Producers' Forum: For Venida, For Kalief by Sisa Bueno
Submitted on September 24,2025
Friday, February 6, 2026, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
For Venida, For Kalief by Sisa Bueno
(USA, 2025, 93 min)
FOR VENIDA, FOR KALIEF follows the legacy of Kalief Browder via the poetry of his mother, Venida in an unfolding poetic journey between past, present, and future. The film weaves a cinematic mosaic collage of verité, poetic visuals, and rare archival imagery from 1970s New York - a bold reimagining of criminal justice storytelling, while revealing how an individual’s life—and afterlife—can transcend boundaries to ignite social and cultural change once thought unattainable.
Sisa Bueno - Originally from New York City, Sisa Bueno is a Director-Cinematographer dedicated to exploring powerful ripple effects within humanity. Her most recent feature film FOR VENIDA, FOR KALIEF had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and has been covered by Democracy Now!, The Guardian, NBC, and NPR. Her work has received support from the Ford Foundation, ITVS-PBS Open Call, Sundance Documentary Fund, International Documentary Association (IDA) Pare Lorentz grant, Firelight Media Lab Fellowship, and the Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellowship, among others. She studied both film production and interactive technologies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU).
Debra Powell-Wright is an interdisciplinary artist, workshop facilitator, and cultural arts coordinator whose creative work is centered on the exploration of African Diaspora ancestry, culture, and traditions. An award-winning poet, published essayist, and one of the founding members of Black female spoken word ensemble "In The Company of Poets," her work has been featured in several publications, including: BMa--The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review; Check The Rhyme--An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees; Stand Our Ground--Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander; and her "Four Women / For Women: Black Women All Grown Up" essay featured in the collection by Dr. Carol E. Henderson, Imagining The Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture.