#WhileBlack

Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s death, steps forward in this powerful documentary on viral videos that ignited global movements revealing the cost of going viral while Black: trolls, surveillance, and platforms that profit from pain.

Status

Production

About the Filmmakers

Director/Producer

Sidney Fussell
Sidney Fussell

Sidney Fussell is a filmmaker and journalist living in San Francisco. He’s held positions as a senior reporter for WIRED Magazine covering privacy and surveillance, at The Atlantic covering the data economy, and at Gizmodo covering A.I. His work has been published in The Guardian, EBONY, Huffington Post, Salon, and Rolling Stone Magazine. He’s appeared as a commentator to discuss his work on NPR, Marketplace, WNYC’s The Takeaway, BBC Business World, and Al Jazeera English. He’s also appeared as a speaker in Mozilla’s Dialogues & Debates series, the Journalism and AI panel at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge with Kara Swisher, CNN’s Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech, and the online premiere of Netflix’s CODED BIAS.

Co-Director

Jennifer Holness

Jennifer Holness brings a fresh, authentic perspective to telling powerful, thought-provoking stories. She made history as the first Black woman in Canada to win a Canadian Screen Award (CSA) for writing and recently produced RT Thorne’s critically acclaimed thriller, 40 Acres, which is nominated for five NAACP Awards. The film is on Hulu where it reached the #1 spot. Other directing work includes BLK: An Origin Story, a documentary series she created and won a Best Director CSA. Her feature documentary, Subjects of Desire, premiered at SXSW, was a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Top Ten film, won at multiple festivals and sold globally including to Starz. The Hollywood Reporter profiled her as one of the 40 Most Influential Women in International Film.

Executive Producer

Geeta Gandbhir
Geeta Gandbhir

Geeta Gandbhir has been nominated for six Emmy Awards and won two. Most recently, she produced and co-directed “BLACK AND MISSING” for HBO, which won the Indie Spirit Award for Best New Documentary Series and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Documentary. She also co-directed the feature documentary "I AM EVIDENCE" for HBO, which won a 2019 DuPont and ATAS Award, and the award -winning short film, "LOVE THE SINNER” which premiered at the 2017 TribeCa Film Festival. In 2016, her feature documentary, "PRISON DOGS," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2015, her award-winning feature documentary directed with Academy Award winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, "A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS," premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and on PBS.

Executive Producer

Ann Shin
Ann Shin

Ann Shin is the founder of Fathom Film Group, an award-winning documentary production company led by a LGBTQ+ and BIPOC team of women producers. Ann’s documentary films and series have premiered at Tribeca, SXSW, Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin, Sheffield, Busan Film Festival, Shanghai Film Festival, Hot Docs, Doc/Edge, Melbourne Film Festival and more. Her programs have sold in 53 territories and aired on HBO, BBC, Arte, PBS, CBC, TVO, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Youtube Originals, SBS, CBC and ITVS Asia among others. She produced and directed A.RTIFICIAL I.MMORTALITY, which was the Opening Night film at Hot Docs 2021. Her film MY ENEMY, MY BROTHER was shortlisted for a 2016 Academy Award, and nominated for an Emmy. Her cross-platform project THE DEFECTOR, film and interactive, won Best Documentary, Best Documentary Director and the Diversity Award at the Canadian Screen Awards. Other accolades include the Grand Jury Prize at SDAFF and several humanitarian awards.

Producer

Mariam Bastani

Premieres & Awards

Hot Docs Forum

2024 Hot Docs