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Maestra News

Read more about the article Maestra News | September 2016

Maestra News | September 2016

Happy International Literacy Day! In celebration of International Literacy Day, today MAESTRA will be screened at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. We are delighted to continue sharing this story from international headquarters to home screens.…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | September 2016
Read more about the article Maestra News | May 2016

Maestra News | May 2016

Dear Maestra friends and family, We began the month with a celebration of International Workers Day / Día del Trabajador and the month has been full of celebrations, new developments…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | May 2016
Read more about the article Maestra News | April 2016

Maestra News | April 2016

Dear Maestra friends and family, Spring is finally here and we are thrilled to share all that is blooming for our friends and collaborators. March saw "mega-week" in Cuba, with…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | April 2016
Read more about the article Maestra News | March 2016

Maestra News | March 2016

Happy International Women's Day! Dear Maestra friends and family, Happy International Women’s Day! 2016 got off to a great start with MAESTRA screenings throughout Cuba in January and we have…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | March 2016
Read more about the article Maestra News | Help Us Share this Story

Maestra News | Help Us Share this Story

Help Us Share this Story for Years to Come! Happy Holidays to our Maestra Friends and Family! As 2015 winds to a close, we would like to ask you to…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | Help Us Share this Story
Read more about the article Maestra News | End Of Year 2015

Maestra News | End Of Year 2015

Dear Maestra friends and family, We are so happy to send you our first official newsletter! Maestra has been on the road for three years now, screening at over 50…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | End Of Year 2015
Read more about the article Maestra News | Screenings in NC, OH and DC and more!

Maestra News | Screenings in NC, OH and DC and more!

Dear Maestra friends and family, We are kicking of a month of screenings, with events in Oregon, Ohio, NC and DC, including two events with Staughton & Alice Lynd and…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | Screenings in NC, OH and DC and more!
Read more about the article Maestra News | September 2015

Maestra News | September 2015

Dear Maestra friends and family, We are kicking of a month of screenings, with events in Oregon, Ohio, NC and DC, including two events with Staughton & Alice Lynd and…

Continue ReadingMaestra News | September 2015
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🎥 We make films at the intersection of arts, education and social justice movements:
MAESTRA
@freire.lendo.o.mundo
@silvio.miprimeratarea

🌍 “Lendo o Mundo” 🎥 Mejor longo-metrage 🌍 “Lendo o Mundo” 
🎥 Mejor longo-metragem documental 

@festivaldecinemadegramado 
@tantocine
É com imensa alegria que compartilhamos que o nos É com imensa alegria que compartilhamos que o nosso documentário "Lendo o Mundo" foi selecionado para estrear no Festival de Cinema de Gramado!

Foram seis anos de sonhos, trabalho e muitas mãos e corações envolvidos para dar vida a este filme, que mergulha nos anos formativos de Paulo Freire, antes da escrita de sua obra mais conhecida, Pedagogia do Oprimido. Um período pouco explorado, mas essencial para compreender a potência de seu pensamento e sua visão transformadora da educação.

A estreia será no dia 21 de agosto, em uma das mostras mais prestigiadas do cinema brasileiro.

Nosso sincero e profundo agradecimento a todas as pessoas que caminharam conosco até aqui. Direção: @catherine.la.murphy , @iris.cine 
Produção: @olhar_de_cari, Micaela Ovelar
Coprodução: Rachel Dickson
Roteiro & Montagem: @luisdechtiar @iris.cine @renato_maia10, Mara Wollong, 
Direção de Fotografia: Carina Aparecida, Ulises Brandao, @otocartaxo Caio Castor, Renato Maia, @passosjuniorpassos 
Som: Felipe Mago Andrade, Valney Damacena, Alban Henriquez
Produção Executiva: Petra Costa, Kit Miller, T.M. Scruggs
Produção Associados: Talaya Grimes, Miranda Montenegro, Gary Wright Jr.
Produção Consultiva: @marialuisa_mend, Catherine Gund. Consultante criativa: @denisezmekhol 
Produção de Arquivo: Stephanie Temoteo, Micaela Ovelar
Produtora de Impacto: Erika Hoffgen - Vivá Projectos @heletrika 
Música: @oficialchicocesar @ferreirabiaoficial @claudiorabeca @quintetodaparaiba 

#LendoOMundo #PauloFreire #FestivalDeGramado #CinemaBrasileiro #Documentário #EducaçãoTransformadora
Parabens!!!
Mulheres brillantes e inspiradoras!
🎉🎉💚💚🖤🖤❤️❤️🎉🎉
✨ ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

