Producers' Forum: The Five Demands by Andrea Weiss and Greta Schiller

The Five Demands by Andrea Weiss and Greta Schiller (USA, 2023, 74 minutes)

In April 1969, a small group of Black and Puerto Rican students shut down the City College of New York, an elite public university located right in the heart of Harlem.  Through archival footage and present-day interviews, The Five Demands is the riveting story of a student strike fueled by the revolutionary fervor sweeping the United States at the time. The strike soon turned into an uprising, leading to an extended campus occupation, canceled classes, student arrests, and the college president’s resignation.

Greta Schiller (Producer/Director) is an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Jezebel Productions. Since 1984, she has produced over a dozen films, unearthing lost histories of marginalized groups and writing them into the cultural narrative.

Andrea Weiss (Producer/Director) is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder, with Greta Schiller, of Jezebel Productions. Most recently, she is Producer/Director/Editor of Bones of Contention, a feature documentary delving into the historical memory movement in Spain and the unknown story of LGBT repression under the Franco dictatorship. She holds a Ph.D. in U.S. History and is Professor of Film at the City College of New York, where she co-directs the MFA Program in Film.