Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

This award-winning documentary travels through time and space to reveal the enduring influence of Nikki Giovanni, one of America’s greatest living artists and social commentators. Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project reckons with the inevitable passing of time through a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings, and visually innovative treatments of Giovanni’s poetry.

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project pushes the boundaries of biographical documentary film, using visually innovative treatments of Giovanni's poetry, along with vérité, archival footage, and Giovanni’s own performances. The film goes through Givovanni's life and work through the tumultuous periods she lived through—from the Civil Rights Movement, to the Black Arts Movement, to Black Lives Matter.

Join us to view this film and hear from the co directors, Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster of Rada Film. This event has been possible thanks to HBO.

At the City College of NY, Shepard Hall Room 291 at 6:00 PM November 13th. 259 Convent Avenue at 140th Street, SE corner. ID to enter the building.

This event is mobility device accessible and will have CART and ASL for hearing challenged audiences. For further information contact [email protected]

To get to City College: #1 to 137th street, ABCD to 145th street. Accessible mode: #6 to 125th street, then M101 to 140th street. There is a ramp into the building.

This is a presentation of Third World Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at CCNY.

As co-founding member of the Rada Film Group, filmmaker, artist and author, Michèle Stephenson pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories in a variety of media that resonate beyond the margins. Her work has appeared on a variety of broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime and MTV. Her most recent film, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary and Best News Coverage of a Contemporary Issue. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festivals’ Main Slate Program. Her collaborative film series with New York Times Op-Docs, A Conversation on Race, won the 2016 Online Journalism Award for Commentary. Stephenson was awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, and she is a Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow. Her recent book, Promises Kept, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.

Joe Brewster is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who uses his psychological training as the foundation in approaching the themes and stories he tackles as an artist and filmmaker. As co-founder of the Rada Film Group, Brewster has created stories using installation, narrative, documentary and print mediums that have garnered support from critics and audiences internationally. He is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, MacArthur Foundation, and most recently the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Brewster is a Spirit Award and three-time Emmy Award nominee. His documentary film American Promise was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at Sundance and the African American Film Critics' Association Award. Brewster’s outreach accomplishments include a Revere Award and the 2013 NAACP Image Award for the best selling companion book Promises Kept and a BritDoc Prize for developing one of the most innovative documentary outreach campaigns in 2014.

Host or Publisher Third World Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at CCNY