Laura Hanna
Laura Hanna is a filmmaker, media activist and organizer. She helped launch Strike Debt's Rolling Jubilee initiative and produced The People's Bailout Telethon at Le Poisson Rouge. She is director of Gattis, James, Hammer, and Williams, four long form clemency films about death row inmates in Indiana, Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Hanna co-directed the Perpetual Peace Project film series installed in the New Museum, ICA, Goldsmiths, Utrecht University, and the International Peace Institute. She was commissioned to produce short films for The Venice Biennale of Architecture with Kyong Park and Ted Smith. Hanna has directed and produced shorts for The Nation, OR Books, The New Press, MoMA, Creative Time, SEIU, Art Review, The New School and Slought Foundation.
Astra Taylor
Astra Taylor is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and activist. Her films include Zizek!, a feature documentary about the world’s most outrageous philosopher, and Examined Life, a series of excursions with contemporary thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Cornel West, Peter Singer and others. Both movies premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Taylor’s writing has appeared in The Nation, the London Review of Books, n+1, The Baffler, and other publications. She is the editor of Examined Life, a companion volume to the film, and coeditor of Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America. She also helped launch the Occupy offshoot Strike Debt and its Rolling Jubilee campaign. Most recently she is the author of the book The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age.