Film Forum

The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

The Women's Community Justice Association is a non-profit dedicated to advocating for mental and physical wellness, healing, safety, justice, and ending mass incarceration for women, families, young adults, and gender-expansive people. We strive to empower through supportive resources and transformative initiatives, fostering a community where everyone can thrive. Together, we promote holistic approaches that prioritize mental health and healing, ensuring that safety and justice are accessible to all.

Founder and Director of Aubin Pictures, Catherine Gund is an Emmy-nominated and Academy-shortlisted producer, director, writer and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and racial, reproductive and environmental justice. Her films have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums and schools; on PBS, HBO, Paramount+, the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Free Speech TV, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. In 2023, Gund won the Gracie Award for Documentary Producer. Her films include MEANWHILE, ANGOLA DO YOU HEAR US? VOICES FROM A PLANTATION PRISON (Academy shortlist), PRIMERA (HBO), AGGIE (Strand Releasing) and BORN TO FLY (Emmy nominated). She has served on several arts, media and justice nonprofit boards and has been a creative advisor on numerous documentary films. Gund is an alumnus of Brown University and the Whitney Independent Study Program. She has four children and lives in New York City.

Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, writer, pedagogue, and cultural worker based in Philadelphia, PA. As a visionary thought leader creating socially conscious music, film, performance, and visual art, her practice embodies resilience, care, and community-centeredness while working at the intersections of reproductive justice, black feminist thought, and transformative change. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues including MoMA PS1, the African American Museum of Philadelphia, Frieze LA, Eastern State Penitentiary, and the Brooklyn Museum, among many others. Baxter has received numerous prestigious awards, including being an inaugural Right of Return fellow, Mural Arts Philadelphia Reimagining Reentry fellow, Leeway Foundation Transformation awardee, and a Soros Justice fellow. On February 2, 2024, Baxter received a Governors' Pardon from Josh Shapiro and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, honoring her transformative work in the arts and culture sector and her 17-year commitment to communal healing, advocacy, and repair.

Leah Faria (She/Her) is a mother, daughter, and sister who has dedicated over twenty years advocating for communities most impacted by the Criminal Legal system. Leah is a survivor of both domestic and State violence and uses her direct experiences as a way to educate, build community, network and organize within vulnerable Black and Brown communities. She is an instrumental leader of the Rikers Island initiative where during bi-weekly visits she provides support and resources to the women and gender expansive people detained at the Rose M. Singer Center, bringing them a sense of hope in what so often feels like a hopeless situation.

Lisa Phillips has been the Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum since 1999. During her tenure she has dramatically expanded the Museum, its Board, staff, attendance, and budget, and continues to diversify its leadership and audience. Phillips spearheaded and realized the Museum’s first dedicated building (2007) designed by the leading architects SANAA, who subsequently won the Pritzker Prize. In so doing, she established the Museum as a top international cultural destination with a critically acclaimed exhibition program rivaling the best in the world. Phillips also co-founded NEW INC (2014), the first museum-led incubator for cultural creatives. She is currently leading a second building expansion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, Executive Architect. Previously Phillips was a curator at the Whitney Museum, where she organized mid-career surveys of Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Terry Winters, as well as thematic exhibitions, including High Styles: Twentieth-Century American Design (1985); Image World: Art and Media Culture (1989); Beat Culture and the New America (1995); and The American Century (1999); among many others. She has authored over thirty books, lectured extensively around the world, was on the Fulbright Review Committee, and is a visiting critic at Yale University. She has been named a “Top New Yorker” by New York Magazine, “Top 100 Business Women of the Year” by Crain’s, and “Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company.

Linda Villarosa is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where she covers race, inequality and public health. A former executive editor of Essence Magazine, she is the author of the book Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation. It was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. A graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she is now a professor, Linda also teaches journalism, English and Black Studies at the City College of New York.

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