Projects in Production
Artemis Rising has a full slate of exciting films and other media projects in the works
This documentary is the story of the pioneering researchers, doctors, and former addicts fighting for the ability to better understand ibogaine and bring its healing potential to the mainstream. Filmmaker: Lucy Walker
A Test of Civilization takes viewers on an emotional roller-coaster ride around the globe documenting and bringing to light the never-before-told story of the only intergovernmental effort to rescue the Austrian and German Jews, beginning in 1938. Set against the backdrop of an encroaching war, the film unfolds like a thriller as President Roosevelt sends his top negotiator George Rublee to Nazi Germany to bargain for the safe emigration of the Reich’s Jews. Filmmakers: Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Debi Wisch, Keith Barish
>> African Ceremonies, Untitled
A film that will capture the story and work of pioneering photographers, Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, as they continue their decades-long extraordinary adventure through Africa.Filmmakers: Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim
The Montana Hi-Line is the most remote place in America’s lower 48. Small, dying towns, farms, ranches, and oil fields checker the landscape as sprawling plains, like a sea of grass, stretch as far as the eye can see. In this vast remoteness, organized crime feed on the vulnerable with drugs and human trafficking. In the face of climate change and wild fires, farmers and ranchers struggle to send their children to college, who after receiving an education, have little interest in returning home to work the land. Those who stay are not only connected by this landscape’s violent history, but the resilience to make positive change. Filmmakers: Neil Gelinas and Amy Berg
A documentary film about the life and inspirational leadership of Mario Cuomo, the former New York Governor. Filmmakers: George, Teddy, and Peter Kunhardt
A screenplay by Tyler Hisel from the novel “An Infinity of Mirrors” by Richard Condon (“The Manchurian Candidate”, “Prizzi’s Honor”). Filmmaker: Edoardo Ponti
With 20 billion heads of livestock walking the earth, factory farming is devastating our ecosystem. The antibiotics, greenhouse gases, and waste the industry dispenses are rapidly creating a worldwide environmental crisis. Our cameras will follow the stories of three young activists as they undergo boot-camp-like training together to become investigators, then leave behind families, friends, and lovers to go work undercover at a half dozen factory farms around the country over an 18-month period. During that time they will also record daily diaries of their experiences, allowing audiences a much more intimate perspective into their lives. Filmmakers: Amy Ziering & Kirby Dick
How V, (formally known as Eve Ensler) changed the understanding of body image and sexuality when she first shared her controversial award winning play, The Vagina Monologues, in 1996. Witnessing the effect this had on her audience, a global movement was born out of the powerful accounts of women whose experiences make up the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted, raped or violated in their lifetime. With over 7 billion people on the planet today, that is over one billion women. Filmmaker: Deborah Anderson
A film about an obsessed conductor, Benjamin Zander, trying to unravel the mystery behind Ludwig van Beethoven’s ground-breaking symphony, known to the world as Beethoven’s 9th. Producers: Christer Gaardmann Zall, Mikkel Gaardmann Zall, Sigrid Dyekjær
>> Black and Jewish in America
“Black and Jewish in America,” a new series from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. will chart the parallel, intersecting, and forking streams of Black and Jewish experience in America. Over the course of four, hour-long episodes, the series will follow the story of the Black and Jewish relationship chronologically, tracing its waxing and waning in the context of broader American and world history. Filmmaker: McGee Media
A music-driven documentary that follows five brilliant young singer-songwriters who range in age from 18 to 42, all of whom write, sing and perform in the shadow of their legendary parents. Intercut with intimate domestic and backstage scenes, home movies, family albums, and a range of concert footage going back to Woodstock, the film will follow real-time stories of our cast. David Heilbroner & Kate Davis, Directors; Tamara Weiss, Producer; Nancy Knox, Coordinating Producer.
