University Calendar

Carl Deal and Tia Lessin are Academy Award-nominated filmmakers. Their film Citizen Koch, is a searing look at the state of democracy in America that follows the rise of the Tea Party and the trail of money unleashed by the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling. It also weathered a storm of censorship controversy (public television officials pulled funding for the film out of fears that it would upset one of their largest donors, David Koch) that now stands as an essential and powerful portrait of our political times.

They also produced and directed Trouble the Water, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine and Capitalism; A Love Story. Lessin line-produced Martin Scorsese’s Emmy- and Grammy-winning film No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Her work as a producer of the series The Awful Truth earned her two Emmy nominations, one arrest and a lifetime ban from Disney World. She is the recipient of the L’Oréal Paris/Women in Film’s Women of Worth Vision Award and the Sidney Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism for Behind the Labels, a film about labor trafficking in the U.S. garment industry. Deal has contributed to many other documentary films, and previously worked as an international news producer and a writer, reporting from natural disasters and conflict zones throughout the U.S., Latin America, and in Iraq.Both are Sundance Institute Fellows and lab advisors.

This film-screening series, sponsored by the Film Institute at Montclair State, is a weekly program for MSU students and the public. The program features contemporary filmmakers who come to speak about their work and profession in an open forum that invites audience members to ask questions and hear personalized inside stories. Admission is free.