Dawn Mikkelson, Risking Light

Show Summary: Emmy-winning journalist and documentarian Dawn Mikkelson brings us her moving, passionate new film, Risking Light.     Risking Light profiles three people overcoming damaging pasts: Mary Johnson of Minneapolis, grieving a murdered son; Debra Hocking, a victim of government-sanctioned genocide in Australia; and Kilong Ung, who survived the terror of the Khmer Rouge, in the killing fields of Cambodia.     The film explores resilience, and the painful process of moving from grief to compassion and forgiveness. Her earlier films reflect the same passion for humanity and social justice: The Red Tail, Green Green Water, THIS obedience, and Treading Water.     A former television news reporter at an ABC affiliate, Mikkelson often speaks and writes on issues around documentary filmmaking and social justice for Minnesota Public Radio and at festival panels, colleges, and universities. Mikkelson has taught Documentary Film as Adjunct Faculty at Ottawa University in Kansas, as well as at IFP Minnesota. In 2006 Mikkelson’s film, Hope for Recovery: Understanding Mental Illness (produced in collaboration with Twin Cities Public Television and NAMI-MN) won the Eric Sevareid Award by the Northwest Broadcast News Association.