9,000 miles. 3 families. 1 chance to escape. As the European Union works in violation of international human rights law to transform North Africa into a brutal holding cell for Africans fleeing war and extreme poverty, this film brings the untold stories of Africa’s migrant and refugee crisis to light. Filmmaker: Isabella Alexander-Nathani
Hamza Walker is a man on a mission that will force us all to confront our feelings about America’s long history of racism. He intends to stage a high profile at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art to be used as a prism through which to explore what America should do with its 800 or more Confederate monuments, which stand as symbols of its long history of racism and segregation. The MONUMENTS exhibition will feature a dozen or more actual Confederate monuments with new works of art commissioned by contemporary artists. Filmmaker: Debi Wisch
During her childhood, Hunter Austin was enamored with the character Cindy Prescott from the popular kids’ show, THUNDER. After turning 50, Austin finally got to meet the woman behind that role — Melora Hardin. Hardin was fascinated by her fan’s life. Days filled by animal actors in an enchanting home, it all seemed so magical. But things weren’t as they appeared. The course of Austin’s life had been changed after she was raped at the age of 7. BUTTERFLY HUNTER follows Austin’s journey to face the traumas of her path and start her path to healing. Director: Melora Hardin; Producer: James Younger.
A short narrative drama that explores the mind of a woman with depression through a fantastical ride in a NYC Taxicab. Filmmaker: Nicole Melillo.
A feel-good sitcom format film to address the devastating absurdity of life in the mid-19th Century American South. Filmmaker: RaMell Ross
A documentary that focuses on a groundbreaking approach in which judges, doctors, police, and family members urge, and at times compel, people with serious mental illness into effective, humane, outpatient care. Set in the rust-belt city of Akron, its protagonists are the participants in two court programs supporting people with debilitating illnesses — those who take the meds, appear before the judges, and struggle for both their dignity and their sanity. Filmmakers: Ken Rosenberg and Peter Miller
Common Ground is the follow up documentary to Kiss the Ground. The film will be a vital tool in transforming America’s broken food system and in shifting farming practices in America such that enough carbon can be sequestered into soil to stabilize the climate. Filmmakers: Rebecca and Josh Tickell
The story of the tenacious young women who compete in the annual Girl Scout Cookie sale in a quest to be crowned top seller. This heartwarming, visually rich, and character-driven documentary follows a range of Scouts through a single sale season, tracing their inner journeys and offering a multifaceted look at coming of age in America today. Director/Producer: Alysa Nahmias, Producers: Gregory Kershaw, Michael Dweck
A film exposing the hidden origins of the Christian Nationalist movement that seeks to radically dismantle US democracy. A bullet through the heart of a beloved doctor in Upstate New York opens this psychological thriller tracing America’s the demolition of abortion rights to a hippie evangelical commune high in the Swiss Alps. Director/Producer: Laura Dawn, Daron Murphy, Jehane Noujaim
A film about a famous celebrated magician that taught magic to inmates at a correctional facility. Filmmakers: Ross Kauffman and Lizz Morhaim
Incidents of hate crimes against Asian-Americans have increased as the pandemic rages on, with many Americans blaming their fellow citizens-of-color for the spread of the COVID-19 virus. In addition to this, our film tells the story of a remarkably courageous Asian-American woman who refuses to back down from those who would have silenced her. She has rallied not only against one divisive and delusional man in the Oval Office, but against an entire establishment filled with figures aiming to erase her. Filmmakers: Sandra Luckow / Nicholas Daniele / Joseph Schroeder
A film about social media and mental health with a focus on youth perspectives.Filmmakers: Crystal McCrary, Beth Kojima, and Annie Sundberg
EARTH CAMP ONE, a feature-length work of creative nonfiction, is about filmmaker Jennie Livingston losing four family members in five years. It’s a meditation on impermanence — exploring living in a world where everything and everyone disappears; and where the process of grieving the dead is as imperfect as the challenge of appreciating the living. The film is both a first-person story and a complex animated essay on how our culture views impermanence. Director: Jennie Livingston
>> The Education of Shelby Knox
The Education of Shelby Knox is based on a successful documentary of the same name. It tells the story of Shelby, a 17 year-old abstinence-pledging Southern Baptist form Lubbock, Texas. When Shelby discovers the high rate of teen pregnancy and STDs in her hometown, she figures something should be done. She challenges her school board, local politicians and church leaders on the proper way to teach comprehensive sex education. What starts as a hesitant inquiry ends in a statewide campaign, where Shelby becomes the poster girl for Sex Ed.Filmmaker: Alethea Jones
Ebony Magazine chronicled a 70-year period of time when almost no one else was paying attention to African Americans. During that time, it told stories of black struggle; it told the story of the civil rights movement; and it told of a changing America. But Ebony also told inspirational stories of black success, showed the burgeoning arrival of a black middle class, and chronicled black cultural as well. Most important, it was a magazine where black people could see themselves—not just in the articles and photo spreads, but in the advertisements, as well. Filmmaker: Lisa Cortes
A documentary that traces the history of the Equal Rights Amendment to illustrate how across race, class, and gender, the desire to access white male power has undermined the most obvious piece of social progress since the abolition of slavery. Filmmaker: Sabaah Folayan
This is not a biographical film about Pope Francis in the traditional sense. Rather it is a film that shows us the world as it is today and a path to understanding what a better future can be for tomorrow as seen through the remarkable work of the Pope in the areas of climate change, immigration, peace and religious tolerance, GLBT support, gender and identity justice, health and economic equality, and, by example, the meaning of inspired leadership. Filmmaker: Evgeny Afineevsky
This film uses the daring escape of outspoken human rights activist and North Korean defector, Hyeonseo Lee, as a jumping-off-point to penetrate the reality of life inside the most mysterious country in the world, and to reveal the broader psychological tolls of defection. At the tender age of 17, Hysenseo crossed the frozen Yalu River on the northern border into China. Intending to go only for a short, rebellious stay, she never returned to her country. Almost sold into prostitution and at one point arrested and interrogated, Hyeonseo hid her identity for over ten years as an illegal in China. Her tale of bravery and daring is also one of loneliness and disconnection. Filmmakers: Madeleine Gavin / Jana Edelbaum / Rachel Cohen
A film about gun violence in America and its connection to the history of violence in America and the trauma that this has caused on a local community level and as a society as a whole. The film seeks to bridge those divides and offer solutions to healing and reconciliation. Director: Tom Donahue Producer: Ilan Arboleda
This film is set during one of the greatest untold narratives of European history: the forced enclosure of open fields and common land from the late medieval era on, whereby subsistence
HEROES JOURNEY is a film about seven young amputee veterans who attempt to climb the world’s tallest mountains on every continent as a journey of recovery and transformation. Filmmaker: Frieda Mock
A story about two tenacious Kenyan women who are transforming a dilapidated, junk-filled library in downtown Nairobi into a hub for the city’s citizens and creatives. Filmmakers: Maia Lekow and Christopher King
>> Hurricane Hate (working title)
Kim A. Snyder’s HURRICANE HATE is her second look at Shelbyville, a small rural town in the middle of Tennessee’s bible belt. Using footage of the recent White Lives Matter March there, archival footage, and scenes from her previous film about the town, WELCOME TO SHELBYVILLE, Snyder attempts to answer, “What happens when hate comes to your town?” Director: Kim A. Snyder
>> The Image of the Black in Western Art (working title)
Development of the Book Series The Image of the Black in Western Art into a documentary series. This grant will provide producers with a discretionary fund for research to the frame narrative, and for the development of sales materials to approach creative and production partners. Filmmakers: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Dyllan McGee, Geralyn Dreyfous, Alison Taylor
Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body—a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.”. Based on her book of the same name, this film is a visionary memoir of separation and connection—to the body, the self, and the world. Filmmaker: Eve Ensler
>>Inmate Corrections Television
A film about the Inmate Corrections Television (ICTV) that shows a first-person account of incarceration that follows Sam Ormes’ incredible effort to bring a sense of humanity to the long forgotten men of Miami’s Dade-County Jail. Producer: Trisha Koury; Directors: Myles Kane and Josh Koury
This film is based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, a tire factory supervisor who endured 20 years of discrimination, harassment and unequal pay, who took her fight to the Supreme Court and Congress. President Obama names the Fair Pay Act after Lilly, transforming her into a national icon. “Lilly” is also a movie about radical resilience, about how this woman, and perhaps any woman, who is oppressed and cheated time after time gathers the inner resources to get up and fight another day. Filmmakers: Rachel Feldman, Kelly Ashton, Simone Pero, Kerianne Flynn, J. Todd Harris, Julie Kaufman, and Christine Schwarzman