@terreirodaspretas 
@valeriadncarvalho 
@veronicanevescarvalho 
@grunecariri 
@frentedemulheresdocariri 
#artefatosdaculturanegra
#mulherespretas #mulherespretasnopoder
Words of the great James Baldwin via @zinneducat Words of the great James Baldwin 

via @zinneducationproject 

#jamesbaldwin 
#teachtruth 
#zinneducationproject
Instagram post 18307108393168174 Instagram post 18307108393168174
🎥✨ ¡La Articulación Afrofeminista Cubana te 🎥✨ ¡La Articulación Afrofeminista Cubana te invita a la 4ta jornada de Cine Debate! ✨🎥

🗓 Fecha: 24 de julio
📍 Lugar: Casa Titon y Mirtha

Se proyectarán los siguientes cortos:

1️⃣ Now (6 min) - Santiago Álvarez
2️⃣ Noticiero 421 (10 min) - Santiago Álvarez
3️⃣ Raíces Cubanas históricas en Bronx (56 min) - Pamela Spon
4️⃣ OBSESIÓN my Song (11 min) - Catherine Murphy
5️⃣ Todos los días son 8 de marzo (35 min) - Lizette Vila

🎟 Entrada gratuita con previa reservación. Cupos limitados.

📲 Para más información y reservas, contáctanos al +5353706797

¡Te esperamos para disfrutar y debatir juntos! ✊🏽🌍
@toonzee_artist @toonzee_artist
@brotherjones_ contemporary remix of Frederick Dou @brotherjones_ contemporary remix of Frederick Douglass historic speech “What to the American Slave is the 4th of July.

#frederickdouglass #justinjones
¡Junio es el Mes de Apreciación de la Música Af ¡Junio es el Mes de Apreciación de la Música Afroamericana!

En  Maestra Indica de hoy compartimos un documental dirigido por Questlove:
“Summer of Soul (...o, Cuando la Revolución No Pudo Ser Televisada)”.

“El debut como director de esta estrella de la música es un documental sobre el Festival Cultural de Harlem de 1969, que entrelaza una gran cantidad de material inédito en un todo lleno de alegría.” – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

*************

June is African American Music Appreciation Month! Today's Maestra Indica we share a documentary by QuestLove, Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) 

“The music star’s directorial début, a documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, knits a wealth of unseen footage into a joyous whole.” - Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

.

.
#MúsicaAfroamericana
#SummerOfSoul
#QuestloveDocumental
#CulturaNegra
#MaestraIndica
#MaestraProductions
Sahar Delijani @sahardelijani @middleeastmatters Sahar Delijani

@sahardelijani 
@middleeastmatters

#sahardelijani #iran #nowar
Please join us in wishing a very happy birthday to Please join us in wishing a very happy birthday to the brilliant, beautiful & muy talentosa Iris de Oliveira @iris.cine 🦋💚🌟✨

#happybirthday #felizcumple
“[Juneteenth is] a party, it’s a festival but “[Juneteenth is] a party, it’s a festival but it’s also an opportunity for us to have deep interrogation around what work remains to be done to ensure that freedom remains accessible to all. That being of African descent in this country and having survived the specific institutional practices of enslavement on these shores does not impede our capacity to be whole and free today.” @drmoniquecouvson

Text credits to @blackhistorystudies
Today is Juneteenth one of the most profound milestones in American history. On that day, Union General Gordon Granger arrived to deliver the long-overdue message: “All slaves are free.”

This moment did not mark the end of slavery in America, but it symbolized the beginning of a new chapter—one rooted in the promise of liberty and justice. For generations, African American communities have honored Juneteenth as a sacred day of remembrance, reflection, and rejoicing.

Why Juneteenth Matters

Juneteenth is more than a date. It is a living testimony to the strength and endurance of a people who, even after centuries of enslavement, chose to rise in dignity and hope. It is a reminder of what freedom truly means—not just in the legal sense, but in terms of access, equality, opportunity, and respect.
Celebrating Juneteenth means acknowledging the painful truths of our history while also lifting up the triumphs, culture, and contributions of African Americans that have shaped every part of this nation—from science and art to politics and business.
Conheça a equipe da Maestra! Stephanie é estudan Conheça a equipe da Maestra!
Stephanie é estudante de Direito, educadora e pesquisadora do Ceará, no Nordeste do Brasil. Ela se juntou à Maestra Productions como pesquisadora de arquivos e assistente de produção para o nosso próximo filme sobre Paulo Freire — que será lançado em breve!

