in 2006 and has strong ties to the NYWIFT community, as it was directed by member Madeleine Olnek and features Muse Awards host Nancy Giles in one of the three starring roles.

Jen discusses her Sundance experiences both traditional (i.e. sleeping on the floor in Park City) and virtual, as well as her current projects.

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Board Members: Audrey Rosenberg

New NYWIFT Board Member Audrey Rosenberg says 'The whole community of creators in New York is really special and there's an aspect of the term “Keeping It Real” that I feel is always very appreciated. It’s a special experience to be in our industry and be a New York biased person and in my case, it’s been an incredible experience and gift to be able to live here and work in this incredible community of people. I am highlighting the special nature of being in the industry in New York. And I think there's something to it. It’s part of what NYWIFT taps into so I’m incredibly honored to be part of it and to be on the board.'

READ MORE

NYWIFT at Sundance: Spotlight on Elaine Del Valle

Member Elaine Del Valle is enjoying her second time at Sundance as a producer of William D Caballero’s documentary short Chilly and Milly. Exploring the director’s father’s chronic health problems, as a diabetic with kidney failure, and his mother’s role as his eternal caretaker, Chilly and Milly is a combination of 3D-modeled/composited characters, with cinéma vérité scenes from an autobiographical documentary shot over 13 years ago. We sat down with producer Elaine Del Valle to discuss the making of the film and her virtual Sundance experience.

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Board Members: Okema T. Moore

New NYWIFT Board Member Okema T. Moore says 'I also represent those of us that didn't come from this world but fell in love with it, and scrapped and scraped our way to get further along. I think I add another element of heart and safe space to what NYWIFT is.'

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Board Members: Kim Jackson

New NYWIFT Board Member Kim Jackson says 'I'd like to use my skills to support other women and support the success of other women. I think the issues that NYWIFT is interested in tackling which is equity is very very important.'

READ MORE

FOUND: Highlights from an interview with the Director Amanda Lipitz and Producer Anita Gou (Part 2)

Found is a compassionately told story of the girls finding one another, finding their homeland, and finding themselves. Director Amanda Lipitz and Producer Anita Gou spoke with NYWIFT Board Member Christina Kiely about the experience of making the film and the powerful and often unexpected stories that emerged in the process. This is part two of their conversation.

READ MORE

FOUND: Highlights from an interview with the Director Amanda Lipitz and Producer Anita Gou (Part 1)

Found is a compassionately told story of the girls finding one another, finding their homeland, and finding themselves. Director Amanda Lipitz and Producer Anita Gou spoke with NYWIFT Board Member Christina Kiely about the experience of making the film and the powerful and often unexpected stories that emerged in the process. This is part one of their conversation.

READ MORE