Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Companies

Empowering Social Storytellers: Courtney Spence

Courtney Spence is an enrepreneur and storyteller. She founded Students of the World as an undergraduate at Duke University, and for the last 15 years has worked to support storytellers looking to make an impact in the world.

Welcome to the Cinema of Change podcast with Tobias Deml and Robert Rippberger. Join us for Empowering Social Storytellers with our guest Courtney Spence.
Courtney Spence is an enrepreneur and storyteller. She founded Students of the World as an undergraduate at Duke University, and for the last 15 years has worked to support storytellers looking to make an impact in the world.
In this episode we ask Courtney, what can you do starting out to create Cinema of Change? How can you best build community and allies around your projects? And how do you run a media company that fuels social change? In this episode:
  • 00:27 – Intro: Social Storytellers
  • 01:39 – What to do with your potential?
  • 06:44 – Why create an organization that empowers filmmakers?
  • 08:52 – Don’t wait until you’re powerful later – do it now
  • 10:21 – How to deal with cynics and criticism
  • 13:57 – How to make your nonprofit survive financially
  • 16:37 – The Evolution of your own Impact
  • 19:24 – How has the Impact landscape changed over the last 10 years
  • 23:53 – How can we use Universities as breeding ground for Social Change Media?
  • 29:39 – What makes Cinema so powerful and transformative?
  • 31:39 – How can film help us reflect and learn?
  • 34:58 – A decade of tips for starting your own film nonprofit
  • 39:19 – Be financially wise with your nonprofit
  • 41:18 – Outro
Avatar
Written By

Media has always played an important role around the globe. We live in a world of influence and social change - and as filmmakers, we want to contribute to a better world. The question is: How can we make better films that accelerate progress and help people become stronger critical thinkers? How can we expose issues that are important, and publish content that challenges popular conceptions? These podcasts along with the SIE Voices magazine take a multidisciplinary approach and interviews filmmakers, psychologists, researchers and academics. It analyzes success stories of films that had an impact, and portrays companies that are following this path. SIE Voices is a platform to bring impact filmmakers together to share ideas and to challenge our assumptions through debate.

You May Also Like

SIE Voices

John Ford, the director known for such classic films as The Searchers and The Grapes of Wrath, once said, “Make a movie for them,...

Impact & Storytellers

For it’s 1993 release, the Jonathan Demme film, Philadelphia, set a novel precedent. At this time, the HIV/AIDS virus was essentially a death sentence...

Companies

“Social impact entertainment’s time has come,” Teri Schwartz, the dean of UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television said as she welcomed everyone to...

Impact & Storytellers

The new Gillette Ad. It’s Pepsi #2. It’s poorly executed, laden with half-hearted strategy, an elephant in the China shop of gender relations. Numerically...

Accessibility Toolbar