Great documentaries can raise awareness about the most pressing issues of our time and expand our understanding of the world around us. Filmmakers share what drives them to delve into their subjects and how they make documentaries that can initiate major societal change.
Bennett Elliott, Producer and Co-Director, Couples Therapy; Producer, Procession, Us Kids
Bennett Elliott is an Emmy award-winning, Peabody award-nominated producer based in New York. She is the producer and co-director of COUPLES THERAPY (Showtime, Seasons 4 & 5), and the producer of Robert Kolodny’s THE FEATHERWEIGHT (Venice Film Festival 2023), Robert Greene’s PROCESSION (Netflix, 94th Academy Awards Short List), Kim Snyder’s US KIDS (Sundance 2020), Abel Ferrara’s SPORTIN’ LIFE (Venice Film Festival 2020) and Robert Greene’s Gotham Awards-nominated BISBEE ’17 (Sundance 2018). Bennett was the co-producer of Greene’s multiple award-winning Sundance documentary KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016). She was selected as a 2017-2018 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow, a DOC NYC “40 Under 40” fellow, and has produced documentary films for David Byrne, Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman and Nan Goldin.
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Bennett has coordinated television series for Bravo, the Food Network and Sundance Channel. In 2015 she was named Head of Production at Mustache, a Brooklyn-based creative agency and produced hundreds of video campaigns for clients including American Express, Chevy, Ford, Conde Nast and the Netherlands Board of Tourism.
Her award winning documentary, fiction film and music video work as producer and co-founder at the production collective House of Nod has taken her all over the world.
Eric Johnson, Executive Producer, Original Series, CNN
Eric Johnson is currently an Executive Producer for CNN’s Program Development team, where he oversees a team that creates enterprising, longform content for CNN.
Prior to his role at Warner Media, Johnson spent nearly 15 years at ABC News where he was the co-Executive Producer of the primetime newsmagazine “Soul of a Nation”, a groundbreaking 6-part series spotlighting the Black lived experience in America. Concurrently, he was the Executive Producer and Director of Podcast Programming at ABC Audio, where he oversaw ABC News’ expanding podcast business including "Start Here," "Tulsa's Buries Truths," and "In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson.”
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Johnson began his prolific career in 2007 at ABC News as a Production Coordinator for Nightline in the Washington Bureau. He then spent several as a producer with Nightline and 20/20, producing longform content from around the globe. In the years that followed, Johnson continued to make a significant impact across ABC News as a producer, manager and executive -- including senior leadership roles at Good Morning America, ABC News Digital and Nightline.
Johnson won a duPont Columbia Award as co-producer of Diane Sawyer's acclaimed interview with Caitlyn Jenner, and has won multiple Emmy® Awards, including as Senior Producer for "The President and the People: Race in America".
Nathaniel Lezra, Director, Don't Leave Me Behind: Stories of Young Ukrainian Survival
Nathaniel Lezra has directed and produced award winning work in the longform documentary, narrative, and commercial spaces. His creative focus is on telling humanist stories that illuminate experiences outside the conventions of contemporary American culture, and explore the extremes of the human condition.
In 2023, he served as director and executive producer of Don't Leave Me Behind: Stories of Young Ukranian Survival, a feature documentary special for MTV and Paramount. Shot on location in Poland and at the Ukrainian border, the film is an examination of the fears and resiliencies within a group of teenage Ukrainian refugees fleeing combat. The film is now available for streaming on Paramount+ and viewable via broadcast services worldwide.
He is currently in post-production on his next feature documentary, and is based in New York City and Los Angeles.
Michael Tyner, Producer, Roberta, The People’s Way
Michael Tyner is an acclaimed producer and director known for his award-winning documentary films that highlights music, culture, justice and equality. He made his directorial debut with Malcolmology, a nationally broadcast six-part documentary series based on Dr. Manning Marable’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Tyner has served as a producer consultant on a number of significant projects, including Netflix’s 2020 docu-series Who Killed Malcolm X?
As Director of Development and Production at La Lutta Productions, Tyner has overseen the creation of numerous documentaries, including Frank Serpico and American Masters: Roberta Flack, which premiered on PBS and continues to screen globally. Tyner's most recent film, The People's Way, a poignant story about three Black women activists fighting for justice in the wake of George Floyd's murder, is set to premiere this fall.
Moderator: Geraldine Moriba, SVP and Chief Content Officer, theGrio
Geraldine Moriba is an award-winning media executive, filmmaker and multi-platform creator who has dedicated her career to producing content that has a social impact. She has a demonstrated ability to manage businesses of comparable scale and complexity. Her success is based on fostering collaborative, creative team environments infused with humility and mutual respect.
Her work has earned her many industry accolades, including over 20 film festival awards, three NAACP Image Award nominations, five Emmy Awards, an Alfred I. DuPont Award, two Peabody Awards, the distinguished Princeton University Ferris Professorship of Journalism Fellowship, the Anita Hill Gender Justice Award, two RTNDA-Unity Awards, two NABJ First Place Documentary Awards, and more.
Geraldine was a Stanford University Brown Institute research scientist and John S. Knight Journalism Fellow. Her research focused on ways to use machine learning to identify bias and editorial patterns.
Presented with the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and SVA Theatre
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The Center's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
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