The City as Commons: Reimagining Climate Justice
The City as Commons: Reimagining Climate Justice
Monday, September 21 | 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
SVA Theatre, 333 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
Global Rise: Stories for the Future and Climate Film Festival invite you to the third and final gathering in our series for imagining new stories to illuminate climate justice in New York City.
We'll open with a panel conversation featuring Dr. Sheila Foster (Columbia Climate School and NYC Panel on Climate Change); Commissioner Rafael Espinal (Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment); and Dr. Anhthu Hoang (scientist and policy expert, and General Counsel, WE ACT for Environmental Justice).
We'll explore new ideas at the intersection of co-governance and cultural infrastructure and look at how cross-sector partnerships and city government agencies can use climate storytelling to enhance civic engagement and climate justice solutions.
We’ll also hear directly from the 2026 Global Rise Climate Storytelling Fellows on the creative journeys they took to develop film projects throughout the summer, and their insights and plans for bringing them into the larger conversation.
Please register to attend.
Guest Speakers:
Dr. Sheila Foster (Columbia Law and Climate Justice Professor, Co-Chair of The New York City Panel on Climate Change, and founder of LabGov)
Commissioner Rafael Espinal (Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment)
Dr. Anhthu Hoang, (Scientist and policy expert, General Counsel, WE ACT for Environmental Justice.)
Featuring Global Rise 2026 Storytelling Fellows:
Aditi Desai — Public Power (Feature film)
Alex Tillett Miller — “Ember and Liberty” (Animated short film)
Gabriel Henneman — Informed Refusal (Feature film)
Lev Brodinsky — Eruv (Feature film)
Sanya Panda — The Ultimate RenAIssance (Feature film)
Sara Ali Bugaighis — Muskie (Feature film)
Stephanie Dawson & William Reliford — “The Land of Away” (Animated short film)
Global Rise Co-Founders & Facilitators:
Global Rise: Stories for the Future works with creatives and community leaders to examine the interdisciplinary role of science, humanities, and imagination in creating rich climate stories across media. As educators and artists, we infuse our workshops with storytelling craft, science communication expertise, audience development. We innovate new strategies around the complexity required to power new ideas and imagination for climate solutions across genres, platforms, generations, and cultures. Our site-specific work is rooted in the landscapes, communities, systems, and cultures where climate change is lived.
Jessie Keyt — Writer, film scholar, and international script consultant. Co-author of Alternative Scriptwriting: Contemporary Storytelling for the Screen. Head of Screenwriting and Associate Professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she teaches the graduate-level master class Writing the Climate Change Script.
Lydia Dean Pilcher — Filmmaker, cultural strategist, educator, and two-time Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated producer. Pilcher has an extensive track record creating multi-stakeholder collaborations across entertainment studios, unions, and guilds. She works with UN Climate Change and designed and teaches Climatic Change: Storytelling Arts, Zeitgeist, and Our Future at the Columbia Climate School.
Abby Rabinowitz — Climate journalist, STEM communications expert, and Director of the Writing Program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, where she teaches the advanced seminar Climate Fiction and the City. Her writing on climate policy, technology, and narrative has appeared in Wired, The New York Times, The Guardian, Grist, The New Republic, and Columbia Journalism Review.
The Climate Film Festival is a cultural organization with an annual festival, year-round programming, and educational resources in New York City. CFF rewrites the narrative on climate change by harnessing the power of motion pictures, showcasing new and established voices, classic climate films, and human, energizing stories. Its 2026 annual festival will be held September 18-21.
By attending, you consent to being photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded. Your entry constitutes your consent to such photography, filming, and/or recording and to any use, in any and all media, in perpetuity, of your appearance, voice, and name for any purpose whatsoever in connection with the event.