Lynsey Addario is an award-winning American photojournalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. She’s documented both headline news and intimate stories all around the word. In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya she has given us an up-close view of war and revolution. She’s brought us stories of Maternal Mortality in Sierra Leone, sexual assault in Madagascar, rape in the DRC, heroin addiction in Afghanistan, and life before and after the Taliban...
Dec 13, 2017•27 min•Ep. 34
Sabaah Folayan is an activist and storyteller who illuminates the humanity, resilience and beauty in the struggle of communities as they mobilize and fight for justice. She merged her dedication to human rights and a newfound passion for film with Whose Streets?, a feature documentary chronicling the experience of Ferguson community members after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Sabaah and her co-director Damon Davis are premiering Whose Streets? at Sundance 2017, but this episode’s conversa...
Jan 18, 2017•33 min
Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg (that’s us) are co-creators, producers and hosts of this very show, She Does podcast, and maybe you got hints of this from listening to episodes of the show, but first and foremost, we’re documentary filmmakers. In this episode, the tables are somewhat turned and we are asked a few questions by our dear friend, production assistant and member of the documentary community herself, Alijah Case. We talk about what we’ve been up to outside of the podcast a...
Jun 01, 2016•40 min
Lisa Kron has been writing and performing award-winning theatre since the mid-1980s. Most recently, Lisa wrote the lyrics and book to the musical "Fun Home," based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Lisa, and composer Jeanine Tesori, were the first writing team of women to win a Tony for Best Original Score. Fun Home also took home Tony awards for Best Book of a Musical, Best Musical, Best Direction and Best Actor. Lisa's other plays include The Ver**zon Play, In The Wake, Well, 2.5 Minute ...
Apr 04, 2016•48 min
Lily Baldwin is a New York-based filmmaker and dancer that uses movement of the body and unconventional narrative structures to tell human stories. Her short films (Sea Meadow, A Juicebox Afternoon, Sleepover LA, and Swallowed) have played at festivals like SXSW, Berlinale EFM, and the Lincoln Center and been featured on NOWNESS, Short of the Week, Fandor, Filmmaker Magazine, and Vimeo Staff Picks. Lily fell into filmmaking when she was performing as a professional dancer in David Byrne’s two ye...
Mar 23, 2016•43 min
Almudena Toral is a Spanish visual journalist and the head of video at Univision News Digital in Miami. Prior to working for Univision, Almudena freelanced worldwide and worked at The New York Times and TIME. Her work has been published by The Guardian, VICE, AlJazeera, Huffington Post, El País, Canal+ and other outlets. She's the recipient of a 2013 Pictures of the Year International Award of Excellence – Multimedia Photographer of the Year, and received an Emmy Award for her contribution to Th...
Mar 09, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Iva Radivojevic is a documentary director and editor. She was born in Yugoslavia, raised in Cyprus and has lived in New York City since she was 18 years old. Much of her work explores belonging, and draws from poetry and personal experience. Her debut feature, "Evaporating Borders," examines migration, tolerance and identity through the experience of asylum seekers in Cyprus. The film has received awards worldwide and was nominated for an International Documentary Association (IDA) Award and a C...
Feb 24, 2016•33 min
Charly and Margaux of Chargaux are classically trained in string instruments but create music that blends traditional orchestral sounds with hip-hop, electronic music and Jazz. It's definitely music you can’t fit into one box. They started playing together in Boston and New York's subway stations and were quickly discovered by people and companies that wanted them to perform, like Opening Ceremony, Kendrick Lamar, and First Lady Michelle Obama. They are all about experimenting with both their mu...
Feb 18, 2016•15 min
Alexis Wilkinson went from being the first black woman President of Harvard’s acclaimed humor publication, to writing for HBO’s hit comedy series, Veep. She’s become an outspoken public figure and writer--with work featured in Slate, Opening Ceremony and TIME--but as we know, big victories such as these don’t come without a lot of work, a few disruptions and some twists and turns in the road. In this episode, Alexis recalls her experiences of “comping” or trying out for The Lampoon multiple time...
Feb 10, 2016•39 min
Alexandria Hall, a musician and poet, has been performing under the name Tooth Ache for over seven years. We featured music from her 2013 album, “Flash & Yearn," in last week's episode with Charlotte Cook. In this episode, Alexandria talks about growing up in Vermont, where inspiration comes from, lessons she has learned from the music industry and how being outside of your comfort zone spurs creativity.
