Just days into his term, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order to ensure compliance with Board of Corrections standards and issued the following statement:

"The previous Administration’s refusal to meet their legal obligations on Rikers has left us with troubling conditions... In order to fix this, I am signing a new emergency executive order instructing the relevant agencies to develop a compliance plan within 45 days. I am also directing the Law Department to work with the federal monitor and the parties in court so that we can end solitary confinement."

We at Aubin and our partners are heartened and encouraged to see an administration move with precision and urgency to affirm the rights and dignity of incarcerated people. We look ahead with hope that these early actions will continue to drive meaningful reform. Thank you for your humanity Mayor Mamdani!

Stanley Richards, who was featured in PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE, has been appointed new Commissioner of the Department of Corrections. Having spent multiple stints at Rikers as a youth, Richards is the first formerly incarcerated individual to serve in this position. 

“Today we turn the page and we start a new era. Under Mayor Mamdani’s leadership, we will chart a path of hope, healing and transformation.” - Richards 

Our upcoming feature documentary THE RETURN has two new Executive Producers: Molly Gochman and V!  We are so excited for them to join the team of this magnificent film. 

The Return, an essay film set in contemporary India, is a conversation between co-directors Anjali, an Indian Hindu, and Rehan, a Pakistani Muslim, about how to resist in a time of political dismay. As India lurches into Hindu supremacism and mob lynchings of Muslims are on the rise, Anjali returns home from New York to face the nightmarish reality of India and finally confront the rightwing Hindu activists inside her own family, who her parents had long kept her away from. But she’s also driven by her and Rehan’s excitement over the resistance: the small but growing numbers of Muslim and Hindu dissidents risking arrest to boldly speak out against Hindu supremacist politics and imagine a different kind of country.

2026 is an exciting year for Aubin as we celebrate our 30th Anniversary!

Our 30th Anniversary programming includes screenings, convenings, celebrations, and more! We are celebrating our work across our FIVE PILLARS: Studio (documentary filmmaking to transform narratives); Impact (justice-oriented campaigns to amplify urgent issues); Workshop (fiscal sponsorship, project incubation, and community events); Lab (mentorship and training); and Rewind (uncovering and activating our past work and shared history).

Over the course of this year, we are working to inspire, learn, and scale Aubin Pictures’s model for storytelling for social change in its next 30 years.

Help us launch our Aubin 30 campaign by watching this wonderful sizzle reel of the amazing work that the Aubin team has been able to accomplish since 1996!

In the wake of the murders of Renee Nicole Macklin Good and Alex Pretti (and Keith Porter Jr.), the Proteus Fund's Nonprofit Quarterly shares an important call-to-action for the protection of our constitutional rights. They assert the role that philanthropy has in protecting our rights to protest, to dissent, and to bear witness.

Join us for a conversation with director Catherine Gund and Senator Nina Turner that will cover how movies portray inequality, injustice, and human rights issues, including race, and socioeconomic status, along with audience obligations, and film’s capacity to promote real-world change, including the filmmaker’s role and responsibility. Moderated by Queen Meccasia Zabriskie, Director of the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom.