Best of Fest Encores
FREE LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION May 17, 2021 7:00pm CST: Join MSPIFF Programmer Craig Laurence Rice, Who We Are filmmakers Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, ACLU’s Deputy Legal Director Jeffery Robinson, and Dr. Tiffany Crutcher for a special We The People: Required Watching conversation about the film and to take your questions.
WATCH THE RECORDED Q&A
As an 11-year-old, marching with his father and brother alongside Martin Luther King in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strikes, Jeffery Robinson witnessed first-hand the persecution of the peaceful protesters. The searing images made an indelible impression and, eventually, inspired him to become a criminal defense attorney. Years later, raising his then 13-year-old nephew, he struggled with how to articulate the ways in which racism in America affected both of them. For the last decade, Robinson, now the ACLU’s Deputy Legal Director, has been sharing what he learned in community centers, concert halls, and houses of worship to anyone who will listen. Directors Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler bring Robinson’s searing Town Hall talk to vivid life.
Who We Are dynamically weaves archival footage, interviews, Robinson’s personal story, and his journeys across America, to explore the legacy of white supremacy in America. With great urgency, this powerful and galvanizing documentary addresses both America’s tragic past and a reckoning with our present-day reality.
Director Biography
Born in New York City, documentary filmmakers Emily and Sarah Kunstler are the daughters of lawyer William Kunstler and human rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler. In addition, Sarah is one of the top-rated civil rights attorneys in New York. They are the directors of the documentary shorts “Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War” (2003) and “Getting Through to the President” (2004) and the documentary feature about their father, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009).
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