November 4, 2025 • 53 mins
At the Montclair Film Festival, Lost in Jersey sat down with Shine Global—the award-winning team behind War/Dance and Inocente—to explore how real stories drive change far beyond the screen. Co-founders Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht trace their journey from a family trip to a war zone that inspired War/Dance to an Oscar win for Inocente and a mission to put children’s voices at the center of storytelling.
We unpack two decades of hard-earned lessons: how The Wrong Light unraveled a “rescue” narrative into a deeper truth, why The Harvest brought child labor realities to Congress, and how the team’s newest work investigates the troubled teen industry’s hidden abuses with The Business of Trouble. Along the way, we meet this year’s Resilience Award winners—young filmmakers whose short In Case You Forgot proves that creativity, even music created on a kid’s DJ toy, can carry real emotional power.
If you care about documentary ethics, storytelling as advocacy, and how art moves policy, this live conversation maps both the playbook and the pitfalls of making stories that matter.
Thank you to Montclair Film Festival for having us!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_11 (00:00):
Hi, listeners.
This episode is going to sound alittle bit wonky because it was
actually recorded live at theMontclair Film Festival at our
wonderful event where weinterviewed Shine Global and
some young filmmakers.
So please hang in there andenjoy the episode.
(00:20):
I'd like to bring our hosttonight to the stage, Rachel
Mertens and Jeanette Ashmarin.
SPEAKER_12 (00:37):
Thank you so much for coming in.
SPEAKER_11 (00:48):
So thank you very much.
And tonight we're celebratingresilience and film and
highlighting the incredible workof Shine Global.
We'll diamond a mission, how thedocumentaries come to life, and
what it really takes to tellstories that move people and
smart change.
We'll also meet the winners ofShine Global's 225 New
Filmmakers Award.
SPEAKER_12 (01:08):
The next generation of movie makers showing us what
resilience looks like on screenand Global is a nonprofit media
company that improves the livesof children by telling powerful
stories that raise awareness,promote action, and inspire
change.
For 20 years, they've producedaward-winning films that give a
voice to children and familiesfacing adversity around the
(01:29):
world.
SPEAKER_11 (01:42):
I'll go first with Susan McLaurie.
She's co-founder and senioradvisor of Shine Global, where
she served as executive directorfor nearly 20 years.
She's the force behindaward-winning films like
Wardance, Innocente, TheHarvest, The Eagle Righteous,
among many others.
Susan was also an associateprofessor of health education at
(02:03):
K University for many years.
What makes Susan's work sospecial is how it bridges
empathy, education, and impact.
Every film she touches movesaudiences and inspires change in
classrooms, communities, andeven policy around the world.
Hi, everybody.
SPEAKER_12 (02:22):
And next we have Albi Hecht.
He is the co-founder also ofShine Global and the chair of
the board of Shine Global, aswell as an award-winning
producer.
He was the president ofNickelodeon, where he oversaw
the development and productionof SpongeBob SquarePants, if you
guys have heard of that.
(02:44):
He also co-created and executiveproduced the Kids Choice Awards.
And he also then took a stint asthe general manager of CNN's
headline news network beforejoining Pocket Watch, where as a
chief content officer, hecreated an executive produced
the ME nominated Ryan's MysteryPlay Day, which is huge on
(03:07):
YouTube.
Has over 40 million subscribers.
So that is I'll be out.
SPEAKER_08 (03:14):
Love me or blame me for SpongeBob, it's okay.
SPEAKER_11 (03:18):
So first we'd love to hear your meeting cute.
And then how did you get intoJersey?
SPEAKER_08 (03:24):
Jersey.
And uh it's been an incrediblyuh soulmate journey ever since.
And uh we got to Jersey in asort of a roundabout way.
(03:47):
I think we resisted it first.
SPEAKER_06 (03:49):
We resisted it vehemently, actually.
SPEAKER_12 (03:52):
We've never we've never heard that version.
Basically, every person on ourpodcast has said that.
SPEAKER_06 (03:58):
I have to say, our good friends Ruth and Don Sarlin
were here, and Donnie's heretonight.
And um Ruth just sort of waitedpatiently.
We looked at every town in theHudson, we went up to Rye, we
went to Mamarinac, we went to uhRuth said out to the island.
We went to we tried Long Island.
And Ruth just said, I'm waiting,you'll end up here.
(04:18):
And she was right.
SPEAKER_08 (04:20):
And we moved on a auspicious day, right?
When Kate, my daughter, was uhwe just she was a city kid, she
loved the city, and so we had towait till she was going off to
college.
So the day we packed her off, wepacked up and moved to New
Jersey.
SPEAKER_12 (04:34):
Yes, I want to also know how did Shine Global come
about?
What prompted you to start ShineGlobal?
SPEAKER_06 (04:41):
The story of these children in northern Uganda
actually was the start ofeverything.
We were uh donors to anorganization called the African
Medical Research and EducationFoundation.
And from their director, welearned about the civil war that
was occurring in northernUganda.
And we learned in particularabout this group of children who
were forced to flee their homesevery single night at dusk and
(05:05):
walk several kilometers,sometimes carrying younger
brothers and sisters, to get tothe safety of a town called Gulu
where there was an armypresence.
Because if they were to havestayed, they risked being
kidnapped by the Lord'sResistance Army, which was uh it
was an offshoot of the originalrebel force that was fighting
(05:26):
against the central governmentof of Uganda, and it was very
violent and very dangerous.
We convinced the executivedirector of AMRAF to take us,
and and I just want you to knowthis in a fit of excellent
parenting, we took our childrenwith us.
SPEAKER_08 (05:42):
Into a war zone.
SPEAKER_06 (05:43):
Into the war zone.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know, where is childprotection services when when
kids really need them?
And um we went in search of thisparticular story, but by the
time we got to Uganda, thecircumstances had changed, and
all of the families that hadbeen living independently in
their own homes had been herdedup and put into an internally
(06:04):
displaced persons camp.
And so we got there and wethought, oh God, well, what's
our story?
And and we by chance one day ona tour uh of schools, listening
to a headmaster talk endlesslyabout his school's programs, uh,
they mentioned the fact that forthe first time in several years,
(06:26):
children from the north would beallowed to participate in
Uganda's national music anddance festival.
And we just looked at each otherand we said, That's our story,
because we wanted to tell astory that would be real and
would be gritty and maybe verysad, but we also wanted to tell
it in a way that was hopeful.
So when we could show these kidsliving in this camp, they they
(06:49):
live in a camp called Patong,and it had been built to house
maybe 5,000 people, but theywere maybe as many as ten times
that number actually forced tolive together, and their life
was very, very hard.
But when they would rehearse forthe music festival, their the
singing, their dancing, a wholeother side of them came to
(07:10):
light, and that was what wewanted the film to reflect.
SPEAKER_08 (07:12):
And uh first we didn't know we were gonna make a
film.
I mean, we we kind of thought,well, well, how can we help?
And uh Sue was sort of mullingit over and said, Well, we could
adopt Patang and Montclair's abig town, and we'll do a
fundraiser and maybe we'll sendmoney, we'll be able and I was
like, you know, I I don't knowanything about fundraiser, but I
know how to make a movie, andthis sounds like a movie.
(07:35):
And Sue was at the time stillteaching and social worker, and
she's like, Wow, movie, we canmake a movie, that's great,
right?
And I said, Yeah, and you canhelp.
SPEAKER_06 (07:43):
And I said, Could I help?
I w couldn't even dare toimagine that I could be part of
this.
SPEAKER_08 (07:49):
Absolutely.
You're the executive producer.
And I remember I was just walkedout of the room kind of thinking
about it, and then Sue lookedand I heard her voice say, Well,
that's great, what a greattitle, right?
What do I do?
And I said, Well, you raise themoney.
SPEAKER_12 (08:04):
The the that's the hard part, actually.
That was hard part.
SPEAKER_08 (08:07):
When we went into the war zone, it was an
incredible experience.
And as Sue said, we took ourchildren who was a teenager and
a young woman at the time, andand felt this was a chance for
them to see another part of theworld and what was going on.
That was the good part of takingthem.
But it kind of went awry alittle bit when we got in there.
We we kind of went on the busand we were looking at different
(08:29):
locations, and one point uh oneof the people with us said they
gotta go to the bathroom, getoff the bus.
They went to the front of thebus, and the colonel stopped
them and said, You're notgetting off the bus.
Look out there in the in thebushes.
And he said, That's where therebels are and they're watching
us.
And we were like, Ooh, this isuh a little more dangerous.
(08:49):
We got to our camp to stay wherewe were staying.
Well, first, as we were troopingthrough the mud and the muck, we
were really amazed that mydaughter had brought her Gold
Lamay sandals into this as a asa way to walk around.
And uh, and outside one of therooms was this really heavy-duty
military boots, and we asked theperson showing to the room,
said, Who what is that?
(09:10):
And he said, Well, that belongsto a colonel who was in the
Lord's Resistance Army who isstaying here on the way to be
reconciled with the tribe.
They were gonna forgive him, Iguess.
This is a man who would no lessthan 20 kids into the army and
turn them into deadly childsoldiers.
And I just remember my sonlooking at the door and go,
(09:31):
killer, killer.
I don't know.
It was uh scary moments, but wewe prevailed.
SPEAKER_12 (09:37):
Well, you you really prevailed.
That was an Oscar-nominatedfilm, your first film that you
did.
So how did you produce a film atthat level for your first the
first get out?
Did you bring a crew?
How did you film it?
SPEAKER_06 (09:51):
We had an amazing director that Albi found when he
was working at uh Spike TV, SeanFine.
And Sean assembled a small butreally terrific crew, and they
came to Uganda a couple of weeksafter we were there, and they
scouted.
They they went to three two orthree different schools, and
(10:12):
they found the three kids thatthey wanted to work with all in
one school.
And uh it was tough.
And you know, I I think aboutthis a lot.
There are a couple of scenes inthat film.
Very few of you have ever seenthis film because it's been
under litigation for 19 yearsbecause of uh the documentary
films.
SPEAKER_08 (10:32):
Yeah, there was amazing films where he he got
the trust of them and it it tooka while.
These kids were so damaged.
I mean, Dominic had killedsomebody when he was nine years
old with a tough.
They were tough.
But he and I remember there wasyou know, it was our first film,
their first film, and we didn'tget any footage for like three
weeks, and we were panickedbecause it cost a lot of money.
And we were like, Sean, what'swhat are you shooting?
(10:53):
He goes, I can't shoot yet, Ican't shoot you.
Because every day he would goout to this tree outside the
camp and sit there and wait forNancy and some of the kids to
come out to talk to him.
And they would not come outevery day.
And then after a while, he wouldbe finally Nancy came out and he
said, Well, why didn't you meetme?
And she said, Well, I waswatching you to see if you were
(11:15):
gonna come every day and reallytalk to me.
So it took a while for him toget that trust.
They got the trust, they shotthese incredible films uh
segments, one by a grave whereshe was weeping over her father,
and there was the LRA waswatching her also there.
SPEAKER_11 (11:33):
I think that's the key to a lot of what you were
saying.
Um we spoke before about yourdocumentaries of documentary
filmmaking in general, is thatyou need to get the trust of the
people you're filming, and thattakes however long it takes.
SPEAKER_06 (11:48):
And I'm gonna add that I spoke with Nancy this
past week.
She called actually seekingmoney.
She'd been working for USAID forthe last seven years, and of
course, all funding has been cutfrom there.
And she she talked reallymovingly about the impact that
that's had on families,especially small children, and
(12:10):
how many of them are are dyingfrom AIDS.
And I thought, you know, she'sone of several of the kids that
we've worked with who've gone onto do amazing work themselves.
And it's it's I'm sure being inthe documentary had something to
do with that, but it's it's verymoving to see that.
SPEAKER_12 (12:26):
Well, the next film that we wanted to talk about is
the, you know, you've started,you've had a lot of celebrities
that have come on board.
And I know that it I'm going alittle bit chronologically that
you had the the the harvest comeup, and I believe that Evelyn
Goria came on that.
You told us a funny story aboutyour first Zoom call with her.
(12:47):
Can you share that?
SPEAKER_08 (12:48):
Yeah, first let me say before you tell that, which
is like because we did thatfirst film and it was an amazing
journey, one at Sundance, and ityou know, went at all these
festivals, and it ended up atthe Oscars, and we were there,
and it was Seuss's first film.
SPEAKER_00 (13:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_08 (13:03):
And you know, I've been making films for a while,
but then we went to make thesecond film, and Seuss goes,
Well, that's the way you do it.
