Aronson Awards

Attending the Aronson awards for social justice journalism was really amazing. First of all, it was really inspiring to see how passionate the people being honored were about their projects. They opened my eyes up to a lot of things that I was only vaguely familiar with. The stories they told and their process creating these documentaries were incredible, heartbreaking and extremely important. As a film maker, my goal is to make fiction narratives, but seeing some of the stuff that these people were talking about really made me want to do documentary work and make an impact on the world the way that they have; by telling the stories of real people living under crazy circumstances. Some of the stories I remember are the ones about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and the chemicals in the factories giving “popcorn lung” to workers all over the country. These stories were truly heartbreaking because there is nothing these people could have done or known about what would get them seriously sick. The story about the Alabama prison system and the cases of police brutality were also incredibly heartbreaking and really reflect a major social problem that we hear about very often and yet never get any justice for. I hope that through documentaries and with the help of incredible people like the ones I saw at the awards, the government and big corporations can address these issues more urgently. It was also amazing to see a recent graduate receiving an award, to see how passionate and driven someone my age is about making a change is inspiring. Everybody there deserved the awards they received, I am really glad I decided to go and help honor them.