November is Native American Heritage month and we at Picture Motion are all living and working on Native land. We have team members in New York and New Jersey on Lenape land, in California on land of the Tongva Peoples, in Boston on Pawtucket & Massachusett land, and in Hawai’i on land of Kānaka Maoli. If you aren’t aware of the Indigenous peoples whose native land you might be occupying and the cultures and customs of the communities who still reside there, find out here.

Thanksgiving can bring conflicting and tumultuous reactions as we recognize the atrocities around the genocide and the continuing colonization of Indigenous peoples, while we also embrace the opportunity to express gratitude or spend time with loved ones. It is important that we do not ignore one for the other and that we sit with the real history of this holiday and remember the work that needs to be done.

If you are looking for ways to engage with initiatives supporting Indigenous peoples, we’ve compiled some opportunities:

• iCollective is hosting a Giving Tuesday Live event to support the creation of The Gathering Basket, a cookbook and community rooted in the cultivation of Indigenous food sovereignty and elevating and preserving Indigenous Narratives. RSVP here!
• Looking for other ways to contribute this Giving Tuesday?
  Donate to First Nations.org to support their initiatives around Native communities.
  Donate to NDN Collective to support their work providing grants and fellowship opportunities to Native people.
  Donate to Climate Justice Initiative, the only Indigenous led and focused climate change organization in the United States that protects both environmental and human rights.
• Water protectors are facing escalated charges in Minnesota, including felonies, for defending the water, the climate, and Anishinaabeg treaty rights. There have been over 1,000 arrests. Sign the petition to #DropL3Charges #StopLine3.
• Sign the petition for the Big 5 Banks to stop the construction of Coastal GasLink and divest its shares from TC Energy.

We also want to take this time to express how thankful we are for the opportunity to work on impactful projects, with incredible clients, and a superstar team to make it all happen. 

Best,
Team PicMo

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Exterminate All The Brutes Examines European Colonialism

The 4-part hybrid docuseries, Exterminate All the Brutes, takes an intimate look into the exploitative and genocial aspects of European colonialism - from the Americas to Africa, and its ultimate impact on society today. This campaign was unique considering we were working with a two timeline - the short turnaround time, combined with this being our first project with HBO, made for an exciting and equally effortful execution from strategy phase to final delivery. 

We identified educating community audiences, ranging from college students and educators to community members and non-profit organizations, on this history of colonialism and racism, and its ultimate impact on society today as our top KPI and overall campaign goal. We curated and produced a virtual screening experience paired with a conversation around themes explored in the film, facilitated by a panel of experts in the field. Our subject matter expert panelists did an amazing job of challenging and reframing the narrative around Native American genocide and American slavery as we as Americans are so accustomed to digesting. We hosted a 5-day long VOD which yielded a total reach of over 4.3k event attendees, 398 classroom RSVPs, and 5,707 visits to the event page. Per our surveyed attendees, every viewer expressed they were compelled to take action after watching the screening + panel discussion. The global reach paired with post-event survey data reinforced the overall success and accomplishment of this campaign. This docuseries is not only an informative and necessary history lesson, but a transformative experience. We hope our viewers remain steadfast in their commitment to sparking conversations and educating their communities around European colonialism as a result of this campaign.

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Final Account's Educational Initiative Combatting Anti-Jewish Hate

Picture Motion, in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation and Participant, launched an educational impact campaign for university, upper-level high school educators and faith-based communities, aimed at combatting antisemitism, and promoting education surrounding the Holocaust through the lens of the unprecedented film, Final Account: a documentary that offers up a collection of never-before-seen interviews with men and women ranging from former SS officials to civilians as they reckon, in very different ways, with their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their roles in the Holocaust. Utilizing the free resources available to educators on the USC Shoah Foundation’s IWitness educator platform, 35 schools and faith-based communities have signed up to participate in this campaign to not only host their own learning experience, but take steps to help advance anti-bias education, inclusion, and equity. Especially as heightened antisemitism and outright denial of facts around the Holocaust become more commonplace, this educational iniative opens up classrooms and communities to new, vital questions.

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Watch Simple As Water on HBO Max

This holiday season celebrate the essential bonds of family with Simple As Water, a new HBO documentary and New York Times Critic’s Pick directed by Oscar winner Megan Mylan. The film is a meditation on the elemental bonds between parent and child. It takes audiences into Syrian families’ quests for normalcy and through a whirlwind of obstacles—to building life anew—examining the impact of war, separation and displacement.

