Special Screening And Masterclass

DocedgeKolkata in association with Global Media Makers, Film Independent USA and American Center Kolkata presents a Masterclass and two days of Special Screening.

MASTERCLASS

Friday, 03 March 23 | 10am

Venue: American Center 38A, Jawaharlal Nehru Road Kolkata 700 038

For registration email diksha@docresi.org

• The Masterclass is being held in association with Global Media Makers, USA

  An innovative mentoring initiative that connects visual storytellers around the world with U.S. entertainment professionals through comprehensive filmmaker education, business training, professional networking opportunities and tailored mentorships. The program is supported through a partnership between Film Independent and The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

  
• 

  FRIDAY, March 03, 05:30pm | American Center, Kolkata

  Against all odds and polar advice, a Muslim chaplain, a French biologist, a Qatari princess and eight other women from the Arab World and the West attempt to ski across the melting Arctic sea ice to the North Pole. Director Holly Morris and her crew capture the struggle of these boundary-breaking adventurers who, led by veteran polar explorer Felicity Aston, navigate everything from frostbite and polar bear threats to sexism and self-doubt in an intimate story of resilience, survival and global citizenry. EXPOSURE is the story of the audacious women who are, to date, the last ever to ski over the ice to the North Pole.

• 

  THURSDAY, March 02, 05:30pm | American Center, Kolkata

  THE STORY OF PLASTIC is a searing expose, uncovering the ugly truth behind plastic pollution and the false solution of plastic recycling. Different from every other plastic documentary you’ve seen, THE STORY OF PLASTIC presents a cohesive timeline of how we got to our current global plastic pollution crisis and how the oil and gas industry has successfully manipulated the narrative around it. From the extraction of fossil fuels and plastic disposal to the global resistance fighting back, THE STORY OF PLASTIC is a life changing film depicting one of the world's most pressing environmental issues.

• Holly Morris is an award-winning author, journalist, and filmmaker whose work has appeared in SLATE & The New York Times. Her films include Behind Closed Chadors, Holy Cow, Paradox Found, and The Babushkas of Chernobyl, which won the Jury Award for directing at the 2015 LA Film Festival. Her work in journalism has received many grants, including from the NEA and Chicken & Egg Pictures. She hosts the PBS travel series’ Globe Trekker and Treks in a Wild World.
  
  The author of Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine (Random House), and former editorial director of the book publishing company Seal Press, Morris’ print journalism has been featured in Outside, The Daily Telegraph, SLATE & the New York Times and her film work has received many notable grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Redford Center, Fork Films, Chicken & Egg Pictures and the San Francisco Film Society. She is also a longtime host of the PBS travel series’ Globe Trekker and Treks in a Wild World, both of which broadcast worldwide.
  
  Her 2015 film The Babushkas of Chernobyl premiered at the LA Film Festival and won the Jury Award for Directing - the first of 20 awards the film received before worldwide broadcast. The story of the film is based on Morris' print journalism and popular TED Talk. She is in production on a follow-up to that story; the new film takes place during the 2022 Russian occupation of Ukraine's radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
  
  
  
  SPECIAL SCREENING
  
  Thursday 02 > Friday 03 March | 05:30pm
  Venue: American Center 38A, Jawaharlal Nehru Road Kolkata 700 038
  
  RSVP: AmericanCenterKolkata@state.gov
  

• The masterclass led by U.S. documentary filmmakers Deia Schlosberg (The Story of Plastic) and Holly Morris (Exposure) will provide the participants with an overview of current documentary trends, approaches and styles. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss the current landscape for documentary films: green production, sustainability, opportunities for funding, festival circuit, and finding distribution.
  
  Deia Schlosberg’s directorial debut, THE STORY OF PLASTIC (Mill Valley/Discovery) won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Documentary in 2021.
  
  Previously, Deia produced Josh Fox's climate change film, HOW TO LET GO OF THE WORLD... (2016, Sundance/HBO), and co-produced AWAKE, A DREAM FROM STANDING ROCK (2017, Tribeca/Netflix), and THE RELUCTANT RADICAL (2018, PBS, dir. Lindsey Grayzel). Deia earned an MFA in Science & Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State University in Bozeman, where she directed and produced BACKYARD, which looks at the human cost of fracking and won two student Emmys. She was named one of DOC NYC's 40 under 40 in 2019, and a Film Independent Fellow in 2021. Deia's background is in Earth science and visual communications, as well as expeditioning, having been awarded a 2009 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award for a two-year, 7800-mile through-hike of the Andes Mountains.
  
  Deia is currently directing the docuseries BOOTSTRAPS, which follows eleven households for two and a half years while each individual receives a basic income as part of a groundbreaking UBI experiment.