Join the Writers Guild Foundation, in partnership with Human Rights Watch, for a conversation on how portrayals of aspiring authoritarians in film and television can help audiences identify and respond to the tactics and strategies that are deployed to threaten our institutions. The panel will explore how writers portray aspiring authoritarians—and the tactics they use to dissolve democracies, control people’s autonomy, and weaponize fear—and the forces of resistance working to restore healthy societies.
Panelists include:
Tanya Greene - Director, US Program, Human Rights Watch
Jacey Heldrich - The Handmaid’s Tale
Anslem Richardson - The Boys
Moderated by Priya Sanghvi, Senior Film & Television Strategist, Human Rights Watch.
Doors open at 6:30pm. Event starts at 7:00pm. A reception immediately follows the event.
This is an in-person event at the WGAW headquarters in Los Angeles. Space is limited, so RSVP today. RSVP today for free or with a suggested donation. If event is full, we’ll have a first come, first served stand-by line. The stand-by line does not guarantee entry into the event and will depend on seats available.
If you have any questions about this event, please email us at events@wgfoundation.org.
About the Panelists
Tanya Greene, Director of Human Rights Watch’s US Program, leads the organization’s team focused on exposing and addressing human rights violations in the United States. Ms. Greene is an attorney with over 25 years of experience in advocacy, policy reform, community organizing, partnerships, and litigation aimed at challenging and dismantling racist structures and systems in the US criminal legal system and beyond. As a Black woman from a working-class family, including an immigrant parent, Ms. Greene uniquely understands the challenges of race and class and the vital importance of individual and community empowerment to achieve change.
Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Ms. Greene provided direct representation to state and federal indigent capital clients across the country; throughout her career she has consulted on capital cases providing litigation and other resource support, and developed innovative, highly-regarded criminal defense education programs nationwide. Ms. Greene also spent five years as the inaugural national ACLU criminal justice Advocacy and Policy Counsel focused on death penalty, indigent defense, and juvenile justice policy reform issues; her work contributed to death penalty repeal in a number of states.
Ms. Greene served as the Death Penalty Resource Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), creating NACDL’s renowned Making the Case for Life annual conference. Ms. Greene has served on the Board of Directors of the NACDL, co-chair of the NACDL Death Penalty Committee, and as a member of that organization’s Public Defense Committee. She has served on the American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Project Advisory Committee, the Boards of Directors of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center in Houston, Texas, and the Atlantic Capital Representation Project in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has been part of the National Association for Public Defense Death Penalty and Racial Justice subcommittees.
Ms. Greene has developed and implemented “street law” programs with the National Conference of Black Lawyers and the National Lawyers Guild bringing legal education to the community. As a young lawyer in 1999, she won the Reebok International Human Rights Award for her work against the death penalty and was profiled in Working Woman magazine. She has made numerous media appearances, taught and guest-lectured at law schools and colleges, and served as faculty at conferences across the country.
Born in New Jersey, Jacey Heldrich began her career in LA as a showrunner’s assistant to Jonathan Nolan, joining him for the pilot and season one of Westworld (HBO). In 2018, Jacey joined the Emmy-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu), where she was twice nominated for a WGA award alongside the series writing staff. She received a Sentinel Award from Hollywood Health & Society for her Season 4 episode “Milk.” She has written for Person of Interest (CBS) and A Court of Thorns and Roses (Hulu), and created pilots for Hulu, AMC, and MGM. Jacey lives in Burbank with her husband and kids, and holds an MFA in film production from Columbia University, where she received recognition from the National Board of Review and the New York Television Festival, as well as the Arthur Krim Memorial Award for excellence in producing.
Anslem Richardson (he/him) is an actor, writer, visual artist and filmmaker. He made The Tracking Board’s Young & Hungry List of The Top 100 Writers On The Verge.
As a writer, Anslem is a writer-co-producer on Amazon Prime’s series The Boys and wrote on NBC’s Timeless. He is a 2021 WGA Award Nominee for The Boys, a Writers Fellow at HBO Access, and a Screenwriting Fellow at Film Independent. He earned the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award in Screenwriting and the Independent Feature Project (IFP) Gordon Parks Award for Screenwriting.
As an actor, Anslem last starred in the films AFTER WE LEAVE (winner: London Sci-Fi Film Festival); EL GANZO, which won Best Picture at Salento International Film Festival, to which also Anslem received Best Actor for his performance, and THE LOCKSMITH, which received the Best of NEXT Award at Sundance Film Festival. Television credits include NCIS: Los Angeles, and he performed Off-Broadway in The Exonerated.
As a filmmaker, he collaborated with the Jim Henson Creature Shop on his award winning short film FRACTAL, which he wrote, directed, and co-produced. Anslem also wrote, starred and co-directed the short-form series Like So Many Things…, which aired on the IFC Channel.
Anslem is represented for literary by CAA and Tom Carter @ Artillery Creative. He is represented theatrically by Kurt Patino @ Patino Management. His attorney is Gregg Slewett @JSSK.
ABOUT The Moderator
Priya Sanghvi is a director/writer and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She has an MTV Movie Award for directing and has had work featured in The London Design Museum and at festivals like SXSW. Her commercial directing clients include L’Oréal, Urban Decay, and Smirnoff. Passionate about the intersection of human rights and entertainment she launched Human Rights Watch’s first ever film and television program that connects the industry with human rights stories and expertise. She began developing features in 2009 with Paramount Pictures and among her recent projects is MIRROR OF THE LARKS, a supernatural revenge thriller that is a recipient of the Kickstart Diversity Fellowship. She also created BUY BUY BEAUTIFUL, a dark comedy drama series in development. Sanghvi is a classically trained singer and her background in opera and Indian classical dance have both been major influences on her film work. She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School, Directing Program.