You make the film, you go toSundance, you go to festivals,
Oscar and you go to the Oscars,this is how it works.
SPEAKER_12 (13:19):
You got spoiled off the first.
SPEAKER_08 (13:20):
Well, we did get spoiled.
It was tough to find the fundingfor the next film, which was
amazing.
We thought, okay, we did this,we're on our way.
SPEAKER_11 (13:27):
I mean, you would think that, getting the
recognition of being at theOscars.
SPEAKER_06 (13:31):
Well, one of the things that we learn to our
chagrin, honestly, and has beentrue all the 20 years since
Shine first started, is peoplewho come in to support one film,
they come in because of thesubject matter.
You know, I mean now, yes, atthis point I think Shine has a
very good reputation, but itstill doesn't really bring the
(13:51):
big money in for for projects.
So I I I was just operating ontotally the wrong the wrong
preposition.
Proposition.
So we were really kind ofpanicked.
We didn't know what we weregonna do, how we were gonna find
the money to make the harvest.
And the harvest was the story ofthree of the estimated half
(14:12):
million American children wholeave school for months uh every
year to travel with theirfamilies across the country to
pick different crops.
We were we reached out to afriend in LA, and she was a
friend of Eva Langoria's agentand Christie, and Christy told
Eva what we were doing.
(14:32):
And Eva was an activist, andthis was her issue.
She had been a close friend ofDolores Cuerta, who along with
Cesar Chavez, had started thefirst strikes against farm
owners.
I attended my first Zoom sessionever in a corporate theater and
an enormous screen, and we'reI'm sitting there, and Eva comes
(14:52):
in and she sits down at hertable and she introduces
herself.
Like she needed to introduceherself, right?
Um, and um and she I'll neverforget, she leaned forward and
she said, I am begging you tolet me be a part of this film.
And it was all I could do not toslide out of my chair.
I was I was so surprised bythat.
(15:13):
And she came on board and um andthen I they sent this contract
that we had to sign that she hadto go first class, she had to
fly first class, she had to, youknow, get limos, she had to have
her hair and makeup done andwhatever.
And I said, unless she's willingfor us to drive her and I'll do
her hair and makeup, I can'tpossibly sign this.
(15:34):
We we can't afford any of this.
And Chrissy said, you have tosign it, but don't worry, she'll
never ask you to do this.
And to she never did.
And she raised, she and her herclose associates raised 80% of
the funding for that film.
SPEAKER_08 (15:49):
She worked the film.
She and she has continued to anyplace that she has put her name.
She worked it.
She went to Washington with usto show it to congressional
leaders.
She showed it across thecountry.
She was very committed.
Um, we owe a lot to Eva fordoing that.
SPEAKER_12 (16:04):
Impressive.
So, Rachel, which movie did youwant to look at?
Yeah.
Well, we should talk about in asense a the one that won the
Oscar.
Yeah.
So soon after that, you did winthe Oscar.
So tell us about that.
SPEAKER_06 (16:16):
I'm laughing because the first time we were nominated
for Wardance, I bought my firstand only designer dress of my
life.
And it was um Donna Karen, Idon't know how you pronounce the
name.
Donna Karen.
Karen.
Okay, and it was this jerseykind of dress, and I just was
defeated by it.
I struggled with the shoulders,the shoulders of this dress the
(16:37):
entire night.
And the dress kept winning, andso I finally get the shoulder
things down where they'resupposed to be, and we're
sitting in the audience, and andnow they're gonna announce the
the best documentary.
And Albi's really excited.
He leans over, he goes, This isit, and I go, Don't touch me,
don't touch me.
And sadly, I but I thought, oh,this is our moment.
Our kids are gonna see us, ourfriends are gonna see us, and
(16:59):
they announced the winner, andit's not us.
SPEAKER_08 (17:02):
You almost got up.
SPEAKER_06 (17:03):
I wanted to get up to tell the people who'd gotten
up in front of us to sit down,but it turns out that they were
the winners, so they weren'tsitting down, so they were going
up to to collect the awards.
SPEAKER_08 (17:12):
But uh yeah, fortunately, we made another
trip there.
Sente came to us from again thefines.
We we have consistently workedwith first-time directors who
have gone on to do other things.
We we try to find new voices,particularly a lot of women
voices in the uh directors.
Andrea Fine was one of thedirectors with him.
And they came back to us with afilm they were working on about
(17:34):
the resilience, about women whowere resilient women around the
world, and then it sort offallen apart, but they were
totally taken with this one15-year-old girl in in San Diego
who's homeless and was anartist, and they told us about
it.
They sent us the footage, and itwas extraordinarily compelling
footage, and she was alsoundocumented, so a lot of issues
(17:55):
we wanted to help tackle withthem, and we decided we would
take that footage and turn itinto a film.
At that point, they wanted to doa feature, and I thought we
needed to get the film outsooner, and also that just
strategically at the time shortswere emerging as a more
prominent uh documentary format,and there was less competition,
actually.
So, from a marketingperspective, I was like, hey, we
(18:17):
might have a better shot if wedo it as a short.
So they were like, okay, let'stry to do that.
And we uh and we were able tocomplete that film.
I will say there were momentsthere where, you know, from a
talking to the directors andwhat they get and what they
don't get, it's a it's a it's auh collaboration, a process, but
there's there's also thesemoments where you wish you could
(18:38):
do things, but you're dealingwith real-life subjects who have
real life issues and are um uhin real time.
And uh, you know, you fell forinnocente Sue kept asking in the
film, um, she's very estrangedfrom her mother.
Um, and there's a few scenes init, but there could have been
more, but she wouldn't talk toher mother.
(18:59):
And uh, although we kept asking,I think it was eventually was
like, okay, this is the film wehave, let's work with it.
And that happens.
So we couldn't go deeper, but Ithink if you saw the film,
you'll feel we went deep enough.
It's a very emotional, verycompelling, visually stunning.
The finds did an amazing job.
And to this day, that film isused as our most successful film
in outreach.
(19:20):
It's used in education, classesfor art, uh promoting art
education and promotingimmigration issues.
And Inocente herself is growninto an amazing lady.
She's a successful artist, she'sa teacher.
And just uh last month when wehad our gala, she came to speak,
and the day before she went outto Brooklyn with the film to
(19:44):
show it to uh a community centeruh and advocate for arts
education.
Uh and so she works on it allthe time.
It's incredibly heartwarming andso.
SPEAKER_12 (19:54):
And the film Incenta uh is about a homeless girl that
is kind of escapes through herart, and she nobody at high
school knows that she ishomeless, and she now was part
of your 20th year gala.
It is really an incredible film.
I watched it and recommended.
So you told us about a film thatWe didn't tell you anything.
(20:16):
You told me we talked to youbeforehand.
unknown (20:20):
It was all spontaneous.
SPEAKER_12 (20:21):
There is a film that you spotlighted that was kind of
pivotal in your filmmakingcareer.
It became an expose.
Can you tell us about the filmthat changed the The Wrong
Light?
SPEAKER_06 (20:35):
Yeah, we have a film in the festival uh this, I
guess, Sunday, The Business ofTrouble, and that was an
intended investigative film.
But the The Wrong Light, which Ithink was our fourth film, did
not start out to be that.
It was we we were visited oneday by a young woman who'd spent
two years in Thailand on aFulbright uh scholarship, and
(20:57):
she went to study one thing, butbecame fascinated by the sex
trafficking of children.
And she, in that time that shewas in Thailand, she visited
several different programs forexploited children, and she came
back really enamored with thisone program, KOSA, Children of
Southeast Asia, and it was runby a man named Mickey Chutesa.
(21:18):
And so, you know, one one of thethings that's interesting, I'll
just take uh as a quick aside.
Over the years there have beenso many stories that we've
learned about that would bewould have been really, really
fascinating documentaries, butbut so often they revolved
around a one very charismaticperson who was making the
difference through theirorganization.
(21:39):
And that was always a challengefor us.
We never wanted to make a filmthat was really telling the
story of another organization.
And in effect, that's we did wedid end up doing that to some
extent with Mickey.
So Alby and I had a chance inthe summer of 2013 to go to
Thailand and we went with thisyoung woman, Natalie Yashanka,
(22:00):
and we traveled to NorthernThailand to meet Mickey and to
see his his um his center and toscout for some of the subjects
for the film.
And we were just blown away byhim.
We were really enamored.
He wasn't the easiest person tounderstand.
He he was Thai, but he'd spentsome of his childhood in the
(22:21):
States, and so he spoke passableEnglish, and I'm assuming very
good Thai, but because I can'tspeak a word of it.
And he also spoke a dialect ofthe Mian dialect, which was the
language spoken in this remotevillage in Northern Thailand.
And that's where the girls whohe he was bringing to his
(22:42):
program came from, from thistiny village.
And he said, Oh, sure, I'll helpyou make this film.
And by the way, the the goldentriangle there is also where all
the it's not just drugsmuggling, it's child smuggling.
I'll take you there.
I'll take you to a town meetingup in the village where you'll
see the parents decide whichchildren are going to be sold.
SPEAKER_08 (23:03):
And um and and we'll watch we'll we'll follow them on
their trip into Thailand andWell, he he said that the all
the girls in the program wereones that were going to be
trafficked or that he hadrescued from trafficking, and
that's was on his website.
That was part of his uhpromotion to raise funds, and
that these uh girls that we metthere that we interviewed and we
put on tape for our director,we're all had these different
(23:26):
stories of being trafficked insome way, shape, or form.
We went and talked to a formertrafficker who we weren't
allowed to ask certain questionsof.
He was very charismatic, and wedid a lot of due diligence as
much as we could on theorganization, which was
registered in the United States,and we had background checks and
seemed like a really powerfulstory.
(23:46):
We sent these directors there,and he also insisted usually
when we do films in foreigncountries, we have what's called
a fixer, a local person whoknows the territory and speaks
the language, and is there tohelp and assist with the
production and the relationshipswith the locals and any
permitting or things that youneed.
(24:07):
But Mickey said, I'll be thefixer, don't worry, I got it all
taken care of.
So directors when they firstwent did not have that.
And they did all theseinterviews and things got
strange.
We kept getting reports back.
SPEAKER_06 (24:19):
That that really violates the first rule of
documentary filmmaking.
You find your own fixer, it's anindependent person.
You don't rely on, you know,certainly don't rely on your
film subject to do that.
So what ended up happening wasthat he was he was just he was
hard to understand.
We we were all sort ofstruggling with it.
And each one of us thought,well, maybe it's me that's
(24:41):
having the problem.
But when Josie and Dave, whowere who were the co-directors,
uh and their team went to uhThailand in September of that
year, it was 2013, and we we'dbeen there in July of that year,
and they started filming and umand they they finished the
shoot, they they sent us all thefootage, they said, Can you get
(25:04):
this translated for us?
And so we f we found translatorswho work not only in Thai but in
Mian, and we we got them thetranslations and we get a call
from Josie and she says, I don'tknow what's going on here, but
he didn't ask any of thequestions we asked him to ask.
And still you would think withthat in mind, we would all say,
Hmm, something's really wrongwith this guy.
(25:27):
Long story short, they went toThailand three times to do
shoots.
Um turned out that he hadtotally misrepresented the
children.
Their parents had not sold them.
They he had gone to theirvillage and had said, Look, I
have this program, it's in a youknow, in a much better city, the
schools are good.
Send your your your kids to yourdaughters to us and we'll take
(25:49):
care of them.
And they did so very trustingly.
And um until we got there anduntil Josie on the second shoot
said to Mickey, You cannot be myfixer anymore.
And you know, and she found shebrought in a Thai woman to to be
the fixer, and immediately thatwoman saw real, real weird
things happening to her.
SPEAKER_08 (26:07):
There was a very dramatic moment if you watch the
film in which she's interviewinga mother for the second time
with the real heart translator,and the mother's asked, Why did
you you know your daughter worksas a your older daughter works
in town as a escort, and thisone was going to be trafficked,
and now she's here.
Do you feel good about it?
And she goes blank and shedoesn't know, she's like, What?
(26:31):
And she says, No, no, no, andthen she looks over at Mickey
and she stops talking, and yourealize there's something really
wrong.
And from there on it took adramatic turn.
We found out Mickey was probablyrunning guns, there were a lot
of guns in his uh his compound.
The directors were terrified,decided maybe we should shut the
(26:53):
film down.
We brought our board in.
