This year’s Eisner/Lauder New Views Documentaries & Dialogue Series features three films honoring the lives and legacies of trailblazers for gender and racial equity. The virtual series is hosted by Aspen Film and the Aspen Institute Arts Program. The series kicks off Friday (June 4) with a screening of “My Name is Pauli Murray.”
“Pauli Murray was the architect for Civil Rights sit-ins, changes to the 14th Amendment, she was a founder of the National Organization for Women,” said Aspen Institute Arts Program Executive Director Erika Mallin. “Why this person wasn’t recognized was really a big question.”
“Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It” screens the second weekend in June. The film chronicles the barrier-breaking legacy of the Puerto Rican actress, who was an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) award recipient over the course of her decades-long career. “LFG” closes out the New Views series with a look at the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s ongoing fight for equal pay through the eyes of some of the team’s biggest stars.
“In all three of these films, we’re looking at people who were underrepresented, unrecognized for their contributions, made to feel less-than, either because of their race or their gender or both,” explained Mallin. “And yet, they kept fighting.”
While the films focus on cultural changemakers, New Views highlights the artistic expression and work of documentarians, too. Each virtual screening is followed by a panel discussion with the featured filmmakers. Aspen Film Executive Director Susan Wrubel noted that while this year’s selections were released this year, filming started as early as 2018.
“There’s something prescient about the fact that these were issues that started percolating and that the filmmakers saw as being real issues a couple years ago,” she said. “Cut to everything that happened last year, these are really hot button topics. And the storytelling is really phenomenal.”
Tickets for this year’s New Views films are available at Aspen Film’s website.
