Rachel Lears

Filmmaker

Knock Down the House

Rachel Lears is a documentary director, producer and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her most recent feature documentary, Knock Down the House (Netflix), follows four women who ran insurgent congressional campaigns in 2018, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush. The film won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for an Oscar and nominated for an Emmy in 2020. Her last feature, The Hand That Feeds (co-directed with Robin Blotnick; PBS), won numerous festival awards and was nominated for an Emmy in 2017. Rachel received the IDA Emerging Filmmaker Award in 2019, and also holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from NYU.

Participating Sessions

VALUES AND ETHICS IN DOCUMENTARY: THE WAY FORWARD

In this open roundtable, American University researchers Patricia Aufderheide and Marissa Woods host an interactive discussion about the challenges and opportunities in creating shared standards for documentary ethics. Participants include members of the Documentary Accountability Working Group, the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, FWD-DOC, International Documentary Association, Beyond Inclusion, Allied, and representatives from different public broadcasting entities. This roundtable is presented in partnership with the Center for Media & Social Impact.