A film based on a unique and heart-warming conversation between Nelson Mandela and his grandchildren. It begins in Johannesburg in 2009, with Ndaba Mandela gently leading his grandfather into a room where his other grandkids eagerly await him. And it continues, following four of Mandela’s grandchildren today, reflecting on life with their larger-than-life Granddad and his legacy. It ends with Kweku at Mandela’s grave in Qunu on the day of his funeral. Directors: Kewku Mandela, Jens Meurer
A documentary about the acclaimed artist and activist Marilyn Minter. Minter, who is approaching her 80th year, is a leading voice in the fight for women’s rights. She is a recovered alcoholic and drug addict who speaks openly and with empathy about her own struggles as a means of helping others. She is also one of the nation’s leading voices in abortion rights who has created provocative, impactful, and newsworthy films and art works to this end featuring warrior women including Gloria Steinem, Miley Cyrus, Monica Lewinsky, Mickalene Thomas and Lizzo. Filmmakers: Jennifer Ash, Amanda Benchley, and Debi Wisch
This film explores Henderson’s roots and traces his unique path to becoming an acclaimed artist and renowned blues musician. Through a series of interviews, archival photos, and footage of current musical and art events, Henderson will tell us in his own words about his wide-ranging exploration of the arts—from his early days in the 1960s at the San Francisco Art Institute, painting and making experimental films, to playing music with rock and blues greats such as Elvin Bishop, Sunnyland Slim, Mike Bloomfield and John Lee Hooker, who dubbed him “The Blues Professor.” Filmmakers: Ethan Wiley & Cheryl Haines
A follow-up to MissRepresentation, MissRepresentation 2.0 is about how a steady dose of disparaging portrayals in streaming and social media on top of persistent cultural norms degrade and dehumanize girls and women. Filmmaker: Jennifer Siebel Newsom
A film that is about the iconic change-maker Mary Robinson, a pioneering constitutional lawyer, the first female President of Ireland, the UN’s first High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chair of The Elders, who has led an extraordinary life and career of human rights activism, shining a light on a half century of battles for equality, human rights and climate justice. Filmmakers: Cormac Hargaden; Trisha Canning
This film covers the founding impact of Ms. Magazine, the first magazine about feminist issues written, edited and ultimately owned by women. Filmmakers: Amy Richards and Dyllan McGee
If you look at the world’s worst problems they all lead back to a single cause; individuals with inhumane pathologies (malignant narcissism, sociopathy, anti-social behavior etc.). People with good intentions are often blind to these strategies because they cannot imagine behaving the way a narcissist does. But, with education we can understand how narcissists think and operate, and learn to spot them before they get to incur more damage.Filmmakers: Mark Vicente/ Scott Altomare/Lyn Lear
A documentary following one of Hamilton’s musical leads, Renée Elise Goldsberry, who played Angelica Schuyler, as she tells behind-the-scenes stories through her eyes and shares hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage during the creation of the musical that has become a global phenomenon. Directors: Chris Bolan and Melissa Haizlip, Producers: Steven Cantor and Jamie Schutz
A two-part film chronicling the story of New York City across the two decades of the 21st Century. Filmmaker: Ric Burns
The purpose of this project is to paint a portrait of rural America through the lens of one of its oldest institutions – the United States Postal Service. The USPS is a vital public infrastructure,
RADICALS tells the harrowing story of mothers whose children have been transformed into radicalized “foreign fighters” by the lure of ISIS. The film follows these women as they grapple with the sudden and disruptive transformation of the world around them. While our attention is often directed toward the spectacle of radical youth and the threat they pose, this film takes you into the world of those they left behind. Together these women attempt to make sense of how a generation of youth is being seduced by radical violence from their own bedrooms. They’re joined by community allies and public figures to reframe public perception, as they challenge media narratives and help rewrite government policy. Director: Jehane Noujaim; Producers: Karim Amer, Mike Lerner
>> Getting Real (Formerly: The REAL Power of Relationships)
A film that will reveal how our trauma history impacts all of our relationships. Filmmaker: Michelle Esrick
THE RED DRESSES is a film about indigenous women being killed and going missing at alarming rates without any action from local officials. Filmmakers: Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick
A film that searches for a cure for Superbugs via the lens of this young woman who died of Cystic Fibrosis while she searched for a cure. Filmmakers: Amy Ziering & Kirby Dick
>> Sam Project, Untitled Documentary
This documentary tells the poignant story of a father and son who learn to collaborate in order to build a relationship that transcends the boundaries of prison walls. It follows Sam Bader, a former film producer, and his estranged son, Omar. Sam was the first person to entrust me (Nadav Kurtz, director) with editing a feature. But in 2006, just weeks before we debuted our film Street Thief at the Tribeca Film Festival, he was arrested for armed robbery. Omar was eight years old when the police came looking for Sam and, during questioning, he gave them his father’s phone number to help them find him. Sam was sentenced to 24 years and Omar has been wracked with guilt ever since. Today, thirteen years later, Sam is still in prison and Omar is an aspiring filmmaker himself (as well as writer, actor and musician). Filmmakers: Nadav Kurtz/Diane Quon
This film will hit home with the millions of people in animal welfare but abuse and discrimination are a universal experience that so many have been affected by and will relate to. Where there is human abuse, animal abuse is also happening. Saving JONES will take a very real look at this and the societal issues that contribute to it. An important story to tell from a very different perspective and its purpose is to educate and make change.. Filmmakers: Rebecca Corry / Amy Ziering
Over the course of a school year, “Social Studies” documents the impact of social media by following a group of kids into their lives: their homes, relationships, schools, malls, late-night locations, and, most tellingly, their phones. The students are from both public and private schools around Los Angeles to grant entrée to the camera, as well as, unprecedented access to their social media. Filmmaker and/or Producer: Lauren Greenfield and Frank Evers
A story of an elderly couple surviving the near-isolation in rural Ireland. Filmmaker: Ron Harrison
A film that revisits five personal accounts who previously shared their lives to highlight the lifelong medical, psychological and generational impact of child sexual assault. Filmmakers: Alexandra Dickson Gray, Vanessa Roth, Colin Nash
This Oscar-nominated documentary tells the story of Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India and his wife Jaganti. They seek justice for their 13 year-old daughter “Kiran” (name changed by request) after she’s sexually assaulted by three men on the night of a family wedding. Ranjit becomes a role model for healthy masculinity. “Kiran”, with strong support, is able to overcome the violence and repression inflicted upon her. Filmmaker: Nisha Pahuja
>> Unleashed Empowerment Videos
o support a new TV Series which profiles female change makers and entrepreneurs who are making a difference around the world. Director: Filmmaker: Kara Ross
A film that shares a glimpse into the lives of celebrated opera singers and musicians mentoring international music students at a Milan retirement home Filmmakers: Yvonne Russo / Christine La Monte
An inspirational, upbeat and poetic documentary that explores the foundational role that bees play in sustaining humanity, the reasons for their sharp population decline (a.k.a. “colony collapse disorder”) and how we can regenerate bees worldwide, so they are once again part of a thriving ecosystem. Filmmakers: Josh and Rebecca Tickell
A musical event, presented in live theatrical form, that explores the global climate catastrophe and the generation of mavericks who are demanding change be made. The production targets a new generation of theatergoers, engaging them in a new format of art with a story that resonates with their passions. Filmmaker/Producer: Join the Becoming, LLC; Antonio Marion, Executive Producer; Written by V & Justin Tranter.
A film about an unregulated wilderness rehabilitation camp where a sickening truth is uncovered about the camp’s leader. This story encapsulates a whole generation of teenagers that have lost the most pivotal years of their lives to various wilderness therapy rehabilitation camps across the nation. Filmmakers: Spencer King and Ali Edwards
WOMEN OF THE MOUNTAIN is a 60-minute documentary about three women who run the longest ultramarathons, of 120 miles or more, in the highest mountain ranges and three female entrepreneurs who carve out a livelihood in those mountains. The women profiled in the film refuse to be defined by gender, culture, age or the parameters society sets for them: Aparna and Thenlis defy culturally-acceptable roles for women by traversing the Himalayas, a former Olympic cross-country skier fights against her age to compete in a 125-mile race, a mother of five children competes alongside the director in a 200-mile ultramarathon in California’s Sierra Nevada, and a local Native American strives to preserve her tribe’s ancient culture in the mountains they’ve called home for thousands of years. Director/Producer: Rebecca Byerly