We are saddened to learn of the passing of David Goldblatt, legendary photographer and documentarian from South Africa. The images he took during apartheid captured, what he called, 'the underbelly of apartheid'. For him, to know the values that underlaid the system were more important than covering the events of the day. His images gave the rest of the world a window into what it was like to live and work as a person of color in apartheid, and for that he will forever be remembered. As a recipient of the 2013 Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography, we were honored to have the opportunity to create a film about his work. Please take a moment to watch the film to learn more about his incredible career.  South Africa's "Father of Photography", Goldblatt played an important role mentoring  young photographers, including Zanele Muholi, winner of the 2016…

Our friend Ami Vitale has partnered with musician Dave Matthews on a campaign to protect elephants in East Africa, and we hope you can join them. Watch Ami's film of Dave and his incredible song "Mother of Africa", an homage to the first ever community-owned sanctuary, Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.  Now, Dave is hosting a competition to build support for Reteti. Enter now for a chance to visit the sanctuary yourself at prizeo.com/elephants! Well done to Ami, for once again, showing us the difference that film and photography can make! (Photo courtesy of @AmiVitale)

Each year, THREAD at Yale convenes top nonfiction storytellers across print, video, radio, and other mediums on the Yale University campus to learn from one another and from masters in the field. As the program enters its 4th year (June 10-13), it is looking for the best and brightest to continue building this program on storytelling in modern media. Yale is looking for writers, videographers, podcasters, and others they hope will apply, so please feel free to forward this to journalists and storytellers. Details on the application process are available here. Apply now

Tickets now available here for the May 20th private world premiere screening of the documentary short Bloodline by award-winning director James Q. Chan. This is the launch event for the new food documentary series, First Kitchen, and includes a specially curated “street bites” appetizer menu by Chef Tu David Phu (Top Chef 15, 2017 Chronicle Rising Star). Reception and street bites start at 5pm with the screening to follow at 6pm.  The series, First Kitchen, will explore how “first experiences” with food shape our worldview, essentially tracking the evolution of “food consciousness” through a variety of personal stories. Through these stories, the producers hope to move beyond binary perspectives of surplus (i.e. chefs/eaters) and scarcity (i.e. starvation/hunger), to include a greater diversity of stories and voices in the discussion of how food influences and affects society. This vision and mission are complementary and fundamentally rooted in food equity, as in order to address the various realities of food—from school lunches…

Today we celebrate legislation that has been passed to protect young people from sexual exploitation with the passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Sex Online Trafficking Act of 2017. We celebrate especially those advocates, featured in our film The Long Night, known to us as Natalie and Nacole, who fought tirelessly to make this happen. As she stood by the President's side to sign this legislation into law, Natalie finally reclaimed her name: Jessika. Jessika, the fifteen-year old girl from suburban Seattle who was forced into prostitution and is featured in The Long Night, has been an advocate in this cause, claiming that her pimp used the website Backpage.com to fuel his business, and her enslavement. She helped to shut down backpage.com last year and now has worked for legislation that "makes it easier for prosecutors and victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep sex trafficking and…