After the screening, Aubin hosted a beautiful family-style brunch nearby at The Smith. Together, we ate, drank, and celebrated the power of community, generations, archives, and Ivy.

Roxbury was a blast, reminding us why we make films in the first place. The programming of shorts on either side of And Again I Dream was perfect. Yoruba Richen's overdue and heart-stopping Free Joan Little and the electric portrait She Dared to Dream: Ayanna Pressley showed us that our film has found its people, in this moment, in these places.

The post-screening panel with Representative Pressley, Yoruba, and the two of us was fire, a genuine honor. Together we explored questions of legacy, the long arc of generational struggle for justice, and the power of archives as acts of gratitude for the movements that shaped us. None of it would have cohered without the rare curatorial vision of sisters Alison and Lisa Simmons, who turned a lineup into a community of films. Just one week after the profound intimacy of DC/DOX, Roxbury reminded us that Ivy's story and her insistence we keep fighting, resonates across cities, communities, and generations. Her story belongs to those who knew her, and also to everyone doing the work. Keeping that story alive is an act of resistance.

- Cat and Mariah

As a part of our 30th Anniversary celebration, we are continuing to release our previously unavailable films on Kinema.

This Pride Month, we've dropped the short documentary OBJECT LESSONS.

On May 21st, Cat was honored at the Kitchen Gala for her contributions to avant-garde film and innovative filmmaking, alongside Shari Frilot, Garrett Bradley, and Cheryl Dunye. After being introduced by Jacqueline Woodson, Cat gave rousing remarks about the power of the camera and curiosity.

"A camera can be a tool of liberation. Not a metaphor. An actual civic instrument. The way a ballot is. The way a strike is. The way testimony is. Precise and purposeful."

"At its best, documentary redistributes visibility. Whose grief matters. Whose memory survives. Whose interior life counts as history. Because attention is a public resource. What a society learns to see shapes what it’s willing to protect."

"Each of Aubin’s films asks the same question: what becomes possible when domination is forced to loosen its grip? Because supremacy works first by shrinking the imaginable. Documentary, at its best, enlarges the human horizon."

"The work has always been an ecosystem. Justice-oriented art emerges not from individual creativity alone but from communities of care, through rooms where viewers can learn to see power as it operates. Culture is collective infrastructure."

"Right now, in 2026, watching democratic life dismantled in real time, I keep thinking: democracy is about whether people can recognize one another as fully human across difference. Whether testimony can shift power. That’s why art matters. Not because art decorates democracy. But because art is where democracy rehearses itself."

"Keep searching, circling. That is a documentary. Not mastery. Not certainty. The disciplined act of staying with complexity long enough for the truth underneath language to emerge. A refusal of the speed and simplification that authoritarianism requires."

"We want to live in a world where culture teaches us how to remain accountable to one another’s humanity. And every time we gather in rooms like this, refusing the logic of isolation and disappearance, we belong to one another. And belonging is how history becomes something other than brutality."

In his speech commemorating the importance of libraries, Mayor Zohran Mamdani quotes our Brooklyn-born friend Jacqueline Woodson on her experience going to libraries since childhood.

In a recent Gothamist article Samantha Max writes, "When Rebecca Figueroa gave birth to her fourth child, her right leg was chained to the hospital bed so tightly that the shackle left cut marks on her skin... A package of bills pending in the state Legislature aims to improve treatment of pregnant people in custody. A childbirth inside a Brooklyn courtroom earlier this month is placing renewed attention on the legislation, which has stalled in the statehouse for years."

Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal of Manhattan’s West Side sponsors the anti-shackling bill, which would prohibit the use of restraints on people in police custody who are pregnant, in labor or delivery, or within 12 weeks post-pregnancy, except in extreme circumstances. Although there are some precautions in place for imprisoned pregnant people, this bill would further dignify these individuals by protecting them, the health of their bodies, and the health of their babies.

In PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter speaks on her experience being shackled to a hospital bed during the birth of her son, who she was then separated from for seven months. We'll keep using our film PAINT to pressure elected officials to pass and enforce The Dignity for Women Act.

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!