ANGELA DAVIS and GINA DENT
Together Angela and Gina have given the movement to end mass incarceration its sharpest language. As noted anti-prison activists, scholars, and educators, they've spent so much time - Angela since the 1970s, Gina as a Feminist studies scholar and human rights advocate for decades - building the intellectual and organizing scaffolding without which films like Angola Do You Hear Us? Voices from a Plantation Prison, Paint Me a Road Out of Here, and funds like Art for Justice would have no ground to stand on.
They're role models, heroes, the epitome of dedicated activists and writers, people who show up for anyone who asks and always bring their best. They've sat on the advisory table for two of our films, Paint Me a Road Out of Here, and And Again I Dream, lending their discernment and astute judgement at all stages. And Gina has shown up again and again in the rooms themselves, on panels, in post-screening Q&As, sometimes as a participant, sometimes as the interlocutor drawing everyone else out, always bringing her full brilliant mind and warmth to the conversation.
They've taught us that abolition isn't a single dramatic act, but as Gina put it, "doing the everyday, low-level, low-scale attending to people individually and collectively." That's the same patient, unglamorous commitment Aubin aspires to bring to justice-driven filmmaking.