About the Screening
Produced by Mariska Hargitay, I AM EVIDENCE exposes the shocking number of untested rape kits in the United States. Despite the power of DNA to solve and prevent crimes, hundreds of thousands of kits containing potentially crucial DNA evidence languish untested in police evidence storage rooms. The film follows stories of survivors who have waited years for their kits to be tested, and law enforcement officials who are leading the charge to work through the backlog and pursue justice.
Includes a post-film conversation with Producer Mariska Hargitay and Director/Producer Trish Adlesic, moderated by Katie Walsh, Critic, Tribune News Service.
Please note: This screening takes place at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, and begins at 7pm. Check-in begins at 6pm.
Mariska Hargitay, Producer
Emmy, Golden Globe and Gracie award winner Mariska Hargitay plays Lieutenant Olivia Benson on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Mariska is also an Executive Producer and director of the show. The role of Olivia Benson awakened her to the burdens of shame, judgment and isolation that survivors of trauma often carry. Their courage inspired Mariska to take her engagement to a higher level, and in 2004, she founded the Joyful Heart Foundation. Joyful Heart's mission is to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, support survivors’ healing, and end this violence forever. At the heart of their advocacy work is the End the Backlog campaign, with the goal of eliminating the backlog of hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits sitting in storage facilities across our country, and opening up a path to healing and justice for survivors.
Trish Adlesic, Director/Producer
Trish Adlesic is an Oscar and Emmy-nominated documentary producer for her work on Gasland and Gasland Part II. She teamed with director Josh Fox and HBO to produce these seminal documentaries exposing the environmental devastation and public safety hazards of "fracking." Gasland premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010 and Gasland Part II premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013 to much acclaim.
Trish has over 20 years of experience working in narrative filmmaking with such notable directors as Jim Sheridan (In America, Get Rich or Die Tryin’), Sidney Lumet (Night Falls on Manhattan), Gus Van Sant (Finding Forrester), James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets) and Michael Mann (The Insider). Trish also worked in episodic television for 15 years as the Location Manager for NBC’s Law & Order: SVU series and has been a contributing member of the Director's Guild of America for 19 years.
Geeta Gandbhir, Director
GEETA GANDBHIR has been nominated for three Emmy® Awards and has won two in editing. As an editor, her films have been nominated twice for the Academy Award®, winning once. Most recently, a short film she co-directed with Jessica Devaney called Love the Sinner is premiering at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, and a film she was a producer on, titled The Talk, aired on PBS in February 2017. Her latest feature documentary, Prison Dogs, which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. A feature documentary she directed with Academy Award®-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, A Journey of A Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. She currently is co-directing and co-producing a series on race The Conversation, which won the AFI Documentary Film Festival and a MacArthur Grant. She also co-directed and edited the film Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro, Sr. with Perri Peltz for HBO.