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PRESS
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PRESS

Press kit and materials coming soon

Press Contact: Erika Hoffgen

Reading the World Cast and Crew PDF Download

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

🎥✨ ¡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

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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.

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#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!

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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

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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

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✨ ¡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!!

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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 🤝

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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!

#Postcards from Cuba a new series by Maestra in c

#Postcards from Cuba

a new series by Maestra in collaboration with our friends at @bellyofthebeastcuba, sharing powerful stories of innovation and resilience from the island 🇨🇺.

This short features Yunaidy Estrada, who runs @cicloecopapel , a recycled paper business out of her home in La Habana. It’s one of five short profiles spotlighting visionaries like Yunaidy—people who, through their everyday work, are moving Cuba toward greater social, economic, environmental, and health equity.

Watch the full 5-minute short now on our YouTube channel—link in @maestra_productions bio.

We firmly oppose the US Blockade on Cuba and will continue to keep lifting Cuban stories and people.

Produced by @cubaplatform and @_carelab

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#PostalesDesdeCuba

una nueva serie de Maestra en colaboración con nuestras amigas y amigos de @bellyofthebeastcuba, compartiendo poderosas historias de innovación y resiliencia desde la isla 🇨🇺.

Este cortometraje presenta a Yunaidy Estrada, quien dirige el emprendimiento de papel reciclado desde su hogar en La Habana @cicloecopapel . Es uno de cinco retratos breves que destacan a personas visionarias como Yunaidy — quienes, con su trabajo cotidiano, están impulsando a Cuba hacia una mayor equidad social, económica, ambiental y en salud.

🎥 Mira el corto completo de 5 minutos ahora en nuestro canal de YouTube — enlace en la bio de @maestra_productions.

Nos oponemos firmemente al bloqueo contra Cuba y seguiremos elevando las voces e historias del pueblo cubano.

¡Y esto es solo el comienzo!

#PostalesDesdeCuba #MaestraProductions
#CubaResiste
#HistoriasQueInspiran
#InnovaciónCubana
#ContraElBloqueo #papel #paper #papercraft #papelreciclado #recycle

📚🎬🎶 We have so many resources to share! F

📚🎬🎶 We have so many resources to share! From staff recommendations on films, books, and music, to curated study guides and YouTube playlists — all available on our website for each of our documentaries. ✨

🔍 Maestra Indica is where we’ll be sharing these with you in posts like this one — in English, Spanish, and Portuguese! 🌍💬

💌 Feel free to send in your own recommendations — we’d love to hear from you!

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📚🎬🎶 ¡Tenemos muchísimos recursos para compartir! Desde recomendaciones del equipo sobre películas, libros y música, hasta guías de estudio y listas de reproducción en YouTube, todo disponible en nuestra web para cada uno de nuestros documentales. ✨

🔍 Maestra Indica será el espacio donde compartiremos estos contenidos con ustedes en publicaciones como esta, ¡en inglés, español y portugués! 🌍💬

💌 También pueden enviarnos sus propias recomendaciones. ¡Nos encantará recibirlas!

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📚🎬🎶 Temos muitos recursos para compartilhar! Desde recomendações da equipe sobre filmes, livros e músicas, até guias de estudo e playlists no YouTube, tudo disponível no nosso site para cada um dos nossos documentários. ✨

🔍 Maestra Indica será o espaço onde vamos compartilhar esses conteúdos com vocês em postagens como esta, em inglês, espanhol e português! 🌍💬

💌 Sinta-se à vontade para nos enviar também as suas recomendações. Vamos adorar recebê-las!

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#MaestraIndica #libros #books
#DocumentalesEducativos
#CulturaLatinoamericana
#RecursosPedagógicos
#MaestraProductions

Cada 27 de mayo, Argentina honra a lxs documentali

Cada 27 de mayo, Argentina honra a lxs documentalistas: quienes con la cámara en mano retratan realidades, luchas y memorias.
Hoy recordamos especialmente a Raymundo Gleyzer, desaparecido el 27 de mayo de 1976 por la dictadura cívico-militar.

Su legado vive en cada historia contada con valentía.

@incaa_argentina

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Every May 27th, Argentina honors documentary filmmakers — those who, with a camera in hand, capture realities, struggles, and collective memory.
Today, we especially remember Raymundo Gleyzer, who was disappeared on May 27th, 1976, by the civic-military dictatorship.
His legacy lives on in every story told with courage.

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#RaymundoGleyzer #DocumentaryFilmmakers #NeverAgain #MemoryTruthJustice #documentales #documentalista #cinematographer #cine #cinéma #cinesocial #argentina🇦🇷 #LatinAmericanCinema #27May #cinelatino

❤️‍🩹 🍉 Arte @mamamuralista #palesti

❤️‍🩹 🍉

Arte @mamamuralista

#palestine #palestinewillbefree #stopgenocide #stopfundingisrael

:¡Feliz cumpleaños a nuestra queridísima Norma

:¡Feliz cumpleaños a nuestra queridísima Norma Guillard!

Norma nació en Santiago de Cuba y se unió a la Campaña de Alfabetización con tan solo 15 años ✨. Hoy es una de las principales psicólogas sociales de Cuba, una incansable afro-feminista y, como ella misma se define con orgullo, una “maestra de alfabetización eterna” ✊🏽.

Ha dedicado su vida a crear conciencia y a sembrar amor y activismo en torno a temas de raza, género, igualdad y empoderamiento LGBTQ+ 🌈.

Norma es una de las protagonistas del documental MAESTRA y ha recorrido el mundo compartiendo su historia con sabiduría, ternura y valentía.

¡Escucha el episodio del pódcast de Duolingo en el que participó! El enlace está en nuestras historias — te inspirará tanto como nos inspiró a nosotras ❤️📚.

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Happy birthday to our dearest Norma Guillard!
Norma was born in Santiago de Cuba and joined the Cuban Literacy Campaign at just 15 years old ✨. Today, she’s one of Cuba’s leading social psychologists, a tireless Afro-feminist, and—as she proudly calls herself—an “eternal literacy teacher” ✊🏽.

She has dedicated her life to raising awareness and spreading love and activism around issues of race, gender, and LGBTQ+ equality and empowerment 🌈.

Norma is one of the protagonists in the MAESTRA documentary and has traveled the world sharing her story with wisdom, tenderness, and courage.

Check out the Duolingo podcast episode she was featured in! Link in our story — it will inspire you just as much as it inspired us ❤️📚.

#Maestra #MaestraProductions #Activismo

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