Film Forum

The Truman National Security Project brings together leaders from diverse backgrounds to rethink national security by fostering inclusive dialogue, advancing innovative solutions, and building a strong, safe future. Through its network of experts, policymakers, and advocates, Truman empowers bold thinkers to address complex challenges and shape transformative policies for the benefit of all.

JESSE MOSS – Co-Director / Writer / Producer Jesse Moss co-directed BOYS STATE with Amanda McBaine. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, the 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award. It was released by Apple and A24. Barack Obama included BOYS STATE on his list of favorite movies of 2020. Moss’s film THE MISSION, also co-directed with Amanda McBaine, premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and is currently in theaters in the United States and the UK, via National Geographic Documentary Films. He also directed THE OVERNIGHTERS, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for the Academy Award, and released by Drafthouse Films and Netflix. He has twice been nominated by the DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. His past work with Netflix includes The Family, a 5- part series, and Payday, an episode of the series Dirty Money. In 2008, he co-directed FULL BATTLE RATTLE with Tony Gerber, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize at SXSW.

TONY GERBER – Co-Director / Writer Tony Gerber is an Emmy and PGA award-winning writer, producer, and director. He has written and directed over a dozen documentaries for National Geographic, filmed in some of the most remote and dangerous regions of the world. In 2018 Gerber wrote, directed and produced Kingdom of the White Wolf, a 3-part series (for Disney+) filmed in the High Arctic. His other directing credits include FULL BATTLE RATTLE, with Jesse Moss (Berlinale premiere and SXSW Special Jury Prize), THE NOTORIOUS MR. BOUT about the Russian arms dealer (Sundance 2014), and CNN Films' WE WILL RISE: MICHELLE OBAMA’S MISSION TO EDUCATE GIRLS AROUND THE WORLD (Television Academy Honors, CINE Golden Eagle). Gerber has collaborated with artists Matthew Barney, Allora & Calzadilla, Blane De St Croix, and Ann-Sofi Sidén on various film and installation projects. He recently produced the Emmy-nominated, Oscar-shortlisted short documentary Takeover (Tribeca, 2021) about a group of Puerto Rican activists, the Young Lords, who take over a decrepit hospital in the South Bronx. This award-winning doc will be adapted into a feature film for the independent studio Sister, produced by Gerber with Oscar-nominated screenwriter José Rivera writing the adaptation. In 2005, he co-founded the New York-based production company Market Road Films with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. He has been a board member of UnionDocs since 2020. Photo by Josiah Bania

JANESSA GOLDBECK – Vet Voice Foundation, Game Producer Janessa Goldbeck is CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, a national nonprofit organization with over 1.5 million members that mobilizes veterans to have a voice in our democracy. Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran, deployed overseas as a Combat Engineer Officer, managing engineering, logistics, and explosive ordnance disposal missionsin support of NATO operations.

LT. COLONEL (RET.) ALEXANDER VINDMAN – National Security Council, Game Consultant Alex Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and former director for European affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) from 2018-2020. He is the director of the Informed American Leadership programat the Vet Voice Foundation. Alex served in the Army for over 20 years,i ncluding time in Iraq, where he received the Purple Heart after an IED wounded him in the line of duty. 


WARREN LITTLEFIELD – Executive Producer Warren Littlefield, former NBC president and founder of The Littlefield Company, is an award-winning executive producer behind impactful series like The Handmaid’s Tale and Fargo. His productions have earned 147 Emmy nominations, 23 wins, and numerous other accolades, including Peabody and Producers Guild Awards, showcasing his significant contribution to television. 

Kai Wright is host and managing editor of Notes From America with Kai Wright. The show airs live on public radio stations nationally, Sundays at 6p eastern. In addition, Wright has been the host of a number of WNYC Studios’ limited edition podcasts with social justice themes. He is host, most recently, of Blindspot Season 3: The Plague in the Shadows, which documents the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. He was also host of There Goes the Neighborhood and Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice. Wright is the author of Drifting Toward Love: Black, Brown, Gay and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York, as well as two surveys of Black American history, and a contributor to the best-selling collection Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America.

Supported by a Humanities New York Action Grant

Related Films