Through Our Eyes: Apart
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Rudy Valdez
APART is a portrait of three resilient children navigating the complex emotional challenges of their parents’ incarceration as their family works to provide stability and support.
A Sesame Workshop Production, In Association with Multitude Films.
2021 / 30 MINS
WINNER OF THE NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY FOR OUTSANDING SHORT DOCUMENTARY
About
the Team
Geeta Gandbhir — Director
Geeta embarked on her career in narrative film under the guidance of Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. As a Director, credits include the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, "Eyes on the Prize" for HBO, "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," which was nominated for the 2022 Critics Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and is nominated for two 2023 Emmys. She directed and show ran the series "Black and Missing" for HBO which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series. She directed the film "Apart," with Rudy Valdez, for HBOMax, which was nominated for an NAACP Award and won a 2022 Emmy Award. Her short film from 2020, "Call Center Blues," with Topic Studios was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards. She directed an episode "The Asian Americans" for PBS, which won the 2021 Peabody Award. Additional directing credits include the six-part series "Why We Hate" for Discovery, and "I Am Evidence" for HBO which won a 2019 Emmy, DuPont Award, and ATAS Award. Her film "Armed with Faith" for PBS also won a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy, an episode of the Netflix series "The Rapture," focusing on rap artist Rapsody, "Prison Dogs," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, and "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers," for PBS. She also played a co-director and co-producer role in the "A Conversation on Race" series in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs. This series earned recognition, including an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and a MacArthur Grant. She also co-produced the HBO film "The Sentence," directed by Rudy Valdez, which received a 2019 Primetime Emmy.
Rudy Valdez — Director
Rudy is an Emmy Award-winning Michigan-raised, New York City-based filmmaker committed to creating social, cultural, and political stories through a cinematic and meaningful lens. He got his start in film as a Camera Operator on the Peabody Award-winning, Sundance series BRICK CITY and went onto direct a true passion project, THE SENTENCE (HBO). Shot and directed by Valdez over the course of a decade, this feature documentary tells the very personal story of his sister’s plight in the criminal justice system while tackling subjects like mandatory minimums and sentencing reform. For this work, the filmmaker won the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, US Documentary Audience Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and was a 2018 Critics Choice Documentary Awards Best New Director nominee. Most recently, Valdez’s 4-part docu-series WE ARE: THE BROOKLYN SAINTS (produced by Imagine Documentaries), is currently streaming on Netflix and he recently sold a genre TV series he created to Amazon that is loosely based on his family and life experiences.
Anya Rous — Producer
Anya Rous is a Brooklyn-based Producer and Vice President of Multitude Films. Her latest films include IT'S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL (Sundance 2023); Emmy-winning Peacock Original LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER (Tribeca 2022); Netflix Original PRAY AWAY (Telluride, Tribeca 2020); as well as APART, the Emmy-winning episode of the HBO Max series THROUGH OUR EYES, in partnership with Sesame Workshop. She EP’d MILISUTHANDO (Sundance 2023), HOW WE GET FREE (HBO 2023), and QUEER FUTURES (CPH:Dox 2023); co-EP’d Oscar-shortlisted CALL CENTER BLUES (SXSW 2020, TOPIC) and CALL HER GANDA (Tribeca 2018, POV); and co-produced ALWAYS IN SEASON and THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (Tribeca 2018, POV). Anya was a 2019–2020 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, a 2019 Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow, a 2020–2021 DOC NYC 40 Under 40 filmmaker, and a 2021 Gotham/Cannes Producers Network Fellow.
Jess Devaney — Producer
Jess is an Emmy-winning producer and Founder & President of Multitude Films. Their latest films include Yance Ford’s Netflix Original POWER (Sundance 2024); Oscar-shortlisted HBO Documentary Films Original HOW WE GET FREE (Aspen Shortsfest 2023); the Indigo Girls documentary IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL (Sundance 2023); and Emmy-winning Peacock Original LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER (Tribeca 2022). Jess created the Ford Foundation-supported QUEER FUTURES series and also produced PRAY AWAY, CALL CENTER BLUES, ALWAYS IN SEASON, THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED, and SPEED SISTERS. She founded QueerDoc and was a Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellow, Women at Sundance fellow, and Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab advisor. They have been recognized with the Cinereach Producers Award, DOC NYC and Topic Studios' 40 Under 40 Award, Doc10’s Vanguard Award, and the 2023 Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Nonfiction Producers Award.
Viridiana Lieberman — Editor
Viridiana is a filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She edited the feature documentary I AM EVIDENCE (Tribeca 2017, HBO), which won a 2019 News & Doc Emmy for Best Documentary and the short documentary LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017). She also co-directed FATTITUDE, a feature documentary that exposes how popular culture fosters fat prejudice and then offers an alternative way of thinking. She edited SPECIAL OLYMPICS: 50 YEARS OF CHANGING THE GAME which aired in 2018 on ABC and ESPN and THE SENTENCE (HBO), which won the 2018 Sundance Film Festival US Documentary Audience Award and the 2019 Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. In 2019, she edited STONEWALL: THE MAKING OF A MONUMENT for New York Times Op-Docs.
Co-Producer
Lisa Valencia-Svensson
Supervising Sound Editor
Filipe Messeder
Assistant Editor
Victor Artesona
Original Music By
Laura Heinzinger
Associate Producers
Colleen Cassingham
Paulette Marte
Jot Sahi
Finishing Artist
Juan Salvo
