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Media Management faculty and program director Neyda Martinez and alum Igor Myakotin (Doc Studies 2016) have been selected with their films by the Sundance Institute for its prestigious Producers lab:

Bartolo (U.S.A.)
Producing Fellow: Neyda Martinez
The lives of two women intersect through crisis after disasters due to climate change and government neglect decimate the impoverished mountainsides of western Puerto Rico. In the face of housing insecurity and economic inequality, will Jeanette and her community commit to Elisa’s nation-building activism to forge a new way forward?

Neyda Martinez is a producer whose films examine culture, equity, and social justice. Documentaries in production include Bartolo, A Chasm in Chinatown, and The People vs. Austerity. Past credits include Lucky and Decade of Fire. An Associate Professor at The New School, Neyda’s board service includes NYU’s Latinx Project, UPROSE and Women Make Movies.

Queendom (U.S.A. / France)
Producing Fellow: Igor Myakotin
​​​​Gena, a queer artist from a small town in Russia, dresses in otherworldly costumes and parades around Moscow to protest the government. It becomes a movement with a million followers she calls “drag activism” until she’s arrested and threatened to flee.

Igor Myakotin is an Emmy-nominated BAFTA-winning filmmaker who co-produced feature-length documentary Welcome to Chechnya (Sundance, Berlinale). He believes that cinema is not a way to escape reality but a way to embrace it with all its peculiarities, its darkness and depth.

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Sam Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost thirty years. His most recent documentary, MLK/FBI was released this January to universal critical acclaim.

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Filmmaking is just one aspect of a larger industry — the mass media — and this 100-year-old university located in the heart of the media capital of the world offers a master’s program that will immerse students in studying the various mediums that share human stories through audio and visual elements. The two-year education is designed to be broad or specific, with a limited number of required courses, allowing a flexible curriculum catering to students’ interests. Take a deep dive into digital cinema production of documentary or narrative storytelling to learn the craft, or take the scholarly route to analyze, criticize and philosophize about the history and future of film. In addition to a fine faculty of diverse media professionals, students will have the opportunity to learn from modern masters through the Hirshon Director-In-Residence, which previously featured Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) and Oscar nominee Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). “It’s a unique opportunity for students to learn from contemporary filmmakers in an intimate setting,” Vladan Nikolic, the dean of the School of Media Studies, tells MovieMaker. “The filmmakers are very open about their processes, and all it takes to get a film made, especially for those films that are personal and oftentimes difficult to get made. Students have regularly said afterward that they have been immensely inspired by the filmmakers, and that these master classes helped them in thinking about and shaping their own work.”

Hollywood Reporter:

The New School program is notable for its flexibility, which allows students — 80 percent of whom receive some type of merit-based university scholarship — to combine courses to fit their own interests. Ultimately, students graduate with either a master’s in media studies or entertainment management.

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Cited by Indiewire as one of the “exciting trans filmmakers shaking up Hollywood”. Sam’s films explore legacy, conflict, and futures within the queer and trans communities. Through all of Sam’s work they strive to set new standards for ethics in film production. Sam’s films have been programmed by Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CPH:DOX, MOMA PS-1, The British Film Institute, The Hammer Museum, and in hundreds of film festivals around the world.

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