They decided in the end tosupport it and say maybe we can
go forward with this.
And the issue again was that thekids were getting an education,
but he was raising a tremendousamount of money and buying cars
and land off of it, and we knewthe funders, so we basically
were able to turn the filmaround, said to the director who
(27:13):
didn't want to do it.
So the only way we could tellthis story now is if you have to
be part of it and and tell theaudience what's going on.
And so she reluctantly agreed.
We were able to bust up thering, got their funder who was
Australian and uh formermilitary.
He pulled the funding, hepersecuted Mickey.
(27:34):
The girls, he actually wasamazing because we wanted to
make sure the girls were takencare of.
He guaranteed all of them theirscholarships and their money so
they were taken care of.
We felt good about that.
Uh Mickey was run out of town,and uh so there was, I think, a
good ending, but it was it wasreally kind of terrifying, and
then there was a coda to it thatwas even crazier.
SPEAKER_12 (27:57):
But it's I mean it's an interesting thing for a
documentarian that has an ideaof what their documentary is
gonna be about, and how you havethese high hopes that you're
gonna tell a really good story,you're passionate about it, but
then you realize somewhere alongthe line that there's corruption
in the story.
And to be forthright and notstick to shift the story is a
(28:19):
fascinating.
SPEAKER_08 (28:20):
We thought we had put to bed the whole thing, and
then Sue and I want to say, wegotta get out of town, take a
little vacation.
We're on our way there.
We get a call in the car, thecar phone, and we had just hired
a new assistant at Chine.
Two new assistants were in theoffice for a week, and we get a
call, and they're like, Help me,Sue.
We're in the bathroom.
I'm like, What what do you mean?
(28:40):
There's somebody at the door.
I'm like, okay, it's your job toanswer the door.
No, no, no, it's it's the FBI.
I was like, the what?
SPEAKER_06 (28:49):
Well, can I tell the background of that?
So somehow our film got to theState Department at at one
point, and um the woman who wasour liaison there showed it
once, twice, three times.
She kept getting requests toshow the film within the state.
SPEAKER_08 (29:02):
Well, because it turns out Mickey was an American
citizen, so they had a stake init.
SPEAKER_06 (29:06):
So they had a stake in it.
So we get we get a call from theuh from the FBI, and they want
they want access to our footage.
They want to take a look at whatyou know what we've got, what
they what they can learn aboutMickey, and we said, sure, it's
no problem.
Just let us know when you wantit, we'll send it over to your
office.
But instead, these two verymacho guys, shoot uh suit
(29:30):
jackets open so you can seetheir guns.
SPEAKER_08 (29:32):
Because the the assistants had come up in the
elevator with them and seentheir guns.
SPEAKER_06 (29:36):
The funny part of this story is that Albi is being
very good, very deferential, andI am so pissed off that they've
done this.
SPEAKER_08 (29:44):
I'm like, okay, go.
Did you see their credentials?
They go, Yes, does it looklegitimate?
Yes, okay.
Open the door for the FBI, putthem on the speakerphone.
So they they come in and they,you know, uh, where's the
footage?
And uh and we said, Well, youwere going to make an
appointment.
We're not there now, come backwhen we're there.
And we'll talk to you, and I'mbeing trying to manage it.
And Sue got her her real momvoice on, I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_06 (30:06):
Yeah, because I had this voice, it was my mother's
voice, and every once in a whileit comes out when I least expect
it.
It always scared the crap out ofus when we were kids.
And it works effectively onother people too, as it turns
out.
And this voice came out of me.
I remember I was and I said, Howdare you?
I said it with a few expletives,probably.
SPEAKER_08 (30:25):
Oh do the exorcism.
SPEAKER_06 (30:26):
You know, how how dare you do this?
You've embarrassed us in frontof our everybody in our
building.
I was afraid we were gonna getkicked out of our our office
because of this, you know, andwe said we told you we would
send it, and blah, blah, blah,blah.
SPEAKER_11 (30:37):
So Well, that does take us into Anuja.
So I don't know uh how manypeople have seen Anuja, but it's
on it's on Netflix, so youshould go see it.
It's a beautiful short film.
Um and it's about uh two girlsand it leaves your hand, which
is why I really like it.
But um made me give a littlesynopsis just about that.
SPEAKER_08 (30:58):
Sure.
Well the film is about two uhfirst our first narrative sh
it's a narrative shorts abouttwo uh girls and uh India
sisters who work in a factory,which is part of what actually
is the fabric of their lives.
They're homeless again.
And one of them is uh a mathgenius and gets a chance to go
to on a scholarship to a school,but it has implications for the
(31:19):
family that are uh they faceevery day in India about
substance and working versusgoing to school.
It's about women and educationand and they have two sisters,
and one of them was homeless,not an actress either.
She did a remarkable job, and uhit it it's it's really being
used in advocacy quiteeffectively now.
SPEAKER_12 (31:38):
You had said that this film was brought to you
already made.
Can you explain how that works?
That someone brings a completelyfinished film to you.
SPEAKER_06 (31:47):
It's the first and only time it's ever happened.
Adam Grays is the the director,and his wife Suchitra Matai is
this a very wonderful Indianartist who works in textiles.
And I I don't know how he foundout about Aaron Cobb, who was
our director of Liana, but wasanother another really beautiful
film that he'd made that washalf documentary and half
(32:10):
animation.
But Aaron suggested that he cometo us.
And so the film was done.
It was a chance to join thisfilm without having to pay
anything to do that, which is asI said the first and only time
that's ever happened.
Um and he came because he neededhelp with festival strategy.
And they they were having mixedsuccess in festivals, but they
(32:31):
did win the LA Shorts Festival,and that qualified them for the
Academy Award.
And then Mindy Kaylin came in.
God bless her, the the film wasshortlisted, and she campaigns
so dramatically for the film.
I always feel like she's thereason we got nominated because
of the I've watched that filmtwice.
SPEAKER_12 (32:50):
It is so good.
It is so good.
It's such a beautifulstorytelling of how this sprite
girl makes enough money, has tomake enough money to go take the
test, and how her sister helpsher.
It's really beautiful.
SPEAKER_08 (33:03):
And it's told from their point of view, and this is
like a shine mantra.
So there's a lot of films thatuse adults to tell these
stories, but we want childrenand the kids to tell their
stories as personally andintimately as they can.
Because you know, they don't geta chance to speak.
And these films give them thechance to speak directly, and
that's really an important partof our filmmaking.
SPEAKER_12 (33:26):
So we want to talk about a short film that you have
at the festival.
Yes.
So it is another expose, yoursecond expose that you've done.
Tell us about the business oftrouble.
SPEAKER_06 (33:37):
This was intended to be an expose.
The business of trouble was veryinteresting about this film.
It's it's it's a it's veryshort, it's 34 minutes.
Um and this film was brought tous by one of our board members.
Um, and he he'd made a bigdonation for another cause, and
he said to me, kind of off thecuff, he said, if you were ever
to make a film about thetroubled teen industry, I would
(34:00):
give you half a million dollars.
And I said, Wow, becauseactually we have been looking at
that.
We'd been doing research aboutstories primarily about programs
in Utah and California, but wewere very interested in the
topic.
And he did come aboard, he didgive us most of the funding, we
we raised the rest, and and wemade this story that uh features
(34:24):
four women, actually.
SPEAKER_11 (34:28):
Yeah, it's extraordinary, and it really we
did a deep dive researching allthe things after we saw that.
Um, there's an amazingorganization that is mentioned
in this called unsilenced.org,which really does a fabulous job
explaining a lot of um howprivate equity has become a huge
(34:49):
part in owning these differentplaces, which are therapeutic
boarding schools, wildernesstherapy programs, faith-based
academies, and conversiontherapy camps.
SPEAKER_06 (35:00):
Yeah, the key point of this film is the role played
by private equity in these inthese programs.
And I and I was thinking aboutthis earlier today.
I would it occurs to me that I Iwould look at private equity as
very similar to a virus enteringa uh a living cell, in that it
it depletes that cell of itsnutrients, it copies its RNA and
(35:24):
and the the cell is effectivelydestroyed.
And that's what happens to somany programs that private
equity invests in.
They go in with uh remaininginvolved with an organization
maybe five to seven years andthey suck the life out of it.
And so that's what happens inthese programs.
And in fact, the board memberwho gave us this money was
(35:48):
motivated to do this because hisown son had been in one of these
programs.
Over the months that he wasthere.
Andrew said he kept hearing hisson say, Well, I don't have this
therapist anymore, and thatprogram has ended, and and we
used to do this, but we don'tanymore.
And Andrew, who was a very savvyreal estate guy in New York and
very, you know, veryknowledgeable about finance, he
(36:10):
said to himself, he said, Thissounds like private equity, and
he investigated it.
And yes, indeed, that's what washappening.
And so that was our purpose formaking this film.
There is no federal legislationthat governs the activities of
these centers.
And Paris Hilton, as I'm suremany of you know, herself was
remanded to one of thesecenters.
(36:31):
She's become a fervent activist.
She was speaking with members ofCongress during the Biden
administration.
And our outreach goal for thisfilm is, and it won't happen
during this administration.
I think we all know this, sowe're just gonna have to bide
our time.
But but when sanity is restored,the goal is to to really push
for federal legislation.
SPEAKER_08 (36:53):
Meanwhile, we're working on the state level,
which is which is importantbecause we can start in the
states like Florida and Utah andplaces where these places are
and get some regulation and alsothere's they get federal
funding.
So it's a double whammy.
They get federal funding andthey're unregulated.
Talking to some taxpayerdollars.
That's right.
And it's really uh a tragedy,and these these kids need help,
(37:14):
and we hope the film helps them.
SPEAKER_11 (37:16):
Yeah, I and I think it was really interesting that
we discovered that New Jersey isactually a state that does
regulate it does.
And it has it does not havefor-profit boarding, therapeutic
boarding.
It tries to do it has atwenty-four uh seven outreach.
If you have are struggling andyou need help right away, you
(37:36):
can call a number, uh, then theywill send a team to your house
to help.
And they try really to enforceand put Medcake dollars to
helping with at-home help aswell as community.
SPEAKER_08 (37:50):
A model that is being looked at for these other
states.
So go Jersey.
SPEAKER_12 (37:55):
So talking about young teens, we are going to be
moving into our special guestscoming up who are part of the
resilience award winners thisyear.
SPEAKER_08 (38:07):
And love making films.
We made almost now 23 films, butwe can't make enough to talk
about this topic in kids.
So we thought we would start theResilience Awards to support
other filmmakers who are makingfilms about resilience to help
improve the lives of kids.
We're now in seven differentfestivals where we give prizes
for screenwriting, forfilmmaking, for shorts, for
(38:29):
docs, different categories.
And one of these categories nowis for emerging filmmakers in
the Montclair Festival.
And we really love these filmsand support them.
We help their outreach, we givethem a grant of some money, uh,
we give them outreach support,festival support, uh, because
these are the films, as we say,we wish we made and that other
people made.
(38:49):
So the resilience awards, we'rereally proud.
These filmmakers here in in NewJersey are uh an amazing young
talent, and the film they madeis is powerful.
SPEAKER_12 (38:59):
It is.
Before we bring up them, I alsowant to say that the award that
was given out is in coordinationwith Montclair Film Festival
with Sue Hollingberg as theeducational director that
alerted us of this film and toldus that you know we should take
a look at it.
And so we did, and so they'rehere tonight.
We're gonna probably do somemusical chairs here in a minute,
(39:22):
but before we're gonna show youthe film.
So their film is called, In CaseYou Forgot, it's a four-minute
film created by Henry Slater andJackson Provin, winners of the
Shine Global 2025 FilmmakerResilience Award.
The film explores themes ofmemory, identity,
self-reflection through the lensof a young person writing a
letter to their future selves.
(39:44):
A quiet and powerful meditation,a resilience and emotional
growth.
So welcome to the nextgeneration.
SPEAKER_04 (39:52):
Hello, guys.
SPEAKER_12 (39:53):
So are all of you seniors right now?
We are you're all seniors.
So you actually experience thisevent that you did a film on.
SPEAKER_03 (40:02):
Yeah, we're like in the process right now of
applying to college and goinggoing through all of that, yeah.
SPEAKER_12 (40:07):
So tell us, are you all in film classes or is this a
hobby, or how do you how did youguys get into making films?
SPEAKER_04 (40:14):
I think we wish we had film classes at our school,
but we don't.
No, it's just like since we werelittle, we've all like us four
have been making moviestogether.
Really since we were like inelementary school, and we've
always just loved it.
SPEAKER_12 (40:25):
Can you each tell us what part you played and what
your roles were in it?
SPEAKER_03 (40:31):
For this one, yeah.
Um I was a screenwriter and wasthe main main actor, and I
edited it with Julian.
We all we all had a lot ofdifferent parts though, like
because it was really just thefour of us.
I think each one of us wasintegral in our own way.
SPEAKER_04 (40:46):
Um my name's Henry.
I was the director and I pitchedJackson the original idea.
SPEAKER_02 (40:51):
Um I'm Sean, and I just wanted to help wherever I
could.
So if they needed me to dosomething like make fake tears,
then fake tears.
SPEAKER_12 (41:00):
How did he make fake tears?
SPEAKER_04 (41:02):
We're just flicking.
SPEAKER_01 (41:05):
And uh I'm Julian.
I also edited with Jackson, andthen uh I'm sure you guys heard
it, Music by Julian.
That was uh music by Julian.
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_12 (41:14):
I didn't wait till the very end, the first time I
watched it, and then I was like,oh wait, at the very end, he
says music by Julian, because Iwas like, who did the music?
Because the second time I caughtthe music, and I loved the
little simplicity of it.
SPEAKER_01 (41:26):
It was uh all done on a Walmart kids toy.
I don't know.
I don't know if I've actuallyever said that.
No, this was uh the or am Iallowed to plug it?
Or I'm not sponsored.
I think it's oh please, okay.
It's the um V Tech like kitty DJstar machine.
It's like 50 bucks at Walmart.
That thing has gotten me so farin life, you would not believe
that.
I'm so serious.
SPEAKER_00 (41:46):
That is awesome.
SPEAKER_04 (41:48):
He's definitely had $50 of fun.
Julian was just like recordingweird samples, and we were like,
we should just leave that in themovie.
So now every time we have towatch it in front of an
audience, it's like we all justlike awkward laugh because we're
like, oh my god, I can't believewe did that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
Every night.
No, no, no.
Yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_12 (42:07):
So, Henry, you said you pitched the idea.
What brought up the idea?
How did that come to you?
SPEAKER_04 (42:12):
Um, we had a uh there was another, what was the
competition called?
SPEAKER_03 (42:17):
It was just like the New Jersey high school film
competition.
SPEAKER_04 (42:20):
So we had to make a three-minute movie or something,
and uh the I think the theprompt was like out of place.
Yeah, that was it.
SPEAKER_03 (42:28):
It was just out of place.
SPEAKER_04 (42:30):
Uh I was thinking back uh at like the end of our
junior year, I was like thinkingabout applying to college and
just the the stress that comeswith that and stuff.
Uh we like I was just like, sowhat if we made a movie about,
you know, a kid who applies tocollege, does not get into his
dream school, and uh we we usedto spin it near the end and r
(42:53):
make make it clear thateverything's gonna be okay
despite that.
And uh Jackson ran with it.
SPEAKER_03 (43:00):
Yeah.
We wrote a script, we had tomake the original competition
that we made it for, we only hada couple days to do it.
Like they released the prompt,and then we had like four days
to submit it.
So I wrote it in like one nightbecause we came up or he came up
with that the concept, and thenI was just like, I had like no
time to edit it, so it wasbasically just whatever whatever
I came up with.
SPEAKER_01 (43:20):
Could I butt in for a second?
Yeah, we had talked about this.
We we held a writer's meeting,which was us just having our
school lunch in like the the onegreen room we have.
SPEAKER_04 (43:32):
Um it's not it's not a green room, it's a room that
is green.
No, it's green.
Literally bright green.
SPEAKER_01 (43:42):
But um, yeah, not to interrupt.
But like it was so crazy howrushed all of this was.
Yeah, Henry gave us the idea onelike we we learned about the
prompt, and Henry pitched theidea, and then in like one lunch
lunch period, we figured out theplan for everything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
Yeah, go back, yeah.
SPEAKER_11 (43:59):
No, that's awesome.
Because you said you've beenmaking films together for a
while.
Can you give us a a a littlepeek of what were some of your
earlier projects?
SPEAKER_02 (44:07):
We started on the comedy.
SPEAKER_12 (44:08):
I I'm kind of not surprised.
When you look back at this film,since you say it was rushed, uh,
do you see changes you wish youwould have made to it?
SPEAKER_04 (44:19):
I think.
Well, first of all, we shot itall in one night.
And edited we from what?
SPEAKER_03 (44:24):
Like three to We shot from four p.m.
to one in the morning, and thenwe went back to my house and we
set up everything and edited.
Me and Julian edited the wholemovie and did the score and
everything from one in themorning to seven a.m.
And then I left to go to likevirtually, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:45):
Like we were rushed.
SPEAKER_03 (44:47):
It was literally I hit like submit and then walked
out the door.
So um, so that version waspretty rushed.
But then we after we spentanother week like tweaking it,
which is the one that you justsaw.
Um so we had we had some time tosort of shape it a little
better.
SPEAKER_11 (45:04):
Do you want to pursue film going forward, or
are you open-minded to whateverhappens in college and study
different things?
SPEAKER_01 (45:12):
We love making movies, we love making movies.
For me, I've known that I'veI've wanted I've wanted to do
this since I was like seven.
And uh no, Henry already saidthis, but like we grew up making
these videos on YouTube, likelike because it was just it was
the only thing that like weloved.
We would take our cameras or ourphones and walk into the our
like school creek every day, andwe would like no plan, no
(45:36):
nothing.
We just did it because it waswhat we loved.
And um I mean that that's a lotof how this movie came out.
It was just we got the firstopportunity to do something on
the scale that we wanted to, soyeah, like film is at least for
me, is everything.
This is what I'm I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_04 (45:51):
Yeah, much much like Julian.
I've wanted to do film for sucha crazy long time.
Throughout high school, I'vejust gotten more and more
obsessed with movies and justhow they how they work.
That's cool.
SPEAKER_03 (46:03):
For me, my my main passion is is music.
Um, but doing these movies islike one of the greatest things
ever.
Um, and I definitely want tocontinue, whether that's film
scoring or just being a part ofthe industry in some way.
Um I'm I'm really passionateabout it.
So I would love to have it besome part of my career.
Yeah.
I think you guys are off to areally good start.
SPEAKER_11 (46:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
So if anybody has any questionseither for Albi or Susan or
these amazing kids, we're gonnainvite Albi and Susan back up to
the stage and we're gonna stepoff.
SPEAKER_12 (46:37):
I thought I planted some people to ask some
questions.
Yes.
I'm gonna walk up to my sister.
What's your question?
SPEAKER_08 (46:45):
After that, we'd go to my brother.
SPEAKER_12 (46:47):
Okay.
Every family member, stand up.
SPEAKER_10 (46:50):
Thank you so much.
This was so fascinating.
Um, my question is in terms ofwhen you do find something
that's incredibly shocking andyou're it's a vulnerable
situation.
I mean, how do you find thestrength to keep going and and
not be afraid that you're inthis strange place and something
(47:10):
could happen to you, really,your safety?
SPEAKER_08 (47:12):
Well, it's a great question.
I I think it's the passion forthe mission.
You know, we're there to tellthese stories to improve
children's lives.
So nobody speaks for them.
They're the most vulnerablepopulation in the world, and
nobody speaks for them.
And Shine is really the onlyorganization that's solely
dedicated to telling only thesestories about children.
(47:32):
So that's what keeps us going.
That mission in the midst of itis telling those stories.
SPEAKER_06 (47:37):
I will say that thinking again about the wrong
light, by the end of thatfilming, we were scared.
We were really scared for ourcrew.
SPEAKER_12 (47:44):
Sarah, I'd like to first point out Sarah is my
dearest oldest friend from NewYork City, and she's a
documentary filmmaker.
SPEAKER_07 (47:51):
Okay.
Thank you, Jeanette.
And I'm so proud of you.
This was amazing.
I love you.
I I have a question for all ofyou.
What's your all-time favoritefilm?
unknown (48:02):
Oh goodness.
SPEAKER_08 (48:04):
I could start just because it hangs up and back of
me in my office and inspires me.
It's Lawrence of Arabia, whichjust blew me away to what
filmmaking could be, transportedme to a world I'd never seen.
Music, sound, acting, story justwas an epic feeling, and that's
what really drove me intofilmmaking and storytelling,
(48:26):
really.
SPEAKER_03 (48:26):
I can go.
I feel like for me it changes alot, but I think right now I'd
go with Do the Right Thing,Spike Lee.
That movie, it's just the firsttime I saw it, I completely
broke down.
It's just so unbelievablypowerful and continues to be so
prescient and relevant in theworld today, and I just think
it's a a beautiful reflection onthe human condition and society,
(48:50):
and it's a gorgeous piece ofart.
SPEAKER_04 (48:53):
I I got a lot.
Um I think overall my favoritemovie ever is Seven Samurai by
Akira Kurosawa.
I just love that movie.
It's just so much fun.
I also really like House, theNobuhiko by Yashi.
That movie's so weird.
SPEAKER_08 (49:06):
I love it.
It's so good.
Okay, we know what kind of filmsyou're gonna be making.
SPEAKER_02 (49:10):
Uh Charles Peston, so good.
Uh, just something about thealiens be on the movie has, and
soundtrack is so creepy andweird.
Just love all the makeup and theperformances are so good, and
the ending line.
Yeah, very good.
SPEAKER_01 (49:28):
Excellent.
Good catch.
There will never be a bettermovie than where the wild things
are.
And I will die on that hill.
Very comp.
Yeah, rest in peace, bro.
We love Jersey.
SPEAKER_07 (49:42):
Yes, love Jersey.
SPEAKER_06 (49:44):
Susan.
You know, maybe West Side Story.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_12 (49:48):
These are all good movies, huh?
Do you have any obsessions?
SPEAKER_05 (49:52):
Um, all right, this one's for Alvi and Susan.
Which of your films do you thinkhad the biggest impact, either
in terms of like awareness of anissue or in terms of driving
like policy at the federallevel?
SPEAKER_06 (50:03):
I think probably The Harvest.
And that was not one of our mostsuccessful films, not one of the
our very best films either, Idon't think.
But but we did take that film toCongress.
Uh, we did we brought it therein support of um changes to the
Fair Labor Standards Act, uh,because child farm workers were
(50:25):
not protected in the way thatchildren working in any other
area uh were.
And that's still the film thatis most requested for use in the
classroom across the country.
And it was the film that when wecreated the curriculum, teachers
from all over the country helpedus to write that curriculum.
SPEAKER_08 (50:44):
I would say one of the ones that had a really
direct impact is one of ourlittle known films called One
Way Up was made in England,London about a BMX track that
stands in the middle of a gangterritory.
We shot it in 3D, I don't knowwhy.
But it's wonderful BMX footage.
These kids are inspired by a DJwho took over this club and gave
(51:06):
them access where they didn'thave it.
They turned out a worldchampion.
And as a result of the film, thecommunity built them a new track
and brought these gangs togetherto race together.
So from an immediate impact,that that film is really stands
out.
(51:28):
BMX.
SPEAKER_06 (51:29):
The BMX event, and I think he came in third.
SPEAKER_09 (51:33):
Hi, I have a question uh for the emerging
filmmakers.
Congratulations, by the way.
Thank you.
My question is do you guys go tothe movies or do you watch
movies on your phone orelectronic devices?
SPEAKER_12 (51:46):
Full disclosure, she is a board member of the
Montclair Film Festival andwants people to come to the
theater.
SPEAKER_04 (51:52):
Okay.
Before anything else, I'll haveyou know I am a member of
Montclair Film.
I much prefer going to themovies for anything.
Um, it doesn't matter whattheater it is, of course,
Montclair Film is the best.
SPEAKER_12 (52:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (52:08):
Of course.
But um, I always prefer going tothe movies, but some movies, you
know, they just don't getscreened.
And like there's plenty ofmovies that I need to watch,
like on the internet archive,because there's just no other
way to watch them.
SPEAKER_08 (52:20):
Maybe you could suggest them for the Bellevue
now that's opened and you'll geta classic series going.
That's a good idea.
SPEAKER_03 (52:26):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
It's I think the theater is thebest experience if you can, but
like you're saying, there's somany movies that just if you're
watching older movies or justmore obscure things, there's no
other way to watch them but athome.
SPEAKER_01 (52:39):
The way I think about it is like if I'm not on
an airplane, I'm not watching amovie on my phone.
