April 2019

Kate Tsang won a $1 million grant for her film ‘Marvelous and the Black Hole,’ which will premiere at next year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival is still a couple days away from kicking off, but in lower Manhattan on Monday, one of the films set to premiere in the 2020 edition of the festival was selected.

Kate Tsang’s Marvelous and the Black Hole was selected as the winner of the third annual Untold Stories live pitch event, giving Tsang a $1 million grant from AT&T to go toward her film and earning the pic a slot in next year’s fest. Marvelous will also run across AT&T’s video platform.

Tsang’s coming-of-age comedy, which impressed a greenlight committee of industry leaders and film experts who selected this year’s winner after hearing pitches from five finalists, follows teenage delinquent Sammy Ko as she and a surly children’s party magician embark on an adventure that helps her grapple with her tumultuous home life and inner demons.

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Katie Holmes, Kal Penn Help Decide Winner of $1 Million Filmmaker Grant

Tribeca Film Festival and AT&T gave one young filmmaker a million and one reasons to rejoice at the “Untold Stories” third annual competition.

After a nerve-wracking 10-minute long pitch in front of over 850,000 live stream audience members and a panel consisting of celebrities and industry leaders, filmmaker Kate Tsang was awarded $1 million on Monday to bring her script to life on the big screen. But, the awarded budget was not the only thing that was magical for the “Marvelous and the Black Hole” creator.

Reflecting on her winning project that she describes as being “for Asians, women and for anyone who has ever felt invisible” she told Variety, “It’s indescribable. I have had this dream for so long and to be able to actually do it is unfathomable. I am so excited to make this film. With Tribeca giving me this chance I feel like I am going to be able to make stories about other people like me.”

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April 2019

Hillary Clinton Talks Immigration, Healthcare and Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton addressed several issues pressing the Trump administration Friday, commenting on healthcare, immigration, foreign policy, and more during a candid discussion at the Women in the World summit in Manhattan.

“We deserve to see the Mueller report,” said Clinton, referring to the special counsel investigation’s report that Attorney General William Barr is currently redacting for release.

“If there is material that for whatever reason should not be shared publicly, it should be shared with the Congress,” she continued. Clinton also added that Barr’s behavior shows he “considers his principal duty to be protecting Donald Trump, not protecting the rule of law and the democracy the Justice Department should be defending.”

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April 2019

Tina Brown on 10 Years of Women in the World

There are few people on earth for whom the descriptor “gamechanger” is accurate, but Tina Brown is most certainly one of them. From 1979 t0 2001, Brown worked as editor-in-chief of the some of the most prominent magazines in journalism: TatlerVanity Fair, and The New Yorker, and in 2008 Brown launched the digital news site The Daily BeastShe’s also the author of the 2007 biography of Princess Diana, The Diana Chronicles. And she accomplished all that before starting what is perhaps her most impactful venture to date: the Women in the World summitwhich is celebrating its tenth anniversary right now. 

For the unfamiliar, Women in the World is an annual gathering at New York City’s Lincoln Center, where activists, celebrities, leaders, and folks on the forefront of real change come together to share their stories and try to create solutions to some of the world’s biggest issues. Previous years have featured panels with Madeleine Albright, Zainab Salbi, Meryl Streep, Chef Dominique Crenn, and Malala Yousafzai. Brown has a knack for choosing topics and participants at exactly the right moment. Hillary Clinton made her first public appearance following her 2016 election loss at the summit, and Gretchen Carlson shared her tale of workplace harassment at Fox News on the Women in the World stage—six months before the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the #MeToo movement took off.

The 2019 summit, which is taking place this week, will have appearances and panels with notables such as Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stacey Abrams, Anna Wintour, and Brie Larson, with Oprah Winfrey delivering the keynote address. But, as always, the gathering is about more than just boldfaced names: This year’s summit features activists Madeleine Habib, an Australian sea captain who rescues migrants from the Mediterranean, and Dr. Fozia Alvi, a Bangladeshi doctor who was so moved by the suffering of Rohingya people that she left her family in Calgary, Canada, to treat the refugees in Myanmar. (And men, too! Bryan Cranston and Alex Gibney are on this year’s list of panelists and moderators.)

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Oprah Winfrey, Brie Larson Kick Off Women in the World Summit

The 10th annual Women in the World Summit began in New York City on Wednesday with the help of Oprah Winfrey and Brie Larson.

“We live in a country that has somehow confused cruel with funny, serious with intelligent, attitude with belief, personal freedom with stockpiling assault weapons, and what is moral with what is legal,” Winfrey, the evening’s keynote speaker, told the crowd at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. “So it is time for women in the world to set the agenda. It’s time for women to redefine the message. We need to make that message a positive one. Let’s make it ambitious, and inclusive, and brimming with hope.”

The three-day event — a series of speeches and panels launched by Tina Brown to highlight both women leaders and international issues — aims to answer the question, “Can women save the world?”

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Oprah Urges Women to “Rock the Boat” and Save the World in a Rousing Speech

Hours after Oprah and the British royals announced that she and Prince Harry are teaming up to release a multi-part documentary about mental health on Apple’s new streaming service in 2020, the O of O inspired us with an unforgettable appearance at Tina Brown’s 10th annual Women in the World Summit in New York City.

Held at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, Oprah served as the keynote speaker for day one of a three-day festival that—hosted by Brown, the former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief and award-winning journalist—brings powerful women such as Stacey Abrams, Brie Larson, and NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison together.

In her address, Oprah specifically answered the question at the center of the summit: Can women save the world? And boy, did she deliver an answer. Across the minutes-long speech, the O of O brought the room to a standing ovation with a chills-inducing speech about the power of women. She opened with words from Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” and also explained how she once told Nelson Mandela that the reason she decided to open a girls’ school in South Africa is to promise young women a bright future to become leaders.

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Padma Lakshmi, Tory Burch attend Women in the World Summit

Prominent women attend the opening night of the Women in the World Summit on April 9, 2019 in New York City.

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April 2019

How To Build A Modern Media Brand: Tina Brown On Creating Community And Tapping Into The Zeitgeist

“Not forgetting our sisters. Essentially, that really is what ‘Women In The World’ is all about,” says Tina Brown, perched on a stool in a contemporary office space on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

Media mogul Brown founded the ‘Women In The World’ summit and live journalism platform in 2010 and has overseen its growth over the past decade. She notes that a key differentiator from other ‘women’s conferences’ is that ‘Women In The World’ is globally focused, featuring champions of change that may not ordinarily be in the spotlight.

“The drive behind it is deeply journalistic,” says Brown of the annual summit. “It’s not what I call a sort of woman’s empowerment, a lean-in situation, it really involves telling global stories.”

This year’s sold-out event is at the Lincoln Center in New York City and is anchored around the question ‘Can Women Save The World?’ Oprah Winfrey gave the rousing live keynote address to more than 2,000 attendees on opening night, imploring them to seek purpose and “channel their inner Jacinda Ardern.”

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