Archives

Chiemi Karasawa is an award-winning Director/Producer who founded Isotope Films in 2007 to develop and produce non-fiction content for all media.  Notable documentary credits include: “AKA Jane Roe” for FX Network, “Amazing Grace” (Neon Entertainment,) “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me”, (IFC/Sundance Selects), “The Betrayal: Nerakoon”, and “Billy The Kid” (HBO).  Her films have premiered at Sundance, Berlin, SXSW and Venice Film Festivals, garnering numerous awards including an Emmy and Oscar nomination. She has guest lectured at NYU, The New School, SVA, Boston University, and SFAI on Documentary Filmmaking and is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Prior to her work in documentary, Karasawa was a Script Supervisor in feature films and television for directors Martin Scorsese, Spike Jones, Jim Jarmusch. David Fincher and Rebecca Miller.  She is currently working in development on a 4-part documentary series for HBO,and directing a feature documentary about social justice activist Amanda Nguyen.  Karasawa is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication with a degree in Film & TV Production, and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Anastasia Samoylova (b. 1984) is a Russian-born American artist and photographer. Upon relocating to Miami, Florida, in 2016, she pursued observational photographic practice, leading to her lyrical and incisive first major monograph, FloodZone, which formed a study on the visualization of environmental threats posed to flood-risked communities in Miami and beyond. In her Floridas project, she gestures toward the state of Florida itself, forming a kaleidoscopic and contradictory portrait of how the state’s unique cultural and political psyche manifests in visual form. In 2021, Samoylova began Image Cities, in which she trained her lens globally within some of the world’s most significant urban centers while examining the images that cover their surfaces. Her recent exhibitions include C/O Berlin; Fundación Mapfre Madrid; Eastman Museum; Chrysler Museum of Art; Aperture Foundation;  The Photographers’ Gallery London; USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa; The Print Center Philadelphia;  and Kunst Haus Vienna, among others. In 2022 Samoylova was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Samoylova was a recipient of the Ellies Creator Award, Fundación MAPFRE Photography Award, British Journal of Photography Grant, South Arts Fellowship, and Michael Smith Fund for Documentary Photography. Her work is in the collections of the Perez Art Museum, Miami; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Published monographs include FloodZone (Steidl, 2019),  Floridas (Steidl, 2022), and Image Cities (Fundación Mapfre/Hatje Cantz 2023).

A cultural strategist, writer, producer, and entrepreneur, Anasa Troutman is committed to shifting global culture to a culture of care. As President/CEO of The Big We, Anasa and her team engage deeply in storytelling as a pathway to this transformation and execute culture based strategies for artists, organizations, and brands that are aligned with their vision of a just and loving world.

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Anasa has provided strategic and creative support in many important cultural, political and social justice spaces but is best known for her work as a strategic advisor and executive producer for long time friend India.Arie. Anasa’s latest project is the restoration of Historic Clayborn Temple, the Memphis church that was the organizing headquarters of The Sanitation Workers’ Strike of 1968, Martin Luther King’s last campaign, into a center to build cultural, economic power with Memphis’ African-American community.