Q&A Panelist Bios

Friday, June 4 – Saturday, June 5

MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY

Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat, a full decade before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned separate-but-equal legislation, Pauli Murray was already knee-deep fighting for social justice. A pioneering attorney, activist, priest and dedicated memoirist, Murray shaped landmark litigation—and consciousness—around race and gender equity. As an African American youth raised in the segregated South—who was also wrestling with broader notions of gender identity—Pauli understood, intrinsically, what it was to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. Both Pauli’s personal path and tireless advocacy foreshadowed some of the most politically consequential issues of our time. Directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen the Oscar-nominated team behind RBG, and told largely in Pauli’s own words, MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY is a candid recounting of that unique and extraordinary journey.

Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West and Producer Talleah Bridges McMahon will be featured in a post screening panel.

Betsy West | Director

Betsy West is the Academy Award®-nominated director/producer of RBG(Magnolia, Participant, CNN Films, 2018) along with Julie Cohen. She is a 21-time Emmy® Award winner for her work as an ABC News producer and executive producer of the documentary series Turning Point. As vice president at CBS News from 1998 to 2005, she oversaw 60 Minutes and 48 Hours. She was executive producer of the MAKERS(AOL & PBS, 2012) documentary and digital series, the short doc The 4%: Film’s Gender Problem (Epix, 2016) and the feature documentary The Lavender Scare (PBS 2017). A graduate of Brown University, she is the Fred W. Friendly professor emerita at Columbia Journalism School.

Julie Cohen | Director

Julie Cohen is the Academy Award® nominated director and producer of RBG(Magnolia, Participant, CNN Films, 2018) along with Betsy West. Previous films she’s directed include The Sturgeon Queens (7th Art Releasing/PBS; Berlinale, 2015; Best of the Fest, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival), and Ndiphilela Ukucula: I Live to Sing(PBS; 2014 New York Emmy Award for Best Arts Program). Before she started making documentaries, Julie was a staff producer for NBC News and the creator and producer of Supreme Court Watch on Court TV. She holds a B.A. from Colgate and master’s degrees from Columbia Journalism School and Yale Law School.

Talleah Bridges McMahon | Producer

Talleah Bridges McMahon is an award-winning director and producer who has made documentaries for PBS, CNN, ABC and Amazon. Previous projects include directing the Emmy®-nominated PBS series Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise and co-producing The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, which garnered Emmy®, Peabody, and duPont-Columbia awards. Talleah also produced MAKERS: Women Who Make America and contributed to the Academy Award®-nominated documentary feature Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience as well as several Emmy®-nominated specials for ABC News. She has a B.A. from Emory University and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Southern California.

Erika Mallin | Aspen Institute Arts Program

Erika Mallin is the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program. The Program – whose mission is to honor and give platform to artists and cultural leaders as one of society’s most important innovators and influencers - encompasses core programs and curated conversations and events in New York, Washington D.C., Aspen and elsewhere including the Aspen Ideas Festival Arts Track, the Eisner/Lauder New Views Documentaries Series, The Michelle Smith Arts and Culture Series and the year-long Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence program which more deeply explores the work of selected artists and their impact on society. Prior to joining Aspen Institute, Mallin was Executive Director of New York City’s Tony-Award winning Signature Theatre, producing over 100 plays and leading Signature’s expansion to the Frank Gehry-designed Pershing Square Signature Center. Mallin also led Signature’s subsidized ticket program to make theater accessible to new and diverse audiences. To date, the program has served over one million people and has become a national model. She has lectured on the arts management at Yale, Columbia, and NYU and received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her M.A. from Columbia’s School of Journalism.