I like to I like to live bythat, I think.
The big screen, the big screen,come on.
SPEAKER_12 (52:50):
All right, you guys, thank you so much.
We're waiting.
Really appreciate everyonecoming to thank you to Monclaw
Film Festival for having us, andthank you to Susan and Alvi and
all the emerging filmmakers, andthank you so much.
And can we get a picture ofeveryone?
Yeah, let's see.
(53:10):
Let's do what we got this.
SPEAKER_11 (53:14):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,iTunes, and Buzz Sprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
Hi, listeners.
This episode is going to sound alittle bit wonky because it was
actually recorded live at theMontclair Film Festival at our
wonderful event where weinterviewed Shine Global and
some young filmmakers.
So please hang in there andenjoy the episode.
(00:20):
I'd like to bring our hosttonight to the stage, Rachel
Mertens and Jeanette Ashmarin.
SPEAKER_12 (00:37):
Thank you so much for coming in.
SPEAKER_11 (00:48):
So thank you very much.
And tonight we're celebratingresilience and film and
highlighting the incredible workof Shine Global.
We'll diamond a mission, how thedocumentaries come to life, and
what it really takes to tellstories that move people and
smart change.
We'll also meet the winners ofShine Global's 225 New
Filmmakers Award.
SPEAKER_12 (01:08):
The next generation of movie makers showing us what
resilience looks like on screenand Global is a nonprofit media
company that improves the livesof children by telling powerful
stories that raise awareness,promote action, and inspire
change.
For 20 years, they've producedaward-winning films that give a
voice to children and familiesfacing adversity around the
(01:29):
world.
SPEAKER_11 (01:42):
I'll go first with Susan McLaurie.
She's co-founder and senioradvisor of Shine Global, where
she served as executive directorfor nearly 20 years.
She's the force behindaward-winning films like
Wardance, Innocente, TheHarvest, The Eagle Righteous,
among many others.
Susan was also an associateprofessor of health education at
(02:03):
K University for many years.
What makes Susan's work sospecial is how it bridges
empathy, education, and impact.
Every film she touches movesaudiences and inspires change in
classrooms, communities, andeven policy around the world.
Hi, everybody.
SPEAKER_12 (02:22):
And next we have Albi Hecht.
He is the co-founder also ofShine Global and the chair of
the board of Shine Global, aswell as an award-winning
producer.
He was the president ofNickelodeon, where he oversaw
the development and productionof SpongeBob SquarePants, if you
guys have heard of that.
(02:44):
He also co-created and executiveproduced the Kids Choice Awards.
And he also then took a stint asthe general manager of CNN's
headline news network beforejoining Pocket Watch, where as a
chief content officer, hecreated an executive produced
the ME nominated Ryan's MysteryPlay Day, which is huge on
(03:07):
YouTube.
Has over 40 million subscribers.
So that is I'll be out.
SPEAKER_08 (03:14):
Love me or blame me for SpongeBob, it's okay.
SPEAKER_11 (03:18):
So first we'd love to hear your meeting cute.
And then how did you get intoJersey?
SPEAKER_08 (03:24):
Jersey.
And uh it's been an incrediblyuh soulmate journey ever since.
And uh we got to Jersey in asort of a roundabout way.
(03:47):
I think we resisted it first.
SPEAKER_06 (03:49):
We resisted it vehemently, actually.
SPEAKER_12 (03:52):
We've never we've never heard that version.
Basically, every person on ourpodcast has said that.
SPEAKER_06 (03:58):
I have to say, our good friends Ruth and Don Sarlin
were here, and Donnie's heretonight.
And um Ruth just sort of waitedpatiently.
We looked at every town in theHudson, we went up to Rye, we
went to Mamarinac, we went to uhRuth said out to the island.
We went to we tried Long Island.
And Ruth just said, I'm waiting,you'll end up here.
(04:18):
And she was right.
SPEAKER_08 (04:20):
And we moved on a auspicious day, right?
When Kate, my daughter, was uhwe just she was a city kid, she
loved the city, and so we had towait till she was going off to
college.
So the day we packed her off, wepacked up and moved to New
Jersey.
SPEAKER_12 (04:34):
Yes, I want to also know how did Shine Global come
about?
What prompted you to start ShineGlobal?
SPEAKER_06 (04:41):
The story of these children in northern Uganda
actually was the start ofeverything.
We were uh donors to anorganization called the African
Medical Research and EducationFoundation.
And from their director, welearned about the civil war that
was occurring in northernUganda.
And we learned in particularabout this group of children who
were forced to flee their homesevery single night at dusk and
(05:05):
walk several kilometers,sometimes carrying younger
brothers and sisters, to get tothe safety of a town called Gulu
where there was an armypresence.
Because if they were to havestayed, they risked being
kidnapped by the Lord'sResistance Army, which was uh it
was an offshoot of the originalrebel force that was fighting
(05:26):
against the central governmentof of Uganda, and it was very
violent and very dangerous.
We convinced the executivedirector of AMRAF to take us,
and and I just want you to knowthis in a fit of excellent
parenting, we took our childrenwith us.
SPEAKER_08 (05:42):
Into a war zone.
SPEAKER_06 (05:43):
Into the war zone.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know, where is childprotection services when when
kids really need them?
And um we went in search of thisparticular story, but by the
time we got to Uganda, thecircumstances had changed, and
all of the families that hadbeen living independently in
their own homes had been herdedup and put into an internally
(06:04):
displaced persons camp.
And so we got there and wethought, oh God, well, what's
our story?
And and we by chance one day ona tour uh of schools, listening
to a headmaster talk endlesslyabout his school's programs, uh,
they mentioned the fact that forthe first time in several years,
(06:26):
children from the north would beallowed to participate in
Uganda's national music anddance festival.
And we just looked at each otherand we said, That's our story,
because we wanted to tell astory that would be real and
would be gritty and maybe verysad, but we also wanted to tell
it in a way that was hopeful.
So when we could show these kidsliving in this camp, they they
(06:49):
live in a camp called Patong,and it had been built to house
maybe 5,000 people, but theywere maybe as many as ten times
that number actually forced tolive together, and their life
was very, very hard.
But when they would rehearse forthe music festival, their the
singing, their dancing, a wholeother side of them came to
(07:10):
light, and that was what wewanted the film to reflect.
SPEAKER_08 (07:12):
And uh first we didn't know we were gonna make a
film.
I mean, we we kind of thought,well, well, how can we help?
And uh Sue was sort of mullingit over and said, Well, we could
adopt Patang and Montclair's abig town, and we'll do a
fundraiser and maybe we'll sendmoney, we'll be able and I was
like, you know, I I don't knowanything about fundraiser, but I
know how to make a movie, andthis sounds like a movie.
(07:35):
And Sue was at the time stillteaching and social worker, and
she's like, Wow, movie, we canmake a movie, that's great,
right?
And I said, Yeah, and you canhelp.
SPEAKER_06 (07:43):
And I said, Could I help?
I w couldn't even dare toimagine that I could be part of
this.
SPEAKER_08 (07:49):
Absolutely.
You're the executive producer.
And I remember I was just walkedout of the room kind of thinking
about it, and then Sue lookedand I heard her voice say, Well,
that's great, what a greattitle, right?
What do I do?
And I said, Well, you raise themoney.
SPEAKER_12 (08:04):
The the that's the hard part, actually.
That was hard part.
SPEAKER_08 (08:07):
When we went into the war zone, it was an
incredible experience.
And as Sue said, we took ourchildren who was a teenager and
a young woman at the time, andand felt this was a chance for
them to see another part of theworld and what was going on.
That was the good part of takingthem.
But it kind of went awry alittle bit when we got in there.
We we kind of went on the busand we were looking at different
(08:29):
locations, and one point uh oneof the people with us said they
gotta go to the bathroom, getoff the bus.
They went to the front of thebus, and the colonel stopped
them and said, You're notgetting off the bus.
Look out there in the in thebushes.
And he said, That's where therebels are and they're watching
us.
And we were like, Ooh, this isuh a little more dangerous.
(08:49):
We got to our camp to stay wherewe were staying.
Well, first, as we were troopingthrough the mud and the muck, we
were really amazed that mydaughter had brought her Gold
Lamay sandals into this as a asa way to walk around.
And uh, and outside one of therooms was this really heavy-duty
military boots, and we asked theperson showing to the room,
said, Who what is that?
(09:10):
And he said, Well, that belongsto a colonel who was in the
Lord's Resistance Army who isstaying here on the way to be
reconciled with the tribe.
They were gonna forgive him, Iguess.
This is a man who would no lessthan 20 kids into the army and
turn them into deadly childsoldiers.
And I just remember my sonlooking at the door and go,
(09:31):
killer, killer.
I don't know.
It was uh scary moments, but wewe prevailed.
SPEAKER_12 (09:37):
Well, you you really prevailed.
That was an Oscar-nominatedfilm, your first film that you
did.
So how did you produce a film atthat level for your first the
first get out?
Did you bring a crew?
How did you film it?
SPEAKER_06 (09:51):
We had an amazing director that Albi found when he
was working at uh Spike TV, SeanFine.
And Sean assembled a small butreally terrific crew, and they
came to Uganda a couple of weeksafter we were there, and they
scouted.
They they went to three two orthree different schools, and
(10:12):
they found the three kids thatthey wanted to work with all in
one school.
And uh it was tough.
And you know, I I think aboutthis a lot.
There are a couple of scenes inthat film.
Very few of you have ever seenthis film because it's been
under litigation for 19 yearsbecause of uh the documentary
films.
SPEAKER_08 (10:32):
Yeah, there was amazing films where he he got
the trust of them and it it tooka while.
These kids were so damaged.
I mean, Dominic had killedsomebody when he was nine years
old with a tough.
They were tough.
But he and I remember there wasyou know, it was our first film,
their first film, and we didn'tget any footage for like three
weeks, and we were panickedbecause it cost a lot of money.
And we were like, Sean, what'swhat are you shooting?
(10:53):
He goes, I can't shoot yet, Ican't shoot you.
Because every day he would goout to this tree outside the
camp and sit there and wait forNancy and some of the kids to
come out to talk to him.
And they would not come outevery day.
And then after a while, he wouldbe finally Nancy came out and he
said, Well, why didn't you meetme?
And she said, Well, I waswatching you to see if you were
(11:15):
gonna come every day and reallytalk to me.
So it took a while for him toget that trust.
They got the trust, they shotthese incredible films uh
segments, one by a grave whereshe was weeping over her father,
and there was the LRA waswatching her also there.
SPEAKER_11 (11:33):
I think that's the key to a lot of what you were
saying.
Um we spoke before about yourdocumentaries of documentary
filmmaking in general, is thatyou need to get the trust of the
people you're filming, and thattakes however long it takes.
SPEAKER_06 (11:48):
And I'm gonna add that I spoke with Nancy this
past week.
She called actually seekingmoney.
She'd been working for USAID forthe last seven years, and of
course, all funding has been cutfrom there.
And she she talked reallymovingly about the impact that
that's had on families,especially small children, and
(12:10):
how many of them are are dyingfrom AIDS.
And I thought, you know, she'sone of several of the kids that
we've worked with who've gone onto do amazing work themselves.
And it's it's I'm sure being inthe documentary had something to
do with that, but it's it's verymoving to see that.
SPEAKER_12 (12:26):
Well, the next film that we wanted to talk about is
the, you know, you've started,you've had a lot of celebrities
that have come on board.
And I know that it I'm going alittle bit chronologically that
you had the the the harvest comeup, and I believe that Evelyn
Goria came on that.
You told us a funny story aboutyour first Zoom call with her.
(12:47):
Can you share that?
SPEAKER_08 (12:48):
Yeah, first let me say before you tell that, which
is like because we did thatfirst film and it was an amazing
journey, one at Sundance, and ityou know, went at all these
festivals, and it ended up atthe Oscars, and we were there,
and it was Seuss's first film.
SPEAKER_00 (13:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_08 (13:03):
And you know, I've been making films for a while,
but then we went to make thesecond film, and Seuss goes,
Well, that's the way you do it.
You make the film, you go toSundance, you go to festivals,
Oscar and you go to the Oscars,this is how it works.
SPEAKER_12 (13:19):
You got spoiled off the first.
SPEAKER_08 (13:20):
Well, we did get spoiled.
It was tough to find the fundingfor the next film, which was
amazing.
We thought, okay, we did this,we're on our way.
SPEAKER_11 (13:27):
I mean, you would think that, getting the
recognition of being at theOscars.
SPEAKER_06 (13:31):
Well, one of the things that we learn to our
chagrin, honestly, and has beentrue all the 20 years since
Shine first started, is peoplewho come in to support one film,
they come in because of thesubject matter.
You know, I mean now, yes, atthis point I think Shine has a
very good reputation, but itstill doesn't really bring the
(13:51):
big money in for for projects.
So I I I was just operating ontotally the wrong the wrong
preposition.
Proposition.
So we were really kind ofpanicked.
We didn't know what we weregonna do, how we were gonna find
the money to make the harvest.
And the harvest was the story ofthree of the estimated half
(14:12):
million American children wholeave school for months uh every
year to travel with theirfamilies across the country to
pick different crops.
We were we reached out to afriend in LA, and she was a
friend of Eva Langoria's agentand Christie, and Christy told
Eva what we were doing.
(14:32):
And Eva was an activist, andthis was her issue.
She had been a close friend ofDolores Cuerta, who along with
Cesar Chavez, had started thefirst strikes against farm
owners.
I attended my first Zoom sessionever in a corporate theater and
an enormous screen, and we'reI'm sitting there, and Eva comes
(14:52):
in and she sits down at hertable and she introduces
herself.
Like she needed to introduceherself, right?
Um, and um and she I'll neverforget, she leaned forward and
she said, I am begging you tolet me be a part of this film.
And it was all I could do not toslide out of my chair.
I was I was so surprised bythat.
(15:13):
And she came on board and um andthen I they sent this contract
that we had to sign that she hadto go first class, she had to
fly first class, she had to, youknow, get limos, she had to have
her hair and makeup done andwhatever.
And I said, unless she's willingfor us to drive her and I'll do
her hair and makeup, I can'tpossibly sign this.
(15:34):
We we can't afford any of this.
And Chrissy said, you have tosign it, but don't worry, she'll
never ask you to do this.
And to she never did.
And she raised, she and her herclose associates raised 80% of
the funding for that film.
SPEAKER_08 (15:49):
She worked the film.
She and she has continued to anyplace that she has put her name.
She worked it.
She went to Washington with usto show it to congressional
leaders.
She showed it across thecountry.
She was very committed.
Um, we owe a lot to Eva fordoing that.
SPEAKER_12 (16:04):
Impressive.
So, Rachel, which movie did youwant to look at?
Yeah.
Well, we should talk about in asense a the one that won the
Oscar.
Yeah.
So soon after that, you did winthe Oscar.
So tell us about that.
SPEAKER_06 (16:16):
I'm laughing because the first time we were nominated
for Wardance, I bought my firstand only designer dress of my
life.
And it was um Donna Karen, Idon't know how you pronounce the
name.
Donna Karen.
Karen.
Okay, and it was this jerseykind of dress, and I just was
defeated by it.
I struggled with the shoulders,the shoulders of this dress the
(16:37):
entire night.
And the dress kept winning, andso I finally get the shoulder
things down where they'resupposed to be, and we're
sitting in the audience, and andnow they're gonna announce the
the best documentary.
And Albi's really excited.
He leans over, he goes, This isit, and I go, Don't touch me,
don't touch me.
And sadly, I but I thought, oh,this is our moment.
Our kids are gonna see us, ourfriends are gonna see us, and
(16:59):
they announced the winner, andit's not us.
SPEAKER_08 (17:02):
You almost got up.
SPEAKER_06 (17:03):
I wanted to get up to tell the people who'd gotten
up in front of us to sit down,but it turns out that they were
the winners, so they weren'tsitting down, so they were going
up to to collect the awards.
SPEAKER_08 (17:12):
But uh yeah, fortunately, we made another
trip there.
Sente came to us from again thefines.
We we have consistently workedwith first-time directors who
have gone on to do other things.
We we try to find new voices,particularly a lot of women
voices in the uh directors.
Andrea Fine was one of thedirectors with him.
And they came back to us with afilm they were working on about
(17:34):
the resilience, about women whowere resilient women around the
world, and then it sort offallen apart, but they were
totally taken with this one15-year-old girl in in San Diego
who's homeless and was anartist, and they told us about
it.
They sent us the footage, and itwas extraordinarily compelling
footage, and she was alsoundocumented, so a lot of issues
(17:55):
we wanted to help tackle withthem, and we decided we would
take that footage and turn itinto a film.
At that point, they wanted to doa feature, and I thought we
needed to get the film outsooner, and also that just
strategically at the time shortswere emerging as a more
prominent uh documentary format,and there was less competition,
actually.
So, from a marketingperspective, I was like, hey, we
(18:17):
might have a better shot if wedo it as a short.
So they were like, okay, let'stry to do that.
And we uh and we were able tocomplete that film.
I will say there were momentsthere where, you know, from a
talking to the directors andwhat they get and what they
don't get, it's a it's a it's auh collaboration, a process, but
there's there's also thesemoments where you wish you could
(18:38):
do things, but you're dealingwith real-life subjects who have
real life issues and are um uhin real time.
And uh, you know, you fell forinnocente Sue kept asking in the
film, um, she's very estrangedfrom her mother.
Um, and there's a few scenes init, but there could have been
more, but she wouldn't talk toher mother.
(18:59):
And uh, although we kept asking,I think it was eventually was
like, okay, this is the film wehave, let's work with it.
And that happens.
So we couldn't go deeper, but Ithink if you saw the film,
you'll feel we went deep enough.
It's a very emotional, verycompelling, visually stunning.
The finds did an amazing job.
And to this day, that film isused as our most successful film
in outreach.
(19:20):
It's used in education, classesfor art, uh promoting art
education and promotingimmigration issues.
And Inocente herself is growninto an amazing lady.
She's a successful artist, she'sa teacher.
And just uh last month when wehad our gala, she came to speak,
and the day before she went outto Brooklyn with the film to
(19:44):
show it to uh a community centeruh and advocate for arts
education.
Uh and so she works on it allthe time.
It's incredibly heartwarming andso.
SPEAKER_12 (19:54):
And the film Incenta uh is about a homeless girl that
is kind of escapes through herart, and she nobody at high
school knows that she ishomeless, and she now was part
of your 20th year gala.
It is really an incredible film.
I watched it and recommended.
So you told us about a film thatWe didn't tell you anything.
(20:16):
You told me we talked to youbeforehand.
unknown (20:20):
It was all spontaneous.
SPEAKER_12 (20:21):
There is a film that you spotlighted that was kind of
pivotal in your filmmakingcareer.
It became an expose.
Can you tell us about the filmthat changed the The Wrong
Light?
SPEAKER_06 (20:35):
Yeah, we have a film in the festival uh this, I
guess, Sunday, The Business ofTrouble, and that was an
intended investigative film.
But the The Wrong Light, which Ithink was our fourth film, did
not start out to be that.
It was we we were visited oneday by a young woman who'd spent
two years in Thailand on aFulbright uh scholarship, and
(20:57):
she went to study one thing, butbecame fascinated by the sex
trafficking of children.
And she, in that time that shewas in Thailand, she visited
several different programs forexploited children, and she came
back really enamored with thisone program, KOSA, Children of
Southeast Asia, and it was runby a man named Mickey Chutesa.
(21:18):
And so, you know, one one of thethings that's interesting, I'll
just take uh as a quick aside.
Over the years there have beenso many stories that we've
learned about that would bewould have been really, really
fascinating documentaries, butbut so often they revolved
around a one very charismaticperson who was making the
difference through theirorganization.
(21:39):
And that was always a challengefor us.
We never wanted to make a filmthat was really telling the
story of another organization.
And in effect, that's we did wedid end up doing that to some
extent with Mickey.
So Alby and I had a chance inthe summer of 2013 to go to
Thailand and we went with thisyoung woman, Natalie Yashanka,
(22:00):
and we traveled to NorthernThailand to meet Mickey and to
see his his um his center and toscout for some of the subjects
for the film.
And we were just blown away byhim.
We were really enamored.
He wasn't the easiest person tounderstand.
He he was Thai, but he'd spentsome of his childhood in the
(22:21):
States, and so he spoke passableEnglish, and I'm assuming very
good Thai, but because I can'tspeak a word of it.
And he also spoke a dialect ofthe Mian dialect, which was the
language spoken in this remotevillage in Northern Thailand.
And that's where the girls whohe he was bringing to his
(22:42):
program came from, from thistiny village.
And he said, Oh, sure, I'll helpyou make this film.
And by the way, the the goldentriangle there is also where all
the it's not just drugsmuggling, it's child smuggling.
I'll take you there.
I'll take you to a town meetingup in the village where you'll
see the parents decide whichchildren are going to be sold.
SPEAKER_08 (23:03):
And um and and we'll watch we'll we'll follow them on
their trip into Thailand andWell, he he said that the all
the girls in the program wereones that were going to be
trafficked or that he hadrescued from trafficking, and
that's was on his website.
That was part of his uhpromotion to raise funds, and
that these uh girls that we metthere that we interviewed and we
put on tape for our director,we're all had these different
(23:26):
stories of being trafficked insome way, shape, or form.
We went and talked to a formertrafficker who we weren't
allowed to ask certain questionsof.
He was very charismatic, and wedid a lot of due diligence as
much as we could on theorganization, which was
registered in the United States,and we had background checks and
seemed like a really powerfulstory.
(23:46):
We sent these directors there,and he also insisted usually
when we do films in foreigncountries, we have what's called
a fixer, a local person whoknows the territory and speaks
the language, and is there tohelp and assist with the
production and the relationshipswith the locals and any
permitting or things that youneed.
(24:07):
But Mickey said, I'll be thefixer, don't worry, I got it all
taken care of.
So directors when they firstwent did not have that.
And they did all theseinterviews and things got
strange.
We kept getting reports back.
SPEAKER_06 (24:19):
That that really violates the first rule of
documentary filmmaking.
You find your own fixer, it's anindependent person.
You don't rely on, you know,certainly don't rely on your
film subject to do that.
So what ended up happening wasthat he was he was just he was
hard to understand.
We we were all sort ofstruggling with it.
And each one of us thought,well, maybe it's me that's
(24:41):
having the problem.
But when Josie and Dave, whowere who were the co-directors,
uh and their team went to uhThailand in September of that
year, it was 2013, and we we'dbeen there in July of that year,
and they started filming and umand they they finished the
shoot, they they sent us all thefootage, they said, Can you get
(25:04):
this translated for us?
And so we f we found translatorswho work not only in Thai but in
Mian, and we we got them thetranslations and we get a call
from Josie and she says, I don'tknow what's going on here, but
he didn't ask any of thequestions we asked him to ask.
And still you would think withthat in mind, we would all say,
Hmm, something's really wrongwith this guy.
(25:27):
Long story short, they went toThailand three times to do
shoots.
Um turned out that he hadtotally misrepresented the
children.
Their parents had not sold them.
They he had gone to theirvillage and had said, Look, I
have this program, it's in a youknow, in a much better city, the
schools are good.
Send your your your kids to yourdaughters to us and we'll take
(25:49):
care of them.
And they did so very trustingly.
And um until we got there anduntil Josie on the second shoot
said to Mickey, You cannot be myfixer anymore.
And you know, and she found shebrought in a Thai woman to to be
the fixer, and immediately thatwoman saw real, real weird
things happening to her.
SPEAKER_08 (26:07):
There was a very dramatic moment if you watch the
film in which she's interviewinga mother for the second time
with the real heart translator,and the mother's asked, Why did
you you know your daughter worksas a your older daughter works
in town as a escort, and thisone was going to be trafficked,
and now she's here.
Do you feel good about it?
And she goes blank and shedoesn't know, she's like, What?
(26:31):
And she says, No, no, no, andthen she looks over at Mickey
and she stops talking, and yourealize there's something really
wrong.
And from there on it took adramatic turn.
We found out Mickey was probablyrunning guns, there were a lot
of guns in his uh his compound.
The directors were terrified,decided maybe we should shut the
(26:53):
film down.
We brought our board in.
They decided in the end tosupport it and say maybe we can
go forward with this.
And the issue again was that thekids were getting an education,
but he was raising a tremendousamount of money and buying cars
and land off of it, and we knewthe funders, so we basically
were able to turn the filmaround, said to the director who
(27:13):
didn't want to do it.
So the only way we could tellthis story now is if you have to
be part of it and and tell theaudience what's going on.
And so she reluctantly agreed.
We were able to bust up thering, got their funder who was
Australian and uh formermilitary.
He pulled the funding, hepersecuted Mickey.
(27:34):
The girls, he actually wasamazing because we wanted to
make sure the girls were takencare of.
He guaranteed all of them theirscholarships and their money so
they were taken care of.
We felt good about that.
Uh Mickey was run out of town,and uh so there was, I think, a
good ending, but it was it wasreally kind of terrifying, and
then there was a coda to it thatwas even crazier.
SPEAKER_12 (27:57):
But it's I mean it's an interesting thing for a
documentarian that has an ideaof what their documentary is
gonna be about, and how you havethese high hopes that you're
gonna tell a really good story,you're passionate about it, but
then you realize somewhere alongthe line that there's corruption
in the story.
And to be forthright and notstick to shift the story is a
(28:19):
fascinating.
SPEAKER_08 (28:20):
We thought we had put to bed the whole thing, and
then Sue and I want to say, wegotta get out of town, take a
little vacation.
We're on our way there.
We get a call in the car, thecar phone, and we had just hired
a new assistant at Chine.
Two new assistants were in theoffice for a week, and we get a
call, and they're like, Help me,Sue.
We're in the bathroom.
I'm like, What what do you mean?
(28:40):
There's somebody at the door.
I'm like, okay, it's your job toanswer the door.
No, no, no, it's it's the FBI.
I was like, the what?
SPEAKER_06 (28:49):
Well, can I tell the background of that?
So somehow our film got to theState Department at at one
point, and um the woman who wasour liaison there showed it
once, twice, three times.
She kept getting requests toshow the film within the state.
SPEAKER_08 (29:02):
Well, because it turns out Mickey was an American
citizen, so they had a stake init.
SPEAKER_06 (29:06):
So they had a stake in it.
So we get we get a call from theuh from the FBI, and they want
they want access to our footage.
They want to take a look at whatyou know what we've got, what
they what they can learn aboutMickey, and we said, sure, it's
no problem.
Just let us know when you wantit, we'll send it over to your
office.
But instead, these two verymacho guys, shoot uh suit
(29:30):
jackets open so you can seetheir guns.
SPEAKER_08 (29:32):
Because the the assistants had come up in the
elevator with them and seentheir guns.
SPEAKER_06 (29:36):
The funny part of this story is that Albi is being
very good, very deferential, andI am so pissed off that they've
done this.
SPEAKER_08 (29:44):
I'm like, okay, go.
Did you see their credentials?
They go, Yes, does it looklegitimate?
Yes, okay.
Open the door for the FBI, putthem on the speakerphone.
So they they come in and they,you know, uh, where's the
footage?
And uh and we said, Well, youwere going to make an
appointment.
We're not there now, come backwhen we're there.
And we'll talk to you, and I'mbeing trying to manage it.
And Sue got her her real momvoice on, I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_06 (30:06):
Yeah, because I had this voice, it was my mother's
voice, and every once in a whileit comes out when I least expect
it.
It always scared the crap out ofus when we were kids.
And it works effectively onother people too, as it turns
out.
And this voice came out of me.
I remember I was and I said, Howdare you?
I said it with a few expletives,probably.
SPEAKER_08 (30:25):
Oh do the exorcism.
SPEAKER_06 (30:26):
You know, how how dare you do this?
You've embarrassed us in frontof our everybody in our
building.
I was afraid we were gonna getkicked out of our our office
because of this, you know, andwe said we told you we would
send it, and blah, blah, blah,blah.
SPEAKER_11 (30:37):
So Well, that does take us into Anuja.
So I don't know uh how manypeople have seen Anuja, but it's
on it's on Netflix, so youshould go see it.
It's a beautiful short film.
Um and it's about uh two girlsand it leaves your hand, which
is why I really like it.
But um made me give a littlesynopsis just about that.
SPEAKER_08 (30:58):
Sure.
Well the film is about two uhfirst our first narrative sh
it's a narrative shorts abouttwo uh girls and uh India
sisters who work in a factory,which is part of what actually
is the fabric of their lives.
They're homeless again.
And one of them is uh a mathgenius and gets a chance to go
to on a scholarship to a school,but it has implications for the
(31:19):
family that are uh they faceevery day in India about
substance and working versusgoing to school.
It's about women and educationand and they have two sisters,
and one of them was homeless,not an actress either.
She did a remarkable job, and uhit it it's it's really being
used in advocacy quiteeffectively now.
SPEAKER_12 (31:38):
You had said that this film was brought to you
already made.
Can you explain how that works?
That someone brings a completelyfinished film to you.
SPEAKER_06 (31:47):
It's the first and only time it's ever happened.
Adam Grays is the the director,and his wife Suchitra Matai is
this a very wonderful Indianartist who works in textiles.
And I I don't know how he foundout about Aaron Cobb, who was
our director of Liana, but wasanother another really beautiful
film that he'd made that washalf documentary and half
(32:10):
animation.
But Aaron suggested that he cometo us.
And so the film was done.
It was a chance to join thisfilm without having to pay
anything to do that, which is asI said the first and only time
that's ever happened.
Um and he came because he neededhelp with festival strategy.
And they they were having mixedsuccess in festivals, but they
(32:31):
did win the LA Shorts Festival,and that qualified them for the
Academy Award.
And then Mindy Kaylin came in.
God bless her, the the film wasshortlisted, and she campaigns
so dramatically for the film.
I always feel like she's thereason we got nominated because
of the I've watched that filmtwice.
SPEAKER_12 (32:50):
It is so good.
It is so good.
It's such a beautifulstorytelling of how this sprite
girl makes enough money, has tomake enough money to go take the
test, and how her sister helpsher.
It's really beautiful.
SPEAKER_08 (33:03):
And it's told from their point of view, and this is
like a shine mantra.
So there's a lot of films thatuse adults to tell these
stories, but we want childrenand the kids to tell their
stories as personally andintimately as they can.
Because you know, they don't geta chance to speak.
And these films give them thechance to speak directly, and
that's really an important partof our filmmaking.
SPEAKER_12 (33:26):
So we want to talk about a short film that you have
at the festival.
Yes.
So it is another expose, yoursecond expose that you've done.
Tell us about the business oftrouble.
SPEAKER_06 (33:37):
This was intended to be an expose.
The business of trouble was veryinteresting about this film.
It's it's it's a it's veryshort, it's 34 minutes.
Um and this film was brought tous by one of our board members.
Um, and he he'd made a bigdonation for another cause, and
he said to me, kind of off thecuff, he said, if you were ever
to make a film about thetroubled teen industry, I would
(34:00):
give you half a million dollars.
And I said, Wow, becauseactually we have been looking at
that.
We'd been doing research aboutstories primarily about programs
in Utah and California, but wewere very interested in the
topic.
And he did come aboard, he didgive us most of the funding, we
we raised the rest, and and wemade this story that uh features
(34:24):
four women, actually.
SPEAKER_11 (34:28):
Yeah, it's extraordinary, and it really we
did a deep dive researching allthe things after we saw that.
Um, there's an amazingorganization that is mentioned
in this called unsilenced.org,which really does a fabulous job
explaining a lot of um howprivate equity has become a huge
(34:49):
part in owning these differentplaces, which are therapeutic
boarding schools, wildernesstherapy programs, faith-based
academies, and conversiontherapy camps.
SPEAKER_06 (35:00):
Yeah, the key point of this film is the role played
by private equity in these inthese programs.
And I and I was thinking aboutthis earlier today.
I would it occurs to me that I Iwould look at private equity as
very similar to a virus enteringa uh a living cell, in that it
it depletes that cell of itsnutrients, it copies its RNA and
(35:24):
and the the cell is effectivelydestroyed.
And that's what happens to somany programs that private
equity invests in.
They go in with uh remaininginvolved with an organization
maybe five to seven years andthey suck the life out of it.
And so that's what happens inthese programs.
And in fact, the board memberwho gave us this money was
(35:48):
motivated to do this because hisown son had been in one of these
programs.
Over the months that he wasthere.
Andrew said he kept hearing hisson say, Well, I don't have this
therapist anymore, and thatprogram has ended, and and we
used to do this, but we don'tanymore.
And Andrew, who was a very savvyreal estate guy in New York and
very, you know, veryknowledgeable about finance, he
(36:10):
said to himself, he said, Thissounds like private equity, and
he investigated it.
And yes, indeed, that's what washappening.
And so that was our purpose formaking this film.
There is no federal legislationthat governs the activities of
these centers.
And Paris Hilton, as I'm suremany of you know, herself was
remanded to one of thesecenters.
(36:31):
She's become a fervent activist.
She was speaking with members ofCongress during the Biden
administration.
And our outreach goal for thisfilm is, and it won't happen
during this administration.
I think we all know this, sowe're just gonna have to bide
our time.
But but when sanity is restored,the goal is to to really push
for federal legislation.
SPEAKER_08 (36:53):
Meanwhile, we're working on the state level,
which is which is importantbecause we can start in the
states like Florida and Utah andplaces where these places are
and get some regulation and alsothere's they get federal
funding.
So it's a double whammy.
They get federal funding andthey're unregulated.
Talking to some taxpayerdollars.
That's right.
And it's really uh a tragedy,and these these kids need help,
(37:14):
and we hope the film helps them.
SPEAKER_11 (37:16):
Yeah, I and I think it was really interesting that
we discovered that New Jersey isactually a state that does
regulate it does.
And it has it does not havefor-profit boarding, therapeutic
boarding.
It tries to do it has atwenty-four uh seven outreach.
If you have are struggling andyou need help right away, you
(37:36):
can call a number, uh, then theywill send a team to your house
to help.
And they try really to enforceand put Medcake dollars to
helping with at-home help aswell as community.
SPEAKER_08 (37:50):
A model that is being looked at for these other
states.
So go Jersey.
SPEAKER_12 (37:55):
So talking about young teens, we are going to be
moving into our special guestscoming up who are part of the
resilience award winners thisyear.
SPEAKER_08 (38:07):
And love making films.
We made almost now 23 films, butwe can't make enough to talk
about this topic in kids.
So we thought we would start theResilience Awards to support
other filmmakers who are makingfilms about resilience to help
improve the lives of kids.
We're now in seven differentfestivals where we give prizes
for screenwriting, forfilmmaking, for shorts, for
(38:29):
docs, different categories.
And one of these categories nowis for emerging filmmakers in
the Montclair Festival.
And we really love these filmsand support them.
We help their outreach, we givethem a grant of some money, uh,
we give them outreach support,festival support, uh, because
these are the films, as we say,we wish we made and that other
people made.
(38:49):
So the resilience awards, we'rereally proud.
These filmmakers here in in NewJersey are uh an amazing young
talent, and the film they madeis is powerful.
SPEAKER_12 (38:59):
It is.
Before we bring up them, I alsowant to say that the award that
was given out is in coordinationwith Montclair Film Festival
with Sue Hollingberg as theeducational director that
alerted us of this film and toldus that you know we should take
a look at it.
And so we did, and so they'rehere tonight.
We're gonna probably do somemusical chairs here in a minute,
(39:22):
but before we're gonna show youthe film.
So their film is called, In CaseYou Forgot, it's a four-minute
film created by Henry Slater andJackson Provin, winners of the
Shine Global 2025 FilmmakerResilience Award.
The film explores themes ofmemory, identity,
self-reflection through the lensof a young person writing a
letter to their future selves.
(39:44):
A quiet and powerful meditation,a resilience and emotional
growth.
So welcome to the nextgeneration.
SPEAKER_04 (39:52):
Hello, guys.
SPEAKER_12 (39:53):
So are all of you seniors right now?
We are you're all seniors.
So you actually experience thisevent that you did a film on.
SPEAKER_03 (40:02):
Yeah, we're like in the process right now of
applying to college and goinggoing through all of that, yeah.
SPEAKER_12 (40:07):
So tell us, are you all in film classes or is this a
hobby, or how do you how did youguys get into making films?
SPEAKER_04 (40:14):
I think we wish we had film classes at our school,
but we don't.
No, it's just like since we werelittle, we've all like us four
have been making moviestogether.
Really since we were like inelementary school, and we've
always just loved it.
SPEAKER_12 (40:25):
Can you each tell us what part you played and what
your roles were in it?
SPEAKER_03 (40:31):
For this one, yeah.
Um I was a screenwriter and wasthe main main actor, and I
edited it with Julian.
We all we all had a lot ofdifferent parts though, like
because it was really just thefour of us.
I think each one of us wasintegral in our own way.
SPEAKER_04 (40:46):
Um my name's Henry.
I was the director and I pitchedJackson the original idea.
