GOOD TALK WITH PATRICK SAMMON AND BENNETT SINGER

Patrick Sammon has a mix of experience in filmmaking, broadcast journalism, and LGBTQ political advocacy. He is the President of Story Center Films in Washington, DC. He’s the co-director and co-producer, with Bennett Singer, of CURED, which he conceived. The award-winning documentary has been optioned by 20th Century Television as the basis for a limited scripted series on FX or Hulu. Steven Canals, the co-creator of Pose, is writing and executive producing the series; Sammon and Singer are serving as producers of the project.

Before CURED, Sammon was the Creator and Executive Producer of CODEBREAKER, a “superb” (The Telegraph) and “imaginative” (Sunday Times) award-winning drama-documentary that “artfully explored” (The Mail) the life and legacy of Alan Turing, one of the 20th century’s most important people. Turing helped win World War II through his codebreaking and laid the intellectual foundation for the computer age. Instead of being celebrated, however, he faced brutal persecution from the British government because he was gay. More details about CODEBREAKER can be found at TuringFilm.com.

Sammon turned his idea for CODEBREAKER into a highly acclaimed film that has reached all corners of the globe. He put together an award-winning international production team (including Great Britain-based Furnace Ltd.), secured financing, and helped oversee both the business and creative side of the production. Sammon also developed and implemented a creative and comprehensive grassroots distribution strategy for CODEBREAKER, combining traditional distribution channels with a unique outreach campaign to connect with the target audience. More than three million viewers around the world have seen the film through television broadcasts (including a worldwide premiere on Channel 4 in the UK and a US premiere on Discovery Science), a 12-city U.S. theatrical release, film festivals, digital outlets (including Netflix and iTunes), DVDs, and more than 250 non-theatrical screenings.

Sammon also participated in more than 125 speaking events at CODEBREAKER screenings hosted by universities, community groups, professional organizations, government agencies, corporations, and law firms. He’s an experienced public speaker with a wide range of knowledge about filmmaking, LGBTQ history, and the ongoing fight for equality. Among other venues, he has spoken at The British Museum, the US National Archives, the Organization of American States, the FBI, the National Press Club, the National Science Foundation, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Purdue, Duke, and NYU. Corporate speaking hosts have included, among others, EY, PwC, Bloomberg LP, Goldman Sachs, Moody’s, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Kraft, Pfizer, and Ingersoll Rand.

A graduate of Syracuse University, Sammon started his career as an award-winning television news reporter at CBS affiliates in Northern New York and Northeast Tennessee.

Bennett Singer has been making social-issue documentaries for more than 20 years. With Patrick Sammon, he is the co-producer and co-director of CURED, an award-winning documentary slated for national broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens series in the fall of 2021. The film has been optioned by 20th Century Television as the basis for a limited series on FX or Hulu. Steven Canals, the co-creator of Pose, is writing and executive producing the series; Singer and Sammon are serving as producers.

Singer began his career at Blackside, Inc., where he was an associate producer of Eyes on the Prize II, the Emmy-winning PBS series on civil rights history, and a member of Blackside’s publishing team. He went on to co-direct Brother Outsider, a “potent and persuasive” (Los Angeles Times) biography of the gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. The film premiered at Sundance, aired nationally on PBS, and won more than 20 awards (www.brotheroutsider.org). He also co-directed Electoral Dysfunction, a “frightening and enlightening” (WBEZ Radio) documentary about voting in America. Hosted by political humorist Mo Rocca, the film had a dual premiere at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, aired nationally on PBS, and was featured in a four-part New York Times Op-Docs series. A Classroom Edition was distributed to more than 20,000 history and social studies teachers (www.electoraldysfunction.org).

For eight years, Singer served as Executive Editor of TIME Magazine’s Education Program, where he created teaching materials to accompany The Laramie Project, Band of Brothers, Iron Jawed Angels, and Unchained Memories. He is the author or editor of five books, including 42 Up (the companion volume to Michael Apted’s documentary series) and LGBTQ Stats, an “indispensable” (Booklist, starred review) reference work that Singer co-authored with his husband, David Deschamps (www.lgbtqstats.org).

Singer has spoken at The United Nations, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, The British Museum, The Library of Congress, The Schomburg Center, and at dozens of colleges and universities, including NYU, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the University of Lynchburg, Middlebury, and Emerson. In 2015, he delivered the keynote address at the city of Bloomington, Indiana’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration.

Singer is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College; his senior thesis won a Hoopes Prize, Harvard’s highest undergraduate award for research and writing. He developed and taught a course on LGBTQ literature at Tufts and is the recipient of the 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Residency for Collaborative Teams at Yaddo. He divides his time between New York and Los Angeles.