American Promise
Logline
American Promise follows two African-American boys and their families for 12 years as they navigate the terrain of race, privilege and opportunity at a rigorous New York City private school.
Michéle Stephenson
CO-DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
As co-founding member of the Rada Film Group, filmmaker, artist, and author Michéle Stephenson pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell provocative stories in a variety of media that speak to personal and systemic liberation. Her work has appeared on a variety of broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime and MTV. Her most recent film, AMERICAN PROMISE, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary and Best News Coverage of a Contemporary Issue. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festivals’ Main Slate Program. Stephenson was recently awarded the Creative Capital Fellowship, the inaugural Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her current feature documentary work-in-progress is supported by the National Film Board of Canada and the Sundance Documentary Fund. Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, a Revere Award Nomination from the American Publishers Association, and she is a fellow of Skoll Storytellers of Change. Her recent book, PROMISES KEPT, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
Joe Brewster
CO-DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Producer and Director, Joe Brewster is a Harvard trained psychiatrist who uses his psychological training as the foundation in approaching the intimate stories he tackles as an artist and filmmaker. Brewster has created stories using installation, narrative, documentary and print mediums that have garnered support from critics and audiences internationally. He is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, MacArthur Foundation, and most recently the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Brewster is a Spirit Award and three-time Emmy Award nominee. His recent documentary film AMERICAN PROMISE was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at Sundance and the African American Film Critics’ Association Award. Brewster’s outreach accomplishments include a Revere Award and the 2013 NAACP Image Award for the best-selling companion book PROMISES KEPT and a BritDoc Prize for developing one of the most innovative outreach campaigns in 2014.