PILLAR AWARDS

SALLIE MAE NOT: Exposing America's Student Loan Scam is the untold story of how the US Government set up a system of greed that gutted student loans of consumer protections leading to the skyrocketing cost of tuition and indenturing millions through predatory lending. Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi discovers how this same scheme continued to throw millions of students, parents and colleges over the cliff. No one paid much attention and despite today’s headlines of privilege, scandal, greed and blame, the predatory lending system designed to indenture millions, especially women and people of color, remains hiding in plain sight.

The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Great Hack is a 2019 documentary film about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, both previous documentary Academy Award nominees. The documentary focuses on Professor David Carroll of Parsons and The New School, Brittany Kaiser (former business development director for Cambridge Analytica), and British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. Their stories interweave to expose the work of Cambridge Analytica in the politics of various countries, including the United Kingdom's Brexit campaign and the 2016 United States elections.

“Let the People Decide”' traces the history of voting rights struggles in the United States from 1960 through the present day. The film draws parallels between the Mississippi voter registration drive of the early 1960's and North Carolina's 'Moral Monday' movement in the present day. A key goal of the film is connecting the dots between the generations to contextualize the current political environment surrounding race and voting. (IMDB)

“UnRepresented” is an award-winning documentary that uncovers the mechanisms that drive the cycle of corruption in Congress—giving political insiders enormous, unchecked power. The film explores how special interests bankroll political campaigns and relentlessly lobby to rig the system in their favor, all while following the letter of the law.

Portuguese authorities keep no data on ethnicity or race because they find that identifying people by race is discriminatory. Yet, ignoring the data is giving people the right to accept that racism in Portugal does not exist, leaving those in minority communities angered and hopeless because their rights are being taken away. This story will capture the lives of people, and how they really feel about living in their homes. Uncovering their true thoughts, fears, and struggles. It will uncover a system and is unjust and corrupt.