Para a #SemanaDosArquivos, conversamos com Stephanie sobre o que envolve seu trabalho como pesquisadora de arquivos, suas partes favoritas do processo e a importância dos arquivos na construção de histórias e no cinema.

Confira este trecho da entrevista — em inglês e português!

***********

Meet the Maestra team!
Stephanie is a current law student, educator, and researcher from Ceará, in the Northeast of Brazil. She joined Maestra Productions as an archival researcher and production assistant for our upcoming Paulo Freire film—set to be released very soon!

For #ArchivesWeek, we spoke with Stephanie about what her work as an archival researcher involves, her favorite parts of the process, and the importance of archives in storytelling and film.

Check out this clip from the interview—in both English and Portuguese!.
No one is illegal on stolen land. Trump has now No one is illegal on stolen land. 

Trump has now deployed Marines and has doubled the number of National Guards in LA to instill fear and break momentum of the peoples movement, hundreds have taken to the streets of LA defending their neighbors and protesting against the illegal raids happening in LA and all over the country. 

This is not the first time mass deportation has occurred in this country and on #archivesweek we must talk about these histories. This archival image is from the 1930s during the deportations of millions of Mexican Americans regardless of their immigration status. It was a deeply-racially targeted campaign grounded in racial profiling of people perceived to be of Mexican descent. As historian Kelly Lytle-Hernández puts it: “To me, it’s all racism.”

Let us not forget that one-third of what is now the U.S. was once Mexico—and borders are only as strong as our greed.

📸 Photos by @aodream 

**************

Nadie es ilegal en tierras robadas.

Trump ha desplegado ahora a los Marines y ha duplicado el número de miembros de la Guardia Nacional en Los Ángeles para infundir miedo y frenar el impulso del movimiento popular. Cientos de personas han salido a las calles de Los Ángeles para defender a sus vecinos y protestar contra las redadas ilegales que están ocurriendo en la ciudad y en todo el país.

Esta no es la primera vez que ocurren deportaciones masivas en este país, y en la #semanadearchivos debemos hablar de estas historias. Esta imagen de archivo es de la década de 1930, durante las deportaciones de millones de mexicoamericanos, sin importar su estatus migratorio. Fue una campaña profundamente racializada, basada en la identificación racial de personas percibidas como de ascendencia mexicana. Como dice la historiadora Kelly Lytle-Hernández: “Para mí, todo es racismo”.

No olvidemos que un tercio de lo que hoy es Estados Unidos alguna vez fue México—y las fronteras solo son tan fuertes como nuestra codicia.

📸 Fotos por @aodream
✨Today is International Archives Day! Archives a ✨Today is International Archives Day!
Archives are at the heart of our films 🎬 — they’re an essential part of our process and journey as filmmakers and storytellers.

We spend years doing archival research: digging, sorting, scanning, flipping through footage to uncover the material that becomes the backbone of our films.

We’re also constantly creating new archives, preserving histories and uplifting social movements that have been invisibilized or never told this way.

Archives are a universe of their own 
This week, we celebrate the archives and share why, at Maestra, we hold them so close 

**************

✨ ¡Hoy es el Día Internacional de los Archivos!
Los archivos están en el corazón de nuestras películas 🎬 — son una parte esencial de nuestro proceso y de nuestro camino como cineastas y narradores de historias.

Pasamos años investigando archivos: excavando, organizando, escaneando, revisando material para descubrir aquello que se convierte en la columna vertebral de nuestras películas.

También estamos constantemente creando nuevos archivos, preservando historias y dando voz a movimientos sociales que han sido invisibilizados o que nunca se habían contado de esta manera.

Los archivos son un universo en sí mismos.
Esta semana, celebramos los archivos y compartimos por qué, en Maestra, los valoramos tanto.

#InternationalArchivesDay
#ArchivesMatter #archives 
#DocumentaryFilmmaking
#StorytellingThroughArchives
#MaestraFilms
#teachtruth Day of Action has arrived! Defend the #teachtruth Day of Action has arrived!
Defend the freedom to learn! Find an event in your city @zinneducationproject
Post photos, share posts — let’s make some noise today and  share some history.

We are participating in the #teachtruth by sharing this powerful 🎙️ interview with Civil Rights activist Dave Dennis. He served as co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), director of Mississippi’s Congress of Racial Equality, and was a key organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. 

In this podcast, he shares his funny and honest account of how he unexpectedly found himself in a meeting — and came out committed to the movement. 
He reflects on the shift from direct action and sit-ins to a focus on education and citizenship schools as a strategy to gain political power in the movement. 