SPEAKER_02 (40:51):
Um I'm Sean, and I just wanted to help wherever I
could.
So if they needed me to dosomething like make fake tears,
then fake tears.
SPEAKER_12 (41:00):
How did he make fake tears?
SPEAKER_04 (41:02):
We're just flicking.
SPEAKER_01 (41:05):
And uh I'm Julian.
I also edited with Jackson, andthen uh I'm sure you guys heard
it, Music by Julian.
That was uh music by Julian.
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_12 (41:14):
I didn't wait till the very end, the first time I
watched it, and then I was like,oh wait, at the very end, he
says music by Julian, because Iwas like, who did the music?
Because the second time I caughtthe music, and I loved the
little simplicity of it.
SPEAKER_01 (41:26):
It was uh all done on a Walmart kids toy.
I don't know.
I don't know if I've actuallyever said that.
No, this was uh the or am Iallowed to plug it?
Or I'm not sponsored.
I think it's oh please, okay.
It's the um V Tech like kitty DJstar machine.
It's like 50 bucks at Walmart.
That thing has gotten me so farin life, you would not believe
that.
I'm so serious.
SPEAKER_00 (41:46):
That is awesome.
SPEAKER_04 (41:48):
He's definitely had $50 of fun.
Julian was just like recordingweird samples, and we were like,
we should just leave that in themovie.
So now every time we have towatch it in front of an
audience, it's like we all justlike awkward laugh because we're
like, oh my god, I can't believewe did that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
Every night.
No, no, no.
Yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_12 (42:07):
So, Henry, you said you pitched the idea.
What brought up the idea?
How did that come to you?
SPEAKER_04 (42:12):
Um, we had a uh there was another, what was the
competition called?
SPEAKER_03 (42:17):
It was just like the New Jersey high school film
competition.
SPEAKER_04 (42:20):
So we had to make a three-minute movie or something,
and uh the I think the theprompt was like out of place.
Yeah, that was it.
SPEAKER_03 (42:28):
It was just out of place.
SPEAKER_04 (42:30):
Uh I was thinking back uh at like the end of our
junior year, I was like thinkingabout applying to college and
just the the stress that comeswith that and stuff.
Uh we like I was just like, sowhat if we made a movie about,
you know, a kid who applies tocollege, does not get into his
dream school, and uh we we usedto spin it near the end and r
(42:53):
make make it clear thateverything's gonna be okay
despite that.
And uh Jackson ran with it.
SPEAKER_03 (43:00):
Yeah.
We wrote a script, we had tomake the original competition
that we made it for, we only hada couple days to do it.
Like they released the prompt,and then we had like four days
to submit it.
So I wrote it in like one nightbecause we came up or he came up
with that the concept, and thenI was just like, I had like no
time to edit it, so it wasbasically just whatever whatever
I came up with.
SPEAKER_01 (43:20):
Could I butt in for a second?
Yeah, we had talked about this.
We we held a writer's meeting,which was us just having our
school lunch in like the the onegreen room we have.
SPEAKER_04 (43:32):
Um it's not it's not a green room, it's a room that
is green.
No, it's green.
Literally bright green.
SPEAKER_01 (43:42):
But um, yeah, not to interrupt.
But like it was so crazy howrushed all of this was.
Yeah, Henry gave us the idea onelike we we learned about the
prompt, and Henry pitched theidea, and then in like one lunch
lunch period, we figured out theplan for everything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
Yeah, go back, yeah.
SPEAKER_11 (43:59):
No, that's awesome.
Because you said you've beenmaking films together for a
while.
Can you give us a a a littlepeek of what were some of your
earlier projects?
SPEAKER_02 (44:07):
We started on the comedy.
SPEAKER_12 (44:08):
I I'm kind of not surprised.
When you look back at this film,since you say it was rushed, uh,
do you see changes you wish youwould have made to it?
SPEAKER_04 (44:19):
I think.
Well, first of all, we shot itall in one night.
And edited we from what?
SPEAKER_03 (44:24):
Like three to We shot from four p.m.
to one in the morning, and thenwe went back to my house and we
set up everything and edited.
Me and Julian edited the wholemovie and did the score and
everything from one in themorning to seven a.m.
And then I left to go to likevirtually, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:45):
Like we were rushed.
SPEAKER_03 (44:47):
It was literally I hit like submit and then walked
out the door.
So um, so that version waspretty rushed.
But then we after we spentanother week like tweaking it,
which is the one that you justsaw.
Um so we had we had some time tosort of shape it a little
better.
SPEAKER_11 (45:04):
Do you want to pursue film going forward, or
are you open-minded to whateverhappens in college and study
different things?
SPEAKER_01 (45:12):
We love making movies, we love making movies.
For me, I've known that I'veI've wanted I've wanted to do
this since I was like seven.
And uh no, Henry already saidthis, but like we grew up making
these videos on YouTube, likelike because it was just it was
the only thing that like weloved.
We would take our cameras or ourphones and walk into the our
like school creek every day, andwe would like no plan, no
(45:36):
nothing.
We just did it because it waswhat we loved.
And um I mean that that's a lotof how this movie came out.
It was just we got the firstopportunity to do something on
the scale that we wanted to, soyeah, like film is at least for
me, is everything.
This is what I'm I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_04 (45:51):
Yeah, much much like Julian.
I've wanted to do film for sucha crazy long time.
Throughout high school, I'vejust gotten more and more
obsessed with movies and justhow they how they work.
That's cool.
SPEAKER_03 (46:03):
For me, my my main passion is is music.
Um, but doing these movies islike one of the greatest things
ever.
Um, and I definitely want tocontinue, whether that's film
scoring or just being a part ofthe industry in some way.
Um I'm I'm really passionateabout it.
So I would love to have it besome part of my career.
Yeah.
I think you guys are off to areally good start.
SPEAKER_11 (46:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
So if anybody has any questionseither for Albi or Susan or
these amazing kids, we're gonnainvite Albi and Susan back up to
the stage and we're gonna stepoff.
SPEAKER_12 (46:37):
I thought I planted some people to ask some
questions.
Yes.
I'm gonna walk up to my sister.
What's your question?
SPEAKER_08 (46:45):
After that, we'd go to my brother.
SPEAKER_12 (46:47):
Okay.
Every family member, stand up.
SPEAKER_10 (46:50):
Thank you so much.
This was so fascinating.
Um, my question is in terms ofwhen you do find something
that's incredibly shocking andyou're it's a vulnerable
situation.
I mean, how do you find thestrength to keep going and and
not be afraid that you're inthis strange place and something
(47:10):
could happen to you, really,your safety?
SPEAKER_08 (47:12):
Well, it's a great question.
I I think it's the passion forthe mission.
You know, we're there to tellthese stories to improve
children's lives.
So nobody speaks for them.
They're the most vulnerablepopulation in the world, and
nobody speaks for them.
And Shine is really the onlyorganization that's solely
dedicated to telling only thesestories about children.
(47:32):
So that's what keeps us going.
That mission in the midst of itis telling those stories.
SPEAKER_06 (47:37):
I will say that thinking again about the wrong
light, by the end of thatfilming, we were scared.
We were really scared for ourcrew.
SPEAKER_12 (47:44):
Sarah, I'd like to first point out Sarah is my
dearest oldest friend from NewYork City, and she's a
documentary filmmaker.
SPEAKER_07 (47:51):
Okay.
Thank you, Jeanette.
And I'm so proud of you.
This was amazing.
I love you.
I I have a question for all ofyou.
What's your all-time favoritefilm?
unknown (48:02):
Oh goodness.
SPEAKER_08 (48:04):
I could start just because it hangs up and back of
me in my office and inspires me.
It's Lawrence of Arabia, whichjust blew me away to what
filmmaking could be, transportedme to a world I'd never seen.
Music, sound, acting, story justwas an epic feeling, and that's
what really drove me intofilmmaking and storytelling,
(48:26):
really.
SPEAKER_03 (48:26):
I can go.
I feel like for me it changes alot, but I think right now I'd
go with Do the Right Thing,Spike Lee.
That movie, it's just the firsttime I saw it, I completely
broke down.
It's just so unbelievablypowerful and continues to be so
prescient and relevant in theworld today, and I just think
it's a a beautiful reflection onthe human condition and society,
(48:50):
and it's a gorgeous piece ofart.
SPEAKER_04 (48:53):
I I got a lot.
Um I think overall my favoritemovie ever is Seven Samurai by
Akira Kurosawa.
I just love that movie.
It's just so much fun.
I also really like House, theNobuhiko by Yashi.
That movie's so weird.
SPEAKER_08 (49:06):
I love it.
It's so good.
Okay, we know what kind of filmsyou're gonna be making.
SPEAKER_02 (49:10):
Uh Charles Peston, so good.
Uh, just something about thealiens be on the movie has, and
soundtrack is so creepy andweird.
Just love all the makeup and theperformances are so good, and
the ending line.
Yeah, very good.
SPEAKER_01 (49:28):
Excellent.
Good catch.
There will never be a bettermovie than where the wild things
are.
And I will die on that hill.
Very comp.
Yeah, rest in peace, bro.
We love Jersey.
SPEAKER_07 (49:42):
Yes, love Jersey.
SPEAKER_06 (49:44):
Susan.
You know, maybe West Side Story.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_12 (49:48):
These are all good movies, huh?
Do you have any obsessions?
SPEAKER_05 (49:52):
Um, all right, this one's for Alvi and Susan.
Which of your films do you thinkhad the biggest impact, either
in terms of like awareness of anissue or in terms of driving
like policy at the federallevel?
SPEAKER_06 (50:03):
I think probably The Harvest.
And that was not one of our mostsuccessful films, not one of the
our very best films either, Idon't think.
But but we did take that film toCongress.
Uh, we did we brought it therein support of um changes to the
Fair Labor Standards Act, uh,because child farm workers were
(50:25):
not protected in the way thatchildren working in any other
area uh were.
And that's still the film thatis most requested for use in the
classroom across the country.
And it was the film that when wecreated the curriculum, teachers
from all over the country helpedus to write that curriculum.
SPEAKER_08 (50:44):
I would say one of the ones that had a really
direct impact is one of ourlittle known films called One
Way Up was made in England,London about a BMX track that
stands in the middle of a gangterritory.
We shot it in 3D, I don't knowwhy.
But it's wonderful BMX footage.
These kids are inspired by a DJwho took over this club and gave
(51:06):
them access where they didn'thave it.
They turned out a worldchampion.
And as a result of the film, thecommunity built them a new track
and brought these gangs togetherto race together.
So from an immediate impact,that that film is really stands
out.
(51:28):
BMX.
SPEAKER_06 (51:29):
The BMX event, and I think he came in third.
SPEAKER_09 (51:33):
Hi, I have a question uh for the emerging
filmmakers.
Congratulations, by the way.
Thank you.
My question is do you guys go tothe movies or do you watch
movies on your phone orelectronic devices?
SPEAKER_12 (51:46):
Full disclosure, she is a board member of the
Montclair Film Festival andwants people to come to the
theater.
SPEAKER_04 (51:52):
Okay.
Before anything else, I'll haveyou know I am a member of
Montclair Film.
I much prefer going to themovies for anything.
Um, it doesn't matter whattheater it is, of course,
Montclair Film is the best.
SPEAKER_12 (52:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (52:08):
Of course.
But um, I always prefer going tothe movies, but some movies, you
know, they just don't getscreened.
And like there's plenty ofmovies that I need to watch,
like on the internet archive,because there's just no other
way to watch them.
SPEAKER_08 (52:20):
Maybe you could suggest them for the Bellevue
now that's opened and you'll geta classic series going.
That's a good idea.
SPEAKER_03 (52:26):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
It's I think the theater is thebest experience if you can, but
like you're saying, there's somany movies that just if you're
watching older movies or justmore obscure things, there's no
other way to watch them but athome.
SPEAKER_01 (52:39):
The way I think about it is like if I'm not on
an airplane, I'm not watching amovie on my phone.
I like to I like to live bythat, I think.
The big screen, the big screen,come on.
SPEAKER_12 (52:50):
All right, you guys, thank you so much.
We're waiting.
Really appreciate everyonecoming to thank you to Monclaw
Film Festival for having us, andthank you to Susan and Alvi and
all the emerging filmmakers, andthank you so much.
And can we get a picture ofeveryone?
Yeah, let's see.
(53:10):
Let's do what we got this.
SPEAKER_11 (53:14):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,iTunes, and Buzz Sprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
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