Jean-Michel Dissard
Introduction (2-3 lines)
With support from the Mac Arthur Foundation, Jean-Michel Dissard directed and produced I Learn America. With a seed grant from the Ford Foundation, he turned I Learn America into a youth-led education program that uses the power of storytelling to foster empathy, urgency, and action around issues affecting migrant youth, as they forge their own path in a new land. Prior to I Learn America, Jean-Michel produced critically-acclaimed films chronicling adolescent youth, including Raising Victor Vargas and Rikers High.
With support from the MacArthur Foundation, Jean-Michel Dissard (with Gitte Peng) directed and produced the documentary, I LEARN AMERICA.
I Learn America (ILA) has now become a multifaceted, youth-led and participatory education program with a mission to use the power of storytelling to foster empathy, urgency, and action around issues affecting immigrant youth, as they forge their own path in a new land. With a seed grant from the Ford Foundation, our educational project (which emerged from our MacArthur funded film) has 10-year history of engaging 20,000+ youth who have filled a digital library with 3000+ migration stories and implemented impactful arts projects that deepen public explorations of who they/we are, challenging the very idea of what it means to be “American.”
Prior to this documentary, Jean-Michel produced critically acclaimed films chronicling adolescent youth, including: “Raising Victor Vargas” by Peter Sollett (Cannes + Sundance Film Festivals) a fiction about Latino youth in New York City; “Rikers High” (Best NYC Documentary at Tribeca Film Festival), a documentary about 3 incarcerated teenagers in NYC's Rikers Island; “Ezra” (Pan-African Festival FESPACO Grand Prize), a fiction about the child soldiers of Liberia. He was one of the writer and producer on “Down to the Bone” (Sundance Best Directing and Best Acting) directed by Academy Award Nominated Debra Granik. Originally from France, Jean-Michel migrated to the US when he was 16 years old.
Jean-Michel directed and produced I LEARN AMERICA with Gitte Peng an education reform expert who served as Senior Education Policy Advisor in Mayor Bloomberg’s administration, developing and overseeing the City’s school reform policies and initiatives. She has also worked at the NYC Board of Education and the National Urban League and in various advocacy and public interest roles. While at Yale Law School, she represented asylum-seekers and low-income clients. Gitte has also produced documentaries for NY Public Television, directed a short about new immigrant teens in the Bronx, and edited with filmmaker Sam Pollard.
