This event will take place online via Livestream.

Sam Pollard, the School of Media Studies' 2021 Spring Hirshon Artist-in-Residence, will host a public event featuring his work, engage in a discussion with Michelle Materre, Director of the Media Management Program & Associate Professor of Media Studies and Film, and engage with the online audience through a Q+A.

Sam Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost thirty years. His most recent documentary, MLK/FBI was released this January to universal critical acclaim.

His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton's Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads.  For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy.  Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as Co-Executive Producer/Producer of Hampton's last documentary series I'll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community.  For the series, Mr. Pollard received The George Peabody Award.  

Between 1990 and 2010, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, and Bamboozled.  As well, Mr. Pollard and Mr. Lee co-produced a number of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Mr. Pollard received an Emmy, Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings which was nominated for an Academy Award and When The Levees Broke, a four part documentary that won numerous awards, including a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. Five years later 2010, he co-produced and supervised the edit on the follow up to Levees If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise.

Since 2012, Mr. Pollard has completed, as a producer/director, Slavery By Another Name, a 90-minute documentary for PBS that was in competition at the Sundance Festival, August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand, a 90-minute documentary in 2015 for American Masters, Two Trains Runnin,’ a feature length documentary in 2016 that premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival, also in 2017 The Talk: Race in America for PBS and CPB. His latest film Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me for American Masters premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

This event is free and open to all. Registration required.