Sian-Pierre Regis shares everything he learned on the incredible distribution and impact journey of his first feature film Duty Free, telling the story of his immigrant mother who at the age of 75 was fired from her lifelong job as a hotel housekeeper.  Duty Free premiered on PBS Independent Lens in 2021. It was not only a #1 Apple News story, but one of the most-talked about documentaries of the year, receiving press from CBS Sunday Morning, USA Today, NYT, CNN, and getting an IDA Award nomination for Best Writing in a Feature. 

This episode features journalists Natalie Pattillo and  Daniel A. Nelson, Co-Directors and Producers of AND SO I STAYED, an award-winning documentary about survivors of abuse fighting for their lives and spending years behind bars. This is the story of how the legal system gets domestic violence wrong. The film was featured in the NYT, ABC News, and more. It is a moving portrait of  Kim DaDou Brown, Tanisha Davis, and Nikki Addimando three survivors whose strikingly similar stories are separated by over 30 years. None of them were believed, and each of them was criminalized for fighting back.

True crime fans, anyone? For our last episode of the power of fandom season, we'll talk about documentary fans with Julia Largent, an Assistant Professor of Communication at McPherson College in Kansas. Her research focuses on documentary studies, fan studies and social media. She is the vice president of The Midwest Popular Culture Association and will dive into her research on fandom and documentaries.

This episode explores the business of fandom, how marketing and fan communities are increasingly connected within the corporate world, which communities get power, inequities in media representation, and much more, with Fangirl Jeanne, a writer, media critic, consultant, and unapologetic fangirl, who built a great following with her expertise in deconstructing popular media.

A deep dive into the dark side of fandom, racism, toxic fans, the complex business of fandom, and more, with Stitch, a writer and critic who has spent two decades in online fandom and is vocal about anti-blackness. Stitch writes a Teen Vogue column called Fan Service studying fandom, and personal blog Stitch's Media Mix, with commentary on and criticism of both pop culture and the fandoms it spawns. Stitch works on projects that focus on positive and diverse representation in fandom spaces and in the media we consume.

Looking at case studies such as the Venom movie franchise, TV shows Supernatural, The 100, and more,  this episode explores the power of fan communities to influence storylines and distribution in entertainment, and dives into the issue of queerbaiting, featuring interviews with fans and fandom experts Yael Tygiel, Stephanie, and Chrisha Anderson.

Interview with Samantha Highfill, a long-time writer for Entertainment Weekly. Samantha covered the CW show Supernatural for many years, interviewing the cast at Paley Fest for their Scooby-Doo crossover celebration, or planning their goodbye photoshoot cover. 15 seasons, 327 episodes later, Supernatural is the longest-running sci-fi/genre series in the history of American broadcast television, launching in 2005. It is well known for its very active and passionate fandom, the SPN Family, who has rallied many times to keep the show on the air and for various charity projects. 

We discuss Fan Activism with the co-founder of Nerds of Color and the managing director of Fandom Forward (formerly Harry Potter Alliance).

Shawn is a founding author of www.thenerdsofcolor.org, and a founding organizer of The Black and Brown Comix Arts Festival. He is a recognized scholar and sought-after speaker in the areas of pop culture and participatory culture studies, mythology, folk and netlore, experimental theater, and media studies. In his other life, he spent twenty years in non-profit adolescent mental health and juvenile justice work. He was a Senior Fellow with the Pop Culture Collaborative. Currently, he works as a coach and consultant for individual creatives and organizations and is a university lecturer. 

Julie Cohen directed and produced alongside Betsy West, the Academy Award-nominated documentary “RBG,” about the pioneering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their new films include "My Name Is Pauli Murray" about the non-binary Black lawyer, activist and poet, and "Julia", profiling America’s food icon” Julia Child. Before she started making documentaries, Julie Cohen was a staff producer for Dateline NBC. In this episode, we're talking about fans, social media, and audience building!