Take a listen on Spotify or on our YouTube channel — link in our story! 

And don’t miss his son’s powerful book:
"The Movement Made Us" by David Dennis Jr.
@daviddtss
Tomorrow is the #teachtruth Day of Action with @zi Tomorrow is the #teachtruth Day of Action with @zinneducationproject — we share this short film and intimate interview with Curtis Hayes Muhammad, created under his close guidance — including his choice of music — to honor truth-tellers and the stories of student organizers for change.

Baba Curtis was a grassroots organizer, mystic, teacher, and lifelong freedom fighter. At 18, he joined SNCC, becoming a key member of SNCC’s dangerous and groundbreaking efforts all over Mississippi throughout the sixties. Jailed many times for civil rights work, Curtis kept the principles of bottom up organizing learned from Moses and Ella Baker as the guiding foundation to subsequent efforts of union and community organizing and struggles for African Liberation. 

This film includes stories of his childhood in Chisolm Mission, Mississippi, where 26 sharecropping families bought land and worked it cooperatively. It was there, with family, that he first learned principles of Black independence and strength — values that shaped his lifelong fight for liberation.

With deep gratitude to his family, the School for Bottom-Up Organizing, the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, and so many others who continue to carry his vision forward.

🎥 Filmed by William Sabourin 🎯 Edited by @iris.cine & Bob Weisz
🎬 Produced by @catherine.la.murphy with @tagmuse & @alisonkibbe ❤️ Special thank you to @maryamtougaloo 

📣 You can find the full video of Curtis Muhammad on our Maestra Productions YouTube channel.

#CurtisHayesMuhammad #SNCC #BottomUpOrganizing #CivilRightsMovement #TeachTruth #ZinnEducationProject #FreedomFighter #BlackLiberation #MississippiHistory
Today for #TeachTruth, we share our #podcast inter Today for #TeachTruth, we share our #podcast interview with Ms. Dorie Ladner (1942–2024), a major grassroots leader in the Mississippi Civil Rights and Voting Rights movements.

As a teen, she joined the Jackson NAACP Youth Council led by Medgar Evers, later becoming SNCC’s project director in Natchez and a co-founder of COFO. She marched in every major civil rights demonstration from 1963 to 1968, and continued working on voter registration, community organizing projects in the Mississippi Delta and against the Vietnam War.

Ms. Ladner went on to become a licensed clinical social worker for 28 years.

This interview was filmed by Maestra Productions in 2017 in collaboration with Bowie State University and Teaching for Change.

You can also listen to this podcast on Maestra Productions' Spotify and our YouTube channel.

Learn more about Ms Ladner at:
www.zinnedproject.org/materials/ladner-dorie
SNCC Digital Gateway | snccdigital.org/people/dorie-ladner. @zinneducationproject @teach_change @sncclegacy #dorieladner #sncc #sncclegacy #civilrights #votingrights #blackpower #maestraproductions
Please join us in participating in the #TeachTruth Please join us in participating in the #TeachTruth Day of Action led by @zinneducationproject and @teach_change 

We are grateful for all the years of collaboration with @zinneducationproject and are excited to share some of our educational films and projects with you this week!!

************

Estaremos participando en el Día de Acción #EnseñaLaVerdad junto con @zinneducationproject esta semana! 

#MaestraProductions #memoriacolectiva #documentary #documental
Lawmakers in at least 44 states are attempting (an Lawmakers in at least 44 states are attempting (and some have succeeded) to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.
At Maestra Productions we stand in defense of truth telling, in support of teachers, and in solidarity with  @zinneducationproject for the #TeachTruth Day of Action this Saturday June 7, 2025. 

Learn more @zinneducationproject, join and/or organize an event, swap books, watch films together, spread knowledge! 

🤝 @zinneducationproject 🤝

***************

En al menos 44 estados, legisladores están intentando (y algunos ya lo han logrado) aprobar leyes que obligarían a lxs docentes a mentirle al estudiantado sobre el papel del racismo, el sexismo, la heteronormatividad y otras formas de opresión a lo largo de la historia de Estados Unidos.
Desde Maestra Productions, defendemos el derecho a decir la verdad, apoyamos a lxs docentes y nos solidarizamos con @zinneducationproject en el #TeachTruth Day of Action, este sábado 7 de junio de 2025.

Infórmate más en @zinneducationproject, únete o organiza una actividad, intercambia libros, vean películas juntxs, ¡difunde conocimiento!
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