A Boston (R)Evolution

 Daphne McWilliams (Director), an independent filmmaker, began her career producing music videos for such artists as Queen Latifah, Blues Traveler and the Notorious B.I.G. In 1995, at Spike Lee’s request, she produced the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning 4 Little Girls, about the murder of four Black girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Working on the movie changed her life and her career path: Documentary filmmaking became her passion. Daphne has since produced, among many other works, a pair of episodes for The Blues (Martin Scorsese, 2003), The Curious Case of Curt Flood (Spike Lee, 2011), Slavery by Another Name (Samuel D. Pollard, 2012), and Maynard (Pollard, 2017), which tells the story of Atlanta’s first African American mayor. As well, she produced Black Art: In the Absence of Light (Pollard), premiering on HBO February 2021. Her directorial debut, In a Perfect World, garnered several festival awards and premiered on Showtime in 2016. The documentary explores what it means to be a man raised by a single mother. Over the course of several years, Daphne interviewed men about the relationships they had with their mothers and, if at all, with their absentee fathers. In a Perfect World is both a personal view of her son’s coming-of-age and a series of impressionist portraits of what it is to be men raised solely by mothers.

  Sam Pollard (Executive Producer) is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans over forty years. As a documentary producer, he won an Emmy for one of his episodes in Henry Hampton's series Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads and later received a Peabody for Hampton's last documentary series I'll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. Between 1990 and 2010, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, and Bamboozled. Mr. Pollard and Mr. Lee co-produced a number of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Mr. Pollard received an Emmy. Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings was nominated for an Academy Award and When The Levees Broke, a four part documentary won numerous awards, including a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. Five years later in 2010, he co-produced and supervised the edit on the follow up to Levees, If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise. Since 2012, Mr. Pollard has completed as a producer/director Slavery By Another Name, a 90-minute documentary for PBS that was in competition at the Sundance Festival; August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand, a 90-minute documentary in 2015 for American Masters; Two Trains Runnin’, a feature length documentary in 2016 that premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival; in 2017, PBS' The Talk: Race in America, as well as Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me for American Masters. MLK/FBI is his latest film.

  Jamie Gordon (Producer) is an executive producer of the Emmy-winning PBS series Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and award-winning A Path Appears, both based on books by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof, which shine a light on activists around the world. At Fugitive Films, Gordon and partner Courtney Potts have most recently produced Humor Me, starring Elliott Gould and Jemaine Clement, as well as YouTube’s NYC Women in Comedy series. Fugitive has film and series projects in development with eOne, Samantha Bee, ITV, CBS, among others. Previously, Gordon produced and/or developed numerous independent films, including Coach (Hugh Dancy, Gillian Jacobs), Wedding Daze (Jason Biggs, Isla Fisher), Pinero (Benjamin Bratt), swimfan (Erika Christensen, Jesse Bradford), In the Bedroom (Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei) and A Love Song for Bobby Long (Scarlett Johansson, John Travolta). Gordon sits on the board of Reel Works, a Brooklyn-based non profit that  introduces underserved youth to careers in the film industry. 

  Mikaela Beardsley (Producer) is an Emmy-winning documentary producer who is dedicated to finding innovative ways to deploy storytelling’s power for good. She has worked with filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Thomas Lennon and Wim Wenders, among others, and produced fifteen nationally broadcast films. She is currently producing a feature documentary about restorative justice and LITTLE G, a limited documentary series about local government, with Conan O’Brien’s company Conaco. In 2020 she produced for director Matthew Heineman on a film about COVID in NYC, and for directors Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer on a docuseries about The Lincoln Project. Previously she originated and executive produced Half the Sky Movement, a multi-year Emmy-winning global media project aimed at improving opportunity for women and girls in the developing world. Mikaela optioned Half the Sky after producing the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Reporter: A Film with Nicholas D. Kristof.

  Carole Brennan (Producer), a former journalist, is a Boston-based independent communications, media, marketing, public affairs, and business-strategy consultant, who specializes in storytelling, messaging, branding, and project oversight. Recently, she spent 12 years as a Principal and Co-Leader of Brown Rudnick LLP’s Boston-based public affairs group. After a long, successful career as a newspaper publisher, editor and journalist, in 2000, Brennan was tapped by Boston’s longest serving mayor, the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino, to serve as his press secretary. She was the city’s primary spokesperson and chief media liaison during many extraordinary moments, including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the city’s hosting of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and the city’s first New England Patriots victory rally. Mid-career, Brennan also spent several years working in overseas media development in emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America. As a Knight International Press Fellow for the International Center for Journalists, Washington DC, Brennan founded the still-thriving Independent Journalism Center in Chisinau, Moldova. She also was a co-founder of GRLZradio.org, which for more than 15 years helped hundreds of girls in Boston find their voices and be heard.