SYNOPSIS
Community organizers Chrishelle Palay and Rose Arrieta lead us on a journey, meeting and learning from frontline survivors, first responders, and multigenerational organizers who have found creative ways to serve their communities when they were hit by devastating wildfires and hurricanes. As they capture these reflections, the people they meet are forced to put all they’ve learned to the test when confronted by new crises — more wildfires, unprecedented earthquakes, a hurricane, and a global pandemic. BUT NEXT TIME is a limited-run podcast that spotlights powerful stories of community-led disaster prevention and recovery and answers one vital question: how can we ensure that next time will be different?
OUR TEAM
BUT NEXT TIME is a part of the Rise-Home Stories project, a groundbreaking collaboration that aims to reimagine the past, present, and future of our communities by transforming the stories we tell about them. In 2018, our group of multimedia storytellers and housing, land, and racial justice advocates came together and began a unique co-creative process. We’ve created a suite of five multimedia narrative projects, including BUT NEXT TIME, that center the voices of frontline/impacted communities as creators and protagonists, craft a visionary and shared narrative framework, and build collective power through creative process.
TEAM INFO
Co Hosts and Producers
Chrishelle Palay is the director of the Houston Organizing Movement for Equity (HOME) Coalition. HOME was created in response to Hurricane Harvey in an effort to ensure all Houstonians recovered from the disaster in an equitable manner. Prior to leading this collective, Chrishelle focused on fair housing policy advocacy as the Southeast Co-Director at Texas Housers for over 7 years. Through this work she provided housing and neighborhood development policy analysis/review to local community organizing groups who were addressing major disinvestment and neglect in their communities. This positioned them to demand equitable investment and treatment following Hurricane Harvey. Before transitioning into social justice work, Chrishelle practiced architecture, specifically multifamily high rise development. Chrishelle has a Bachelors of Architecture from Prairie View A&M University and proudly serves on the boards of directors of National Low Income Housing Coalition, Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, and Rhodes School For The Performing Arts.
Palay
Rose Arrieta is the Senior Communications Lead at Causa Justa :: Just Cause. She is Chicana and Tarahumara with family roots in El Paso, Texas and Northern Mexico. Rose is a seasoned multimedia journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and broadcast as a writer, producer and editor.
Arrieta
OUR TEAM
Leah Mahan is an independent documentary filmmaker whose work has been nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. She has been a fellow at the Sundance Institute, Documentary Editing and Story Lab and the Producers Institute for New Media Technologies. Leah’s film "Sweet Old Song" (2002) was featured on the PBS series P.O.V. and was selected by film critic Roger Ebert to be screened at his Overlooked Film Festival (“Ebertfest”). Leah’s most recent film, "Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek", is about a group of determined Mississippians who struggle to save their endangered Gulf Coast community in the face of rampant development, industrial pollution and disaster. She worked with Gulf Coast NGOs to develop a related community journalism project titled "Bridge the Gulf". Leah began her career as a research assistant for filmmaker Henry Hampton on the groundbreaking PBS series on the civil rights movement "Eyes on the Prize".
Mahan
Cheryl Devall is a veteran storyteller in sound, images and words. She has edited for nationally distributed public radio programs and for public stations throughout the U.S. She’s reported for National Public Radio and for newspapers from Boston to Louisville to Chicago. Cheryl has shared in three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards and has helped to shape audio documentaries and podcasts on civil rights-era cold cases, California’s effort to change the standard for police use of deadly force and the gospel music roots of rock and soul.
Devall
Fernando Arruda is a Brazilian Emmy nominated composer, sound designer, and audio engineer based in Oakland, CA. Fernando set out to garner an accomplished 360 degrees wealth of skills and experience within the sound industry, allowing him to work on projects as diverse as film, documentaries, animation, concert music, interactive media, and audio storytelling. Fernando showcases an articulate and rich musical vocabulary, as he feels at home whether he's working on a hip-hop track or on an orchestral score.
Arruda
Rae is an audio engineer and storyteller who can most often be found at This American Life. When not doing radio things, she is riding her bike.
Mondo
Brasilian-American filmmaker Luisa Dantas works at the intersection of storytelling, social justice, and cities. She produced and directed the multi-platform documentary "Land of Opportunity," which chronicles the reconstruction of New Orleans through the eyes of those on the front lines. The project includes a feature film and groundbreaking interactive web platform produced in conjunction with partners in six cities. Luisa also co-produced the documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." Her first fiction film, "Bolo," was produced in Brazil. She has written for the animated Nickelodeon Television series "Go, Diego, Go!" Her work has received funding from Chicken and Egg Pictures, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Disney/ABC, and NHFA. She was awarded a Rockwood Leadership Institute/JustFilms fellowship for 2017-18.
Dantas
Anna Lee serves as the co-director of Working Films, a leading organization in using documentary film and other media to advance social justice and environmental protection. In her 16 year tenure she has developed and coordinated impact campaigns for high profile documentaries, consulted with hundreds of filmmakers, and trained organizers and nonprofit leaders across the US, increasing their capacity to use film as a tool to move the dial on critical issues. Anna leads the operations and financial management of Working Films and while also managing special projects, including leading Working Films participation on the design and resource team of the Rise Home Stories Project. Anna brings experience as an educator to Working Films, using her background in curriculum design to enhance Working Films' training for filmmakers and nonprofits.
Lee
PAIGE WOOD is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and creative consultant. Born in Detroit, Paige has produced and/or co-written a number of critically-acclaimed documentary and narrative films since the start of her freelance career in 2018. Currently, Paige serves as the Supervising Producer for the Rise-Home Stories Project, which features over five narrative-shifting multimedia projects supported by The Ford Foundation, in addition to serving as an adjunct instructor at Wayne State University. Paige is a 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow, an alumni of Firelight Media's 2018-2019 Impact Producer Cohort, as well as a 2019 Sundance Institute | Knight Foundation Program fellow.
Wood
Kelsey Van Ert is a St. Paul & Minneapolis grown/Brooklyn based artist, arts educator, and producer who has worked with Little Island, The Clemmons Family Farm, Urban Arts Partnership, Voice Unbroken, DreamYard Project, and The Harlem Children’s Zone. She is proud to say that her artistic work, largely inspired by her African American & Ojibwe experience, has been funded and presented by some pretty cool places! Kelsey is a proud adoptive pet mother of a street cat from Crown Heights BK, adoptive grandmother to that cat’s surprise kitten, and a yellow betta fish from the 99cent store.
Van Ert
Kadi Diallo is a filmmaker born and raised in Harlem. She co directed the short documentary, Sanctuary, a film about about organizers creating safe spaces for queer folks in NY and LA. Her work has been exhibited at Case Gallery, Saratoga Arts Gallery, and Shift. Kadi was a Fellow at the MDOCS Storytellers Institute in 2020 and is currently producing and directing a video series with the organization Color of Change
Diallo
Mo Banks is a digital communications specialist who has been working for a variety of non-profits in the progressive movement space for the past 5 years. Mo believes a robust digital strategy is a key factor in leveraging progressive wins, increasing accessibility in our movement spaces, and transforming narratives in service of cultural shifts. They currently live in Arkansas with their wife and 4 kids, where they serve as the co-founder of Reconcile Arkansas, which exists to support trans youth in Arkansas. They are a meme connoisseur, a Gemini with no behavior, and they have never met a sandwich they didn't love.
Banks