Joining host Michael Azevedo on this episode is writer, producer and director Christine Yoo. Christine joins Michael to talk about her documentary "26.2 to Life," which brings viewers to San Quentin State Prison to watch prisoners train for a marathon that’s run inside the prison walls.

The film has been enthusiastically received at numerous film festivals across the country, winning the Audience Award at the Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival and the Seattle Int'l Film Festival.

It will be featured at the Woods Hole Film Festival, held in Falmouth, MA, from July 29 to August 13. Additionally, the film will be opening in theaters in LA NY SF and Seattle on 9/22, followed by a 48-hour nationwide virtual premiere at Sept 29-Oct 1. Ticket information here.

In addition to directing "26.2 to Life," Christine is the Co-Executive Producer of "The Winning Spirit," from Executive Producer Michael Strahan and The Story Lab, a 6-part docu-series that follows the Ka-Who-Ku High School football team on the North Shore of Oahu through their 2021 championship season. She has produced non-fiction series on National Geographic, The History Channel, and Oxygen. 

Michael Azevedo's guests on this episode—Eamon Little, Joan Pratt, and Christopher Lydon—are part of the team behind a documentary-in-progress call "Born That Way," for which Filmmakers Collaborative is the fiscal sponsor. 

"Born That Way" documents the final year in the life of Patrick Lydon, in which he looks back on a fascinating life, lays the ground for posthumous, ‘green-shoot’ projects and prepares for death. Director Eamon Little promises that the film will be an unflinching journey to the end of an exemplary life, probing ‘otherness’ in our society and asking searching questions about the future we want to create.

Joining Eamon to talk about the life and work of Patrick Lydon are, Joan Pratt, his friend from his days at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Patrick’s brother, Christopher Lydon, who covered politics for The New York Times from its Washington bureau in the 1970s, hosted The Ten O’Clock News on WGBH TV in Boston through the 1980s, and co-founded and hosted The Connection on WBUR in the ’90s, and is currently the host of Open Source, the world’s longest running podcast, having been established in 2003. 

For more information about the "Born That Way" film project, please check out its page in the projects section of the Filmmakers Collaborative website at www.filmmakerscoll.org.

Making Media Now is sponsored by Filmmakers Collaborative, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting media makers from across the creative spectrum. From providing fiscal sponsorship to presenting an array of informative and educational programs, Filmmakers Collaborative supports creatives at every step in their journey.

On this episode of Making Media Now, host Michael Azevedo is joined by writer, filmmaker and professor Michele Meek. 

Michele recently published the book, Consent Culture and Teen Films , and she has published several other books including Independent Female Filmmakers (2019) and The Mastermind Failure Club(2020). She presented a TEDx talk “Why we’re confused about consent—rewriting our stories of seduction” and has written for Ms. Magazine, Script Magazine, Entrepreneur, The Good Men Project, Salon.com, among others.

Michele has also directed numerous award-winning short films, including Imagine Kolle 37 (2017) and Red Sneakers (2008), and she worked as associate producer on the documentary feature Salvage (2019), which premiered at SXSW Film Festival. She has several creative projects in the works—including a short film Bay Creek Tennis Camp, a feature screenplay Cruisin‘ and a documentary The Impermanence of Everything.

She is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Communication Studies department at Bridgewater State University, where she teaches filmmaking, screenwriting, film studies, digital media, gender studies, and life design.