Feb 04, 2016•12 min
Charlotte Cook is a documentary film programmer, curator, producer and co-founder of Field of Vision. Charlotte was the Director of Programming at Hot Docs film festival for four years before she left in May of 2015 to start Field of Vision, a visual journalism film unit that aims to commission 40 to 50 original episodic and individual short non-fiction films each year. Charlotte co-founded Field of Vision with Academy Award-winning director of “Citizenfour,” Laura Poitras, and filmmaker and fou...
Jan 27, 2016•36 min
Kylie Slabby and Kylie Hastings met on the first day of 6th grade, became best friends, and started making music together in their bedrooms because their parents wouldn’t let them go to the movies on Friday nights like all the other kids did. Along with drummer and guitarist Allen Martin, they became The Daddyo’s, a lo-fi, dream pop, grunge band based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. No matter the genre of their music or weight of their songs, The Daddyo’s will transports you to a very specific time in life....
Jan 21, 2016
Cocoon Central Dance Team is a New York-based comedy dance troupe made up of three talented women: Sunita Mani, Eleanore Pienta and Tallie Medel. They are each up-and-coming actors in their own right, landing roles in indie films, big music videos and on television. But their work as a trio, as Cocoon Central Dance Team, is what we focus on in this episode because they truly are a remarkably talented, gut-busting, thigh slapping, absurd outfit wearing, glitter throwing, dance-until-you-laugh-unt...
Jan 13, 2016•44 min
Cécile Schott, a musician and composer originally from outside of Paris, has been making music since she was 15 and she started releasing albums under the name Colleen at age 27. She has 6 full albums and 1 EP in total, her most recent album being Captain of None, released in April of 2015 with Thrill Jockey Records. Our talented sound designer and friend, Billy Wirasnik, has been a long time fan of Colleen. Billy calls her work, “The music a beautiful brain would make if you could plug a quarte...
Dec 09, 2015
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who combines illustration, art and journalism to document societal and political issues. Her work is influenced by her own personal experiences and radical encounters with injustice around the world, and aims to shed light on marginalized communities. She’s written and illustrated stories about Guantanamo Bay, issues sex workers face, the prison system, among many other topics, for Vice, Fusion, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardi...
Dec 02, 2015•48 min
Julianna Barwick's truly unique music is built around multiple loops and layers of her voice. Her experimental songs feel spontaneous, sometimes meandering, and always emotional. Julianna has lived in NYC for over 14 years, but she was born and raised in the South--in Louisiana, Missouri and Oklahoma. She grew up singing in choirs at church and school, which has clearly had a lasting influence on her work. 2015 was an exciting year for her; she's finishing up her next album, she played with the ...
Nov 25, 2015
Mo Scarpelli and Alexandria Bombach are documentary filmmakers and co-directors of award-winning film "Frame by Frame.” The film follows Afghan photojournalists as they face the realities of building a free press in a country left to stand on its own after decades of war and rule under the oppressive Taliban regime. The film had its world premiere at SXSW 2015, has screened over 50 times, garnered several awards, was voted one of the Top 10 Audience Favorites at Hot Docs Film Festival, and is no...
Nov 18, 2015•39 min
Bonus episode featuring Zara Asha Moonbeam Biggs-Garrick and the warm, locomotive, nature-based, synth toned music she makes under Stag Hare. Episode 22 with Andrea Sisson is soundtracked by music filled with ambient drone sounds, the chirps of birds and jingling of bells. Zara talks to us about her different approaches to recording and performing, raising her son Sebastian and shattering an old identity to transition into a new. Stag Hare could be classified as trance music, but instead of danc...
Nov 11, 2015•14 min
Andrea Sisson is a multidisciplinary visual artist who creates films, photos and performance art pieces for the design, art and fashion industries. Her work has been shown online and offline, in places like the São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound and on NOWNESS, where she featured Sia’s choreographer Ryan Heffington. She’s the co-director of “Everything Beautiful is Far Away,” a pop art sci-fi feature currently in post-production, and a feature documentary “I Send You This Place,” which Andrea m...
Nov 04, 2015•36 min
Ann Friedman is a LA-based journalist and weekly columnist for NY Mag's The Cut where she writes about politics, culture and gender. She also contributes to the Columbia Journalism Review, ELLE, The Guardian, Los Angeles Magazine, The Gentlewoman, among other publications. She’s the co-host of popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend and reviews books for The New Republic and Bookforum. Ann understands the importance of developing your own voice. She understands how our shifting landscape has change...
