The Pulitzer Center Filmmakers Bringing Reporting to Life

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Pulitzer Center Documentaries Premiering at 2024 Film Festivals 

Whether uncovering workplace abuse on a squid fishing ship off the Galápagos Islands, wading through the flooded Seaport district in Boston, or waiting for work permits alongside a recently immigrated couple in New York, powerful documentaries make audiences feel like they’re part of the reporting. On film, journalism’s characters and conundrums come to life. 

These topics and more are explored in several Pulitzer Center-supported documentaries making their debuts on this year's film festival circuit. 

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi’s Pulitzer Center-supported film, The Battle for Laikipia, is the carefully crafted feature-length result of seven years of reporting. The film illustrates the risks of climate change-related conflict amid unresolved historical injustices in Kenya. “How do these very urgent themes touch upon our human condition?” Matziaraki said in a “Behind the Story” interview. “That's how I always try to explore films.” 

That’s a question 2023 Reporting Fellows Beibei Liu and Mayara Teixeira ask in their film, After Landing, which premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February and screened virtually on March 11 to a Pulitzer Center audience of more than 100 viewers. After Landing is propelled by close access to its central figures, Venezuelan migrants Jeczebel Lopez and Jorge Ojeda, as they arrive in New York City searching for work, housing, and stability. 

Above all, “it’s a universal story about love,” Liu said. “And the human capacity to love when life gets complicated.” 

While these films are rooted in personal stories, many themes transcend the specific context and relate to diverse audiences across communities. Viewers can imagine how Afghan refugee Samira Faizi, from Post-Grad Reporting Fellow Ankita Mukhopadhyay's documentary Far From Home, might connect with Lopez and Ojeda as they all wait in bureaucratic limbo. Far From Home is on the roster at the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival in Palm Springs, California, later this month. 

To explore more recent Pulitzer Center films, join us at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C., on March 26, where we will screen six Center-supported films. Or, discover the series of short films we curated for last week’s Consortium of Universities for Global Health 2024 Conference. 

Stay tuned to our website for updates as our grantees bring crucial reporting to a screen near you. 

Best, 

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IMPACT 

Ifat Nasiri, a 6-year-old girl from Afghanistan, was diagnosed with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a rare condition that causes her skin and mucosal linings to blister. Her father, previously employed in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, applied for a special immigrant visa to the United States, which allows certain Afghans to seek safety from conflict. Despite the urgency of his daughter’s condition, his family and others faced ongoing administrative and legislative barriers to living in the United States. 

Pulitzer Center grantee Tanvi Misra wrote about this story for POLITICO in September 2023 and has been in touch with the Nasiri family since then. On February 2, 2024, Misra learned that the family was approved to settle in Canada, and they were on a flight to Toronto a week later. 

The Nasiri family was very happy to receive the news. They sent Misra a video of Ifat and her younger sister, Surwat, jumping and shouting, “We are so happy, we passed!” 

Read the full impact update here. 

This message first appeared in the March 15, 2024, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter. Subscribe today. 

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