She Does Podcast Requisite Media

Lynsey Addario is an award-winning American photojournalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. She’s documented both headline news and intimate stories all around the word. In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya she has given us an up-close view of war and revolution. She’s brought us stories of Maternal Mortality in Sierra Leone, sexual assault in Madagascar, rape in the DRC, heroin addiction in Afghanistan, and life before and after the Taliban. 

Her memoir, titled “It’s What I Do" recounts over 20 years of becoming one of our most renowned photojournalists. It was acquired by Warner Brothers and Steven Spielberg is expected to direct the film. Jennifer Lawrence has been cast to portray Lynsey - and we talk about that in this episode.

Also in this episode, we also talk about courage on the front lines, the risks and trauma associated with her work, respecting cultures that aren’t her own, how she makes a living and how she manages her time.

Sabaah Folayan is an activist and storyteller who illuminates the humanity, resilience and beauty in the struggle of communities as they mobilize and fight for justice. She merged her dedication to human rights and a newfound passion for film with Whose Streets?, a feature documentary chronicling the experience of Ferguson community members after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Sabaah and her co-director Damon Davis are premiering Whose Streets? at Sundance 2017, but this episode’s conversation took place in October of 2015, when Sabaah was still in the depths of production and stepped away to pitch the film at Camden International Film Festival’s Points North Forum in Maine. We talk with Sabaah about moving to Ferguson, working to understand the complexities of the situation amongst a sea of sensational headlines, the unique education she had between living off the land in Hawaii and living in divergent Los Angeles neighborhoods, and the forever valuable lesson she learned as a basketball player, “Everything you do is practice for the next time you do it.” The music in this episode is off Velvet and Bone, a new album by a past MusicMaker, Stag Hare.

Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg (that’s us) are co-creators, producers and hosts of this very show, She Does podcast, and maybe you got hints of this from listening to episodes of the show, but first and foremost, we’re documentary filmmakers. In this episode, the tables are somewhat turned and we are asked a few questions by our dear friend, production assistant and member of the documentary community herself, Alijah Case. We talk about what we’ve been up to outside of the podcast and what we are planning on getting into now that we’ve officially decided to taper back on releasing episodes of this show. We aren’t calling it quits completely, especially because we LOVE She Does and have over 10 interviews in the can with some incredible women, but we have decided to edit and release episodes on our own time. We elaborate on all of the news and future plans in this special ‘it’s-not-goodbye-it’s-see-you-later’ episode, reflect on the 31 plus episodes we put out over the last year and the women featured in them, wonderful, impressive, yet very human, each in their own unique way. While the process proved to be quite labor and time intensive, it’s been one of those experiences so magical and so fruitful that it’s hard to put into words, but we do our best with the guidance of Alijah, insights from our illustrator Christine Cover, and music and words by Nona Marie Invie, who recently released an EP titled Sisters with her latest project RONiiA. And as always, thank YOU for listening to She Does.

Lisa Kron has been writing and performing award-winning theatre since the mid-1980s. Most recently, Lisa wrote the lyrics and book to the musical "Fun Home," based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Lisa, and composer Jeanine Tesori, were the first writing team of women to win a Tony for Best Original Score. Fun Home also took home Tony awards for Best Book of a Musical, Best Musical, Best Direction and Best Actor. Lisa's other plays include The Ver**zon Play, In The Wake, Well, 2.5 Minute Ride, 101 Humiliating Stories, which have all received recognition and awards nationally and internationally. She is a founding member of the legendary OBIE and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers. In this episode, Lisa talks about the role of theatre as an artform, the challenges of adapting a graphic novel into a musical, how to make live performance resonate with audiences, the representation of women--and lesbians--in theatre, and the morals of personal storytelling.

Lily Baldwin is a New York-based filmmaker and dancer that uses movement of the body and unconventional narrative structures to tell human stories. Her short films (Sea Meadow, A Juicebox Afternoon, Sleepover LA, and Swallowed) have played at festivals like SXSW, Berlinale EFM, and the Lincoln Center and been featured on NOWNESS, Short of the Week, Fandor, Filmmaker Magazine, and Vimeo Staff Picks. Lily fell into filmmaking when she was performing as a professional dancer in David Byrne’s two year world tour Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Lily often writes, choreographs, directs, edits and plays the leading role in her films, seeking to “rip things up” with both graceful and rigid moments and scenes made up of bold, jarring edits. In other scenes, she’s simply another human on the street, walking with the rest of us. Lily is a Sundance Fellow with her upcoming VR project in collaboration with Saschka Unseld, Through You. She’s about to start shooting her first feature, Glass, a stalking thriller based on a real experience about a dancer and an insidious fan in our privacy-gone world. Lily talks about the rigor and commitment of dancers, coming into film as a “second career”, the responsibility she feels as an artist to pull from her own experiences and educate, and “working your buns off” to be the ultimate version of yourself.

Almudena Toral is a Spanish visual journalist and the head of video at Univision News Digital in Miami. Prior to working for Univision, Almudena freelanced worldwide and worked at The New York Times and TIME. Her work has been published by The Guardian, VICE, AlJazeera, Huffington Post, El País, Canal+ and other outlets. She's the recipient of a 2013 Pictures of the Year International Award of Excellence – Multimedia Photographer of the Year, and received an Emmy Award for her contribution to The New York Times project “Life, Interrupted.” Her work has received accolades from the National Press Photographers Association, the World Cup of Photography, and The Deadline Press Club. Almudena is passionate about multi-platform storytelling, human rights, health and gender issues, the global south and immigration policy, among others. In this episode, she talks about Univision New Digital’s goal to serve the growing hispanic communities in America, the benefits of being a woman in journalism, covering heroin addiction in Tanzania, and her many lessons learned as a freelance video and photojournalist. Almudena gives great advice on pitching stories. Most importantly, she encourages artists and journalists to be flexible with the ability to do many things, but to really specialize in and master one thing.