GOOD TALK WITH RACHEL LEARS

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Rachel Lears is an award-winning documentary director, producer and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her most recent feature documentary, TO THE END (Roadside Attractions), which follows four high-profile environmental leaders who ignite historic shifts in U.S. climate politics, premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play at Tribeca Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, and others; it was released theatrically in December 2022. Her last feature documentary, Knock Down the House (Netflix), follows four women who ran insurgent congressional campaigns in 2018. The film won the US Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for an Oscar and nominated for an Emmy in 2020. Previously, she co-directed The Hand That Feeds (PBS) with Robin Blotnick, following a groundbreaking labor campaign waged by undocumented immigrants at a Manhattan deli; the film won numerous festival awards and was nominated for an Emmy in 2017. Rachel was a 2013 Sundance Creative Producing Lab fellow, and she received the IDA Emerging Filmmaker Award in 2019.

Rachel also has an extensive academic background, with a BA in Music from Yale University, and an MA in Ethnomusicology, Graduate Certificate in Culture & Media and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from NYU. Her dissertation explored popular music, visual culture and cultural policy in Uruguay, and was supported by two Fulbright grants and a Mellon Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship, among others. She has taught courses at the undergraduate level in anthropology and ethnomusicology, and at the graduate level in documentary film production. Rachel has spoken and visited classes at numerous colleges and universities, discussing documentary film practice, film ethics, social justice impact filmmaking, and the contemporary issues explored in her work. Institutions that have hosted Rachel to speak include Columbia University, American University, Rutgers University, and more; in 2014 she gave the keynote address at the Ethnocineca Film Festival in Vienna, Austria. While promoting her films, she has also spoken extensively with media outlets, including podcasts such as The Intercept’s Deconstructed and television programs such as MSNBC’s Morning Joe and PBS’s Amanpour & Company.

Expertise
I've been making films about social movements for over a decade, covering historic campaigns from Occupy Wall Street and the immigrant labor movement to insurgent Congressional candidates to the inside-outside strategy of the climate movement which led to the passage of the first major climate legislation in US history. During the production of To the End, I conducted the research for the film, and ultimately co-wrote the educational discussion guide which covers topics of movement strategy (including coalition building within the environmental movement), Congressional politics, historical antecedents of the Green New Deal, and media and communications strategy. I most enjoy speaking about independent filmmaking practice and its intersection with social impact, but I can also speak specifically about the themes of To the End, including (but not limited to) the relationship between environmental justice and climate issues; why justice and equity matter in climate solutions; money in politics; movement strategy inside and outside of government; theories of change and how individuals can become part of historical change. Students and audiences at my previous presentations have often told me they come away inspired and better informed, whether the topic is independent filmmaking or how movements can stop the climate crisis and make economic and racial justice part of the solution.

Speaking History
Selected list of previous educational visits:
Columbia University School of Journalism
American University
Rutgers University
New York University
Fairfield University
Swarthmore College

I have a PhD in Cultural Anthropology with a focus on the anthropology of media.