Maestra Productions

07/04/2025

06/22/2025

Please join us in wishing a happy birthday to the brilliant, beautiful & muito talentosa Iris de Oliveira .cine 🦋💚🌟✨

06/11/2025

Meet the Maestra team!

Stephanie is a current law student, educator, and researcher from Ceará, in the Northeast of Brazil. She joined Maestra Productions as an archival researcher and production assistant for our upcoming Paulo Freire film—set to be released very soon!

For , we spoke with Stephanie about what her work as an archival researcher involves, her favorite parts of the process, and the importance of archives in storytelling and film.

Check out this clip from the interview—in both English and Portuguese!

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Conheça a equipe da Maestra!
Stephanie é estudante de Direito, educadora e pesquisadora do Ceará, no Nordeste do Brasil. Ela se juntou à Maestra Productions como pesquisadora de arquivos e assistente de produção para o nosso próximo filme sobre Paulo Freire — que será lançado em breve!

Para a , conversamos com Stephanie sobre o que envolve seu trabalho como pesquisadora de arquivos, suas partes favoritas do processo e a importância dos arquivos na construção de histórias e no cinema.

Confira este trecho da entrevista — em inglês e português!

06/09/2025

📚✨ Today is International Archives Day!
Archives are at the heart of our films 🎬 — they’re an essential part of our process and journey as filmmakers and storytellers 📖🎥.

We spend years doing archival research: digging 🕵️‍♀️, sorting 🗂️, scanning 📸, flipping through footage 🎞️ to uncover the material that becomes the backbone of our films.

We’re also constantly creating new archives 🛠️, preserving histories 🧾 and uplifting social movements ✊ that have been invisibilized or never told this way.

Archives are a universe of their own
This week, we celebrate the archives and share why, at Maestra, we hold them so close

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📚✨ ¡Hoy es el Día Internacional de los Archivos!
Los archivos están en el corazón de nuestras películas 🎬 — son una parte esencial de nuestro proceso y de nuestro camino como cineastas y narradores de historias 📖.

Pasamos años investigando archivos: excavando 🕵️‍♀️, organizando 🗂️, escaneando 📷, revisando material 🎞️ para descubrir aquello que se convierte en la columna vertebral de nuestras películas.

También estamos constantemente creando nuevos archivos 🛠️, preservando historias 🧾 y dando voz a movimientos sociales ✊ que han sido invisibilizados o que nunca se habían contado de esta manera.

Los archivos son un universo en sí mismos.
Esta semana, celebramos los archivos y compartimos por qué, en Maestra, los valoramos tanto.

06/07/2025

📢 Day of Action has arrived!
✊🏽 Defend the freedom to learn!
📍 Find an event in your city
📸 Post photos, 🔁 share posts — let’s make some noise today and 📚 share some history.

We are participating in the by sharing this powerful 🎙️ interview with Civil Rights activist Dave Dennis. He served as co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), director of Mississippi’s Congress of Racial Equality, and was a key organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. 🖤

In this podcast, he shares his funny and honest account of how he unexpectedly found himself in a meeting — and came out committed to the movement. 🗣️✍🏾
He reflects on the shift from direct action and sit-ins to a focus on education and citizenship schools as a strategy to gain political power in the movement. 🧠📖

🎧 Take a listen on Spotify or on our YouTube channel — link in our story! 🔗

And don’t miss his son’s powerful book:
📘 "The Movement Made Us" by David Dennis Jr.

06/05/2025

Today for , we honor the life and legacy of Ms. Dorie Ladner (1942–2024), a major grassroots leader in the Mississippi Civil Rights and Voting Rights movements.

As a teen, she joined the Jackson NAACP Youth Council led by Medgar Evers, later becoming SNCC’s project director in Natchez and co-founding COFO. She marched in every major civil rights demonstration from 1963 to 1968, and continued working on voter registration, community organizing projects in the Mississippi Delta and against the Vietnam War.

Ms. Ladner was also a licensed clinical social worker for 28 years.

This interview was filmed by Maestra Productions in 2017 in collaboration with Bowie State University and Teaching for Change.

Learn more:
| www.zinnedproject.org/materials/ladner-dorie
SNCC Digital Gateway | snccdigital.org/people/dorie-ladner

06/04/2025

We are participating in Day of Action with this week by sharing with you educational shorts from our collaboration with .
Over the years, we’ve worked closely with filmmaker Lucy Phenix to create these shorts based on her 1985 film You Got To Move, which centers students and civil rights organizers trained at the Highlander Folk School ()—a center for education and social action founded in 1932 in Tennessee.

These films highlight extraordinary stories of systemic change made by ordinary people. Share these stories with us!
Stay updated on Day of Action

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Estamos participando en el Día de Acción junto con esta semana, compartiendo con ustedes cortos educativos de nuestra colaboración con .

A lo largo de los años, hemos trabajado estrechamente con la cineasta Lucy Phenix para crear estos cortos basados en su película de 1985 You Got To Move, que se centra en estudiantes y organizadores por los derechos civiles formados en la Highlander Folk School (), un centro de educación y acción social fundado en 1932 en Tennessee.

Estas películas destacan historias extraordinarias de cambio sistémico realizadas por personas comunes. ¡Compartan estas historias con nosotrxs!

Mantente al tanto del Día de Acción en

06/04/2025

Lawmakers in at least 44 states are attempting (and some have succeeded) to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.
At Maestra Productions we stand in defense of truth telling, in support of teachers, and in solidarity with for the Day of Action this Saturday June 7, 2025.

Learn more , join and/or organize an event, swap books, watch films together, spread knowledge!

🤝 🤝

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En al menos 44 estados, legisladores están intentando (y algunos ya lo han logrado) aprobar leyes que obligarían a lxs docentes a mentirle al estudiantado sobre el papel del racismo, el sexismo, la heteronormatividad y otras formas de opresión a lo largo de la historia de Estados Unidos.
Desde Maestra Productions, defendemos el derecho a decir la verdad, apoyamos a lxs docentes y nos solidarizamos con en el Day of Action, este sábado 7 de junio de 2025.

Infórmate más en , únete o organiza una actividad, intercambia libros, vean películas juntxs, ¡difunde conocimiento!