Megan and her production team created this film over the last five years across five countries through the collaborative efforts of small crews across the world, many of which are Syrian refugees themselves. The New York Times' review says, "Megan Mylan’s latest documentary feature takes a humble idea — telling intimate and humanizing stories of Syrian families affected by their home country’s civil war — and achieves it on a nakedly ambitious scale. Filmed over five years in five separate countries, “Simple as Water” is anything but simple when it comes to its technical achievements, weaving together familiar immigrant narratives in ways that still manage to surprise and stun."

Learn how you can help refugees in your community and abroad. Make a donation to one of the following organizations leading work to support refugees:

• International Refugee Assistance Project
• International Federation for Human Rights
• Amnesty International

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📸 PicMo Team Member Snapshot 📸

Meet Juliette Richey! Juliette is our COO, based in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York.  Her operational journey is rooted in empathy, effective communication and building adaptive systems for growth. She brings fifteen years experience in the impact entertainment and marketing space.

Tell us about your background: I am from a small college town in North East Texas and have native roots in the Rio Grande Valley along the Mexico/Texas border. I moved to NYC in 2003 after receiving a LULAC scholarship to pursue screenwriting and film production and had the opportunity to produce my first feature documentary while still in college at the Pratt Institute in 2007 - the award winning film, A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. I then continued my career in the independent film industry with roles at Independent Feature Project and the Tribeca Film Festival. After ten years in social and digital advertising running photo and video production studios for top marketing agencies including VICE Digital, I’m using my passion for film and advertising to push progressive social change at Picture Motion. 

What are you are currently working on: I am excited to extend the movement building for HBOMax’s film LFG, the story of the NWSL fight for equal pay, and building new strategies to operationalize more effective ways for communities to organize around storytelling. I aim to inspire, educate and provide audiences tools to take action in support of the vast array of issue areas that Picture Motion supports. 

What you are excited about for PicMo in 2022: 2022 marks the ten year anniversary for Picture Motion and the next evolution of our work. I look forward to sharing what we have learned from our audiences over the last decade and galvanizing their participation and excitement in a midterm election year. 

Do you have a favorite recent film: My favorite films of 2021 have been Herself, The Green Knight, Writing With Fire, and Werewolves Within. If I’m not watching a film or TV you can usually find me curled up with a fantasy or mystery novel. 

Are there any new hobbies have you taken up recently: I am constantly perfecting the perfect pancake recipe and taking more time out in nature with my new Beagle rescue, Draco. 

Say hello! juliette@picturemotion.com

• After an exciting four week broadcast of American Veteran on PBS, share your own story by participating in the engagement campaign, Objects of the Veteran Experience. Share a photo of an item, person, or place that is pivotal to your veteran experience using #AmericanVeteranPBS. Visit the campaign website for more information.
• Take a moment today to take action and make sure your voice is heard by registering to vote and finding resources for civic engagement. "There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter. It all matters" - Barack Obama.
• The LFG campaign focuses on what can happen #WhenWeValueWomen, and seeks to increase awareness, understanding, and collective action amongst women and allies in the fight for equal play and equal pay. Sign up to host a screening of the film and find more resources for action here
• Join Peace is Loud and other individuals and organizations in the film industry in using our collective power to protect abortion access. Sign their open letter.
• If you or someone you know are being affected by assimilation, including boarding schools and foster care, and are seeking a place to learn from one another, to uplift and to build, register for the Kakichihiwewin Project - a twelve week program aimed at creating safe community space. There are ten (10) spots available on a first come, first serve basis and are only available to those who identify as Indigenous / Native / First Nations / Metis / Inuit / etc.
• Bring the Final Account educational initiative to your classroom or community. Learn more about our vital impact campaign on this recent Deadline article and sign up to host your own event or learning experience.

• Last week, Picture Motion and GBH hosted a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” focused on amplifying the Muslim-veteran experience as well as creating a space for dialogue and conversation across veteran and nonveteran communities. The AMA received over 4,500 upvotes and 490+ comments. Read the conversation here.
• On November 21, Picture Motion, Participant and the USC Shoah Foundation hosted a Zoom webinar for over 30 educators and faith-based leaders which included a clip from the unprecedented documentary Final Account and an overview of the educator resources created for the film on the USC Shoah’s IWitness educator platform.
• We’ve confirmed nearly 30 community screenings for the HBO docu-series Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union reaching over 3.7K students, activists and educators. Sign up to learn more if you want to host your own screening.
• In the midst of our grassroots screening tour for Fauci, we’ve engaged over 20 schools, hospitals, LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, and healthcare activists to screen the film for over 17K students and community members working at the intersection of public service, inclusion, and education.