Episode 31

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Published on:

6th Feb 2021

Documentary Filmmaker Yoruba Richen & Producer Mishka Brown

In this Roundtable we are joined by Award-winning documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen to discuss her powerful film “How It Feels to be Free,” which is streaming on PBS through February 16th. This documentary follows the inspiring stories of six iconic Black female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – and the ways their actions defied the standards of the entertainment in a time when they were expected to conform into roles that perpetuated racist stereotypes. Their influence is felt to this day and is touched upon in interviews with Halle Berry, Lena Waithe, Samuel L Jackson, and other trailblazers. The film explores how each of them used their art and influence to further advance the civil rights movement. 

Producer Mishka Brown leads this engaging conversation, covering Yoruba’s early days where fellowships helped her travel around the world creating documentaries, mentorship, and Black representation in Hollywood, and the making of Yoruba’s other film, “The Killing of Breonna Taylor,” which is currently streaming on Hulu. 

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About the Podcast

Film Roundtable
Film Roundtable is an open exploration with celebrated industry professionals to discuss the filmmaking process and to consider the path forward in the post COVID world.
Film Roundtable was to created as space for artists in the industry to talk openly and freely about what is present for them at this unprecedented moment in time. Most of us have found ourselves, until just recently, in a sort of worldwide, collective pause. We have had an abundance of time to be quiet, to go inside ourselves, to listen, but most importantly to imagine the change we want to see in our own lives and careers as well as for the collective as a whole. A quality of life greater not just for ourselves but for all. As image makers, many of us with voices that are heard around the world, to really begin to envision how we use our platform, our art, to create change for a greater good; a kinder and more just world.