Samara Hutman and C. Lily Ericsson are Winners at the MY HERO Film Festival

CONTACT:                                                                                       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JEANNE MEYERS
Co-founder/Director
The MY HERO Project
[email protected] 

‘She is Us: The Story of Judge Songhai Armstead’ has won the Media Arts Spotlight Award at the 20^th MY HERO Film Festival.

‘She is Us: The Story of Judge Songhai Armstead’ (trailer) directed by Samara Hutman and C. Lily Ericsson is an animated film that chronicles the extraordinary story of Judge Armstead, social justice hero.  It explores how, after a challenging childhood in foster care, Songhai embarks on a remarkable journey to envision and create justice and opportunities for vulnerable communities in Los Angeles. The film is a production of The Righteous Conversations Project and Second Nurture. The creation of ‘She is Us’ was led by Samara Hutman & C. Lily Ericsson and animated by a team of young people from Second Nurture’s Animate Possibility Stop Motion Collab , some of whom are alumni of Tige Charity’s KITS foundation. The team: Serra Demirci, Lily Ericcson, Kaila Harunzade, Samara Hutman, Eve Levy, Jameah Palmer, Aaminah Parker, Brooklyn Reign, Mare Villagrana, and Naomi Zweiback. 

Judge Songhai Armstead was a judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California. She was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown (D) on July 16, 2015, and was re-elected in 2016. She retired from the court on September 25, 2020, in order to become executive director of Los Angeles County's Alternatives to Incarceration Initiative. Find out more about Judge Songhai Armstead HERE.ERE

'She is Us'Samara Hutman and C. Lily Ericsson

MY HERO interviewed Samara Hutman about the decision to make the film and its process:

How long have you been making films? 

I have been making and helping make films for over 40 years. I have worked with extraordinary directors and storytellers like Robert Redford, Jodie Foster, Michael Apted, and Mike Nichols in my early days as an art department assistant and then a union set decorator. I have seen the magnificent power of film to shape public conversation and move people to new understandings. In 2011 my daughter, Rebecca Hutman, and I co-founded The Righteous Conversations Project, with collaborators Cheri Gaulke and Shoshana Robinson, to engage the last Holocaust Survivor generation in collaborative creative work and to offer Los Angeles young people and elders the precious opportunity for generative creative work together. That project has birthed over 150 short student-made films in over a decade and mentored young people to bring their voices to the social justice issues of their lives and times. We are incredibly proud of the body of work we have produced, and the relationships we have built with My Hero who has consistently exhibited and honored our films with the gift of community, audience and acknowledgment, including last year’s Eva Haller Women In Film Awarded, A Prayer For My Mother: The Eva Brettler Story.

Could you tell us about the process of making the film?

In 2023, I joined the team of Second Nurture, a non-profit dedicated to lifting up and meeting the needs of local foster families. Second Nurture is working on behalf of kids whose lives are upended by forces beyond their control, were and whose very futures rely upon the compassion of loving adults who step in and offer care. I had the idea to create a program called Animate Possibility, a partnership between RCP and 2N, to tell the stories of LA change-makers who overcame extraordinary obstacles in the foster care system as kids, and use the filmmaking process to engage young people to lift up the narratives of heroes in our own community. Heroic women and men who themselves had lived experience in foster care in their own childhoods. I knew there would be incredible value in the generative relationship between young people and these extraordinary role models. And we know that art has the capacity to teach, inspire and enlighten. There is a lot of stigma for kids who have been through trauma and that does not end in adulthood. At Animate Possibility, we want to lift up these stories to help re-shape our community’s understanding and to inspire folks to look at the needs of foster youth and foster families—to see them, support them, nurture them, lift them up, in community. Some of the high points of the summer program were bringing a diverse team of young people together. and building a stop-motion animation studio from the ground up in the elementary school library at the Stephen Wise Temple. It was amazing to see the level of excellence we were able to achieve in our hand-made studio.

Judge Songhai Armstead and the Animate Possibility Film Collab Team 

What was it like working with the group from KITS? 

I was so delighted that my friend Joey Alleyne created a bridge between KITS and RCP/Second Nurture and KITS recruited 4 of our student filmmakers and supported our vision every step of the way.

Do you have a personal hero? 

Yes, my mother, Susan Levine. Hands down. No contest. Like Judge Armstead, my mom grew up surrounded by difficult conditions. In her case, it was alcoholism, abuse and neglect. My mom became a young single mom ( of me ) and went on to graduate college - taking me along to college classes just like Judge A took her son, Pharaoh. My mom worked nights as a waitress to support the two of us. In the years that have passed my mother has gone on to be an important voice and leader in the Hospice movement in America, and ever humble, has kept her focus on patient care and compassion, growing Hospice of The Valley in Arizona into a national model and leader in compassionate, excellent end of life care and culture. My mother is the definition of a servant leader and a mother who has overcome extraordinary obstacles to lift her own children, my sisters and me, up into a life better than anything she could have imagined in her own childhood. I hope to continue her example.

How does it feel to win an award at the MY HERO Film Festival?   

The MY HERO community is so special and our new program Animate Possibility Stop Motion Film Collab has big dreams. To be acknowledged for our very first film in such a meaningful way means so much to us. We know it will be some of the wind beneath the wings of our big dreams for the future. Already we are seeing the way our film is putting local heroes in front of the community the way we are tonight. We are so grateful top Judge Songhai Armstead for trusting us to tell her story so that young people and the community members who can be of support to these young people, can be inspired to build the world they dream of living in. Stay tuned for our next Animate Possibility film sharing the story of NPR hero and philanthropist Jarl Mohn.

About the Righteous Conversations Project

The Righteous Conversations Project was launched in 2011 when a group of parents and students, the head of Harvard-Westlake's Upper School Visual Arts Department, Cheri Gaulke and head of History, Dror Yaron started reaching out to Holocaust survivors to hear their stories. The parents and students had worked closely with Remember Us, a foundation dedicated to remembering the children lost in the Holocaust but wanted to take their commitment to Holocaust memory one step further by hearing from survivors directly. The directors of Remember Us, Samara Hutman, and Cheri Gaulke decided to collaborate, and The Righteous Conversations Project was formed. The Righteous Conversations Project brings Holocaust survivors and students together; survivors share their stories of resilience and resistance, whilst students document the stories in the form of short films or Public Service Announcements. On their website, the project is outlined as the following:

To read more about The Righteous Conversations Project, click here, or visit their website at http://righteousconversations.org/.

About Second Nature

Second Nurture creates circles of compassion and support for foster families so that they are held, resilient and successful—and kids have the loving, ‘growthful’ relationships and resources they need to thrive. “We help families explore, pursue and thrive in fostering and adoption by mobilizing communities to support them every step of the way.”

To find out more about Second Nature, visit their website: www.2nurture.org

MY HERO Film Festival

MY HERO will be presenting the Awards at the 20th Anniversary MY HERO International Film Festival Awards Ceremony on November 16th, 2024 in Santa Monica at the Ann & Jerry Moss Theater at New Roads School, 3131 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica, Ca. 90404.

Join MY HERO in celebrating 20 years of The MY HERO International Film Festival. Find out more here: festival-information

Schedule: 6:00 - 7:00 PM - Reception with live jazz - 7:00 - 9:00 PM - Film Festival Awards Ceremony Dessert reception to follow.

Reserve your tickets HERE