Mar. 25-26 Visiting Artist: Stephen Maing

sainsbury visiting artist 2025

The Department of Film and Media Studies presents
Sainsbury Visiting Artist: Stephen Maing

Tuesday, March 25:
Screening: Union
6:30-9PM | Lang Auditorium (424HN)

RSVP (Hunter Community):
https://fm-stephen-maing-rsvp-hunter.eventbrite.com

RSVP (non-Hunter/Public):
https://fm-stephen-maing-rsvp-public.eventbrite.com
(Entrance at 69th St between Lexington & Park Ave., bring ID)

A film by Stephen Maing and Brett Story

Union film poster

Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, NY. Winner of the US Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change, Sundance Film Festival 2024.

Followed by Q&A with Stephen Maing
Moderated by Prof. Ricardo Miranda, Film and Media Studies

Wednesday, March 26:
Artist Talk: Breaking and Remaking the Character-Driven Documentary
Empathy for individual protagonists, and their story arcs, are the lifeblood of many documentary films. What are some drawbacks of character-driven storytelling, and how can we expand documentary vocabulary and form to convey complex stories of power and collectivity? Stephen Maing will draw on his own films and experiences to explore these timely and critical questions.

Stephen Maing

Artist talk by Stephen Maing
2:30-3:45pm : TV Studio, 436HN
Reception
3:45 – 4:30pm: 433B HN
RSVP (Open to Hunter Community only):
https://fm-artist-talk-stephen-maing.eventbrite.com

Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York. His most recent film UNION, about the Amazon Labor Union’s historic unionization efforts at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, directed with Brett Story, won a Special Jury Award for The Art of Change at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His feature CRIME + PUNISHMENT, an immersive cinéma vérié documentary which he directed, filmed and edited won a 2018 Sundance Special Jury Award, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was also shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films which he also directed, filmed and edited – HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, THE SURRENDER, and DIRTY GOLD have screened internationally, received numerous awards and were released on POV, Field of Vision and Netflix, respectively.

One of his upcoming films, THE GREAT EXPERIMENT, is an ambitious cinematic time capsule of one of the most volatile and perplexing eras of American history & identity.  Maing is a 2021 United States Artists Fellow, Sundance Institute Fellow, NBC Original Voices Fellow, a recipient of the IDA’s prestigious Courage Under Fire Award, and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.