February 2023 Update from IRIS

February 2023 Update

As we move through our second year, IRIS still feels new, but it is rapidly taking form as we deepen our work in the narrative change and storytelling ecosystems. This update will showcase some samples of what we are already seeing with our earliest grants and connections. In addition to our refreshed newsletter look, you’ll also notice a new look on our website, additional team members and even an updated logo as we develop our work and find our place in the firmament.

Much to the delight of many humans, activities in real life are indeed real. IDFA 2022, the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, was the first major in-person event for independent storytelling and justice communities. It was well worth it and I’m glad to have been able to be there.

I will be attending FIFDH, the 21st International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, in Geneva in March. Each year, FIFDH invites a group of filmmakers to talk about how they make a difference through films. In recent years, the emergence of a parallel impact producers’ network that extends across regions is a sign of the growing promise of visual storytelling catalyzing social benefits. It’s an effort to expand the understanding of what “impact” can be and how we can bring it about. This emerging constellation now known as GIPA (Global Impact Producers Alliance) is a phenomenon fostered by the always-innovating DocSociety. IRIS is proud to be supporting the Festival’s Film Impact Days as well as the impact producer networks it brings together.

Close on the heels of FIFDH is CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. Here the focus will be on experimentation and exploration in visual storytelling. Partnering with the Skoll Foundation, IRIS will be launching a content fund, details coming soon!, and will be using CPH:DOX to present IRIS and look for story projects that strengthen and transform communities. Then in April, members of the IRIS team will convene at the Skoll World Forum 2023, where one of our priorities will be to reconnect in person with so many in our networks as we design a narrative research agenda with the Skoll Foundation and its grantees.

Blurring Boundaries in the IRIS Blog

In his first blog of the year, Narrative Lead Brett Davidson looks for new ways of thinking about our narrative change work. Brett suggests that instead of trying to patch together work across silos, we need to self-re-organize in a more integrative and cross-cutting way. You can also read this blog in Spanish and Portuguese. We have received numerous responses to the blog and will be updating with suggestions from our community soon!

Image credits: adapted (remixed) from silos by Heiner Engbrocks and Moonlight Dancer by skagitrenee. Under Flickr license.

The Falling Sky

If you are in New York City this spring, we invite you to attend The Yanomami Struggle exhibit, a powerful multimedia collection at the Shed in Hudson Yards–on display through April 16. IRIS is partnering with Aruac Films on the The Falling Sky project as it’s making waves at documentary film festivals around the world and bringing a lot of attention to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Yanomami community from the Amazon region.

The exhibition at the Shed presents various works from Yanomami artists, including three short films that Aruac Films produced together with Hutukara Associação Yanomami. These shorts accompany the impact campaign for “The Falling Sky,” directed by Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha and based on the eponymous book by Yanomami shaman and forest protector Davi Kopenawa.

When we started our partnership with The Falling Sky team, we couldn’t imagine this work would gain international visibility in such a terrible moment, when the world witnesses the tragedy imposed on the Yanomami people.

— Graciela Selaimen, IRIS Latin America Lead

IRIS’ support to The Falling Sky is part of a young portfolio focused on Indigenous narratives. In addition to the Falling Sky, IRIS and the Ford Foundation previously partnered with Amoreira Comunicação on the Ancestral Narratives, Present for the Future, a study that mapped and analyzed perceptions about Indigenous peoples, as well as narratives by and about them in Brazil over the past decade.

In May, we are also partnering with the People’s Palace Project to bring the 2nd Brazil Indigenous Film Festival UK to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Besides 30 short and feature films selected by festival curators Graci Guarani, Takumã Kuikuro and Christian Fischgold, the event will include two art installations: a virtual reality experience “The Sacred Cave of Kamukuwaká” from the Wauja people and the immersive sound experience “Healing Sounds” by Shirley Djukurnã from the Krenak people.

Artwork: Claudia Andujar. Collection of the artist; Joseca Mokahesi. Collection Bruce Albert; Ehuana Yaira. Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Welcome, Mehret Mandefro & Laura Vidal

The latest additions to our team are Dr. Mehret Mandefro and Laura Vidal. Mehret joined IRIS at the end of 2022 as our first Executive Producer in Residence. A multi-hyphenate—medical doctor, anthropologist, filmmaker and teacher, Mehret—a multi-hyphenate: medical doctor, anthropologist, filmmaker and teacher—is known for award-winning films and drama series and runs her own independent media production company, Truth Aid Media. She is producing creative content with IRIS in Africa, including with our donor partners at Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Read more about Dr. Mandefro here.

In January, we welcomed Laura Vidal as a Program & Research Consultant for our Latin America work. Laura is a Venezuelan researcher and communicator based in France. Laura believes in people’s power and is passionate about the many ways people from different backgrounds can inspire and learn from one another. Her academic interests feed all her lines of work, combining a degree in languages and literature and a PhD in education sciences and informal learning.