Oct 21, 2015•39 min
Kiran Gandhi toured the world as M.I.A’s drummer, earned a business degree from Harvard, and trained to run a marathon, all at the same time, but there’s a lot more to her than that. She’s an outspoken, ambitious, radical young woman who pours herself and her skills into gender equality, especially within the music industry. Kiran made headlines, both positive and negative, after she ran the 2015 London Marathon as a “free-bleeder,” or without a tampon. We talk about how to handle pushback and c...
Oct 07, 2015•35 min
Bonus episode featuring the blue-haired, badass guitarist, Jenny Tuite, from Dirty Dishes and Cloud Cover. We soundtracked Ep. 19 with Stacy Kranitz with Dirty Dishes' full album, Guilty, but this episode introduces you to some of her other work. Dirty Dishes is known for their well crafted and gritty rock songs. They've been called "the best kept secret of alternative rock." The shoegazey pair is made up of Jenny on vocals and guitar; and Alex Molini on synth and bass. She also has her own band...
Sep 30, 2015•7 min
Stacy Kranitz is a documentary photographer who explores history, representation and otherness. She has developed her style, one that is full of movement, emotionally raw, gritty and features individuals in high-octane environments. These individuals are sometimes new subjects, and other times her longtime friends; folks she has been documenting since she started her work in Appalachia in 2009. Stacy’s photos are sometimes bloody, many times violent, often sexualized, occasionally drug-induced, ...
Sep 23, 2015•42 min
Anna & Elizabeth revive songs and stories that might otherwise go unheard. It’s folk music from the mountains rich with banjo and fiddle, traditional hymns and lullabies never recorded, all found in archives and then discussed with historians and relatives who share what they know of these long-gone greats. Anna & Elizabeth's music was featured in Episode 18 with Kalyanee Mam.
Sep 16, 2015•13 min
Kalyanee Mam is a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on the preservation, the meaning, and the importance of home. She was raised in the U.S. but was born in Cambodia, generating an ongoing desire to explore the notion of home and displacement, specifically in Cambodia. Her first feature, A River Changes Course, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance in 2013. Her 2014 short, Fight For Areng Valley, was featured as a New York Times Op-Doc. Kalyanee is currently wo...
Sep 09, 2015•36 min
In 2014, Greta Morgan released her first album as Springtime Carnivore. Following that release she has had an exciting 2015; touring with Of Montreal, Father John Misty and Jenny Lewis. In this bonus episode, we talk to Greta about her process, motivations and her upcoming album. Springtime Carnivore’s music soundtracked comedian Pamela Ribon’s stories in Episode 17 of She Does.
Sep 02, 2015•11 min
Pamela Ribon is a television writer, screenwriter, best-selling novelist and all around hilarious human. She’s been a writer in comedy rooms for both network and cable television and is the author of four novels. NPR called her new memoir, Notes to Boys, “brain-breakingly funny.” Pamela has developed original series and features for ABC, ABC Family, Warner Bros., Disney Channel and 20th Century Fox Productions. She recently finished working on a feature for Walt Disney Animation Studios and she’...
Aug 26, 2015•34 min
Hannah and Delia started writing and playing music together at age 15, but they’ve known each other for 23 years. They’re twin sisters. And when they play together, they go by Dubb Nubb. Hannah plays guitar, Delia plays the ukulele, and sometimes their older sister Amanda joins in with percussion. They hail from St. Louis, Missouri but I saw Dubb Nubb play at True/False about five years ago, and then again every year since. They’ve become familiar faces and voices in the Columbia and St. Louis m...
Aug 19, 2015•11 min
Animator Kirsten Lepore is the writer and director of an upcoming episode of Cartoon Network’s popular show “Adventure Time.” Until now, a majority of her career has been spent in her garage, which is actually her workshop, carefully moving tiny, handmade characters in the worlds she’s built for them. The films she made at Maryland Institute College of Art and CalArts, “Sweet Dreams” and “Bottle,” won countless awards and screened at SXSW, Slamdance, the Vimeo Awards, the Annie Awards, among oth...
Aug 12, 2015•29 min
René Kladzyk is a Brooklyn-based solo musician and performance artist who goes by the moniker Ziemba. She played her first solo show as Ziemba on October 27, 2013. Since then, she has put out two EPs and is working on her first full-length album. She recently had several songs featured on Season 2 of Broad City. Sarah first met René on a roadtrip through the South, where she saw her perform at The Mammal Gallery in Atlanta. “She’s incredibly kind and warm, but it’s almost like she’s from another...
Jul 29, 2015•12 min
