Letting Young People Lead

Youth voice is central to all Reel Works programs. And to make sure that student leaders have a say in our programs and our community, we created Reel Works Ambassadors - a select group of young filmmakers from our premier programs: The Documentary Lab, The Narrative Lab, Reel Works Fellows, and MediaMKRS.

Our Ambassadors represented their cohorts at Reel Works 20th Anniversary Celebration by helping with the execution of programming. The sponsors special events, like our spring Town Hall in Inclusion in Media.  They attend board meetings.  And in May, Ambassadors also chose five student nominees for our annual F. John Outcalt Award for Outstanding Filmmaking at our annual Gala.

More importantly, the Ambassadors give our staff perspective as to what their fellow filmmakers are thinking and how we can improve programming to best meet our student’s myriad of needs.  

"Being able to attend the Reel Works board meeting with my fellow ambassadors was such an incredible experience”, says Ambassador and Narrative Lab director Sekou Cherif.  “Listening to the presentations was such a unique experience and really gave me a broader view of Reel Works as a whole.”

Daphne Castro – 2020 Reel Works Documentary Lab added: “ It made me feel heard, and proves that Reel Works truly cares about ensuring that the experiences students are having through their programming are engaging and meaningful.”

And there are perks for being an Ambassador: This Spring their efforts were rewarded with tickets to the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as priority access to ViacomCBS for feedback on film projects they were working on during this past year.   

We would like to thank our 2020 – 2021 Ambassadors for their contributions, and look forward to working with a new cohort which will resume in the Fall of 2021.