Friday, 10/19, 4:00pm (Session II)

Director: Macky Alston 
Producer: Sandra Itkoff

Description:

Love Free or Die is about a man named Gene Robinson whose two defining passions are in direct conflict: his love for God and for his partner Mark. Gene is the first openly gay man to become a bishop in the historic traditions of Christendom. His consecration in 2003, to which he wore a bullet-proof vest, caused an international stir, and he has lived with death threats every day since. The film follows Robinson's personal story as American churches debate whether or not lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are equal to heterosexuals in the eyes of God, while our nation debates whether LGBT people are equal to heterosexuals in the eyes of the law. In Love Free or Die, Bishop Gene steps onto the world stage as he travels from small-town churches to Washington's Lincoln Memorial to London's Lambeth Palace calling for all to stand for equality; inspiring bishops, priests and ordinary folk to come out from the shadows and change history. The film has been screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Biography:

Macky Alston, documentary filmmaker, most recently directed Love Free or Die, a feature film about openly gay bishop Gene Robinson and the international firestorm his consecration sparked. Alston's first film, Family Name premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 where it won the Freedom of Expression Award and later aired on PBS' POV. Since then he has directed Questioning Faith (which premiered at Full Frame and Hot Docs International Film Festivals, and aired on HBO/Cinemax in 2002), The Killer Within (premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, and aired on Discovery Times in 2007), and Hard Road Home (which premiered at South by Southwest in 2007, and aired on PBS' Independent Lens 2008). Alson is a partner with Sandra Itkoff and Christopher White in Reveal Productions. His awards include the Gotham Open Palm Award and Emmy nominations for three of his films.

Sandra Itkoff is a producer of award-winning documentaries and children's programming. In 2009, her European Film Award-nominated documentary film Defamation, directed by Yoav Shamir, explored the complicated relationship between Jews and anti-Semitism and won critical acclaim worldwide. The same year, her film Off and Running, directed by NicoleOpper, aired on PBS. The documentary traced the coming of age of a young African America woman raised by a Jewish lesbian couple and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She was the executive producer of The Twentieth Century Project, a six-film series that aired on the Showtime network 2000. The project brought together directors Norman Jewison, Barry Levinson, Garry Marshall, Gregory Nava, Robert Townsend and Robert Zemekis to explore in documentary form topics they felt were representative of the 20th century. Ms. Itkoff won the prestigious DuPont Columbia Award for her four-part PBS documentary series Cadillac Desert, which focused on the epic political and environmental struggle for water in the modern American West. In addition to her documentary work, Ms. Itkoff produced the animated children's series Grossology: The Science of Really Gross Things for Nelvana and Discovery Kids.

Contact Information:

E-mail: mac@mackyalston.com
Web site: www.mackyalston.com