A Deep Dive with Filmmaker Lynn Novick

LYNN NOVICK

has been making landmark documentary films about American life and culture for more than 30 years. She has created nearly 100 hours of acclaimed programming for PBS in collaboration with Ken Burns, including The U.S. and the Holocaust, Hemingway, The Vietnam War, Baseball, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, The War, and Prohibition. These landmark series have garnered 19 Emmy nominations, and Novick has received Emmy, Peabody, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards. College Behind Bars, Novick’s debut as a solo director, premiered at the New York Film Festival and aired on PBS in 2019. Novick’s next project as a solo director and writer is a multi-part PBS series on the history of crime and punishment in America, slated for release in 2026. Following The U.S. and the Holocaust, she is collaborating with Burns, Sarah Botstein, and writer Geoffrey C. Ward on a six-hour series on the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

DYJUAN TATRO

Dyjuan Tatro is a legal reform advocate and strategist who has worked to bridge the gap between policy and practice. As the senior government affairs officer and an alumnus of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), he has leveraged his education and experience to shift public policy in favor of expanding and incentivizing college in prison. He has worked on a successful, national social impact campaign to restore Pell grants to incarcerated individuals. In 2022, on behalf of the BPI, he co-led a successful campaign to restore Tuition Assistance Program funding to incarcerated New Yorkers, lifting a 26-year ban. While incarcerated, Tatro was a member of the BPI debate team that defeated Harvard University in 2015. This accomplishment and other parts of his story are featured in the Ken Burns produced, Emmy-nominated documentary College Behind Bars. Tatro is an active member of the Fortune Society’s board of directors and, for the 2022 election cycle, served as the senior advisor of strategic outreach at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

As the senior government affairs officer and an alumnus of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), he has leveraged his education and experience to shift public policy in favor of expanding and incentivizing college in prison. He has worked on a successful, national social impact campaign to restore Pell grants to incarcerated individuals. In 2022, on behalf of the BPI, he co-led a successful campaign to restore Tuition Assistance Program funding to incarcerated New Yorkers, lifting a 26- year ban. While incarcerated, Tatro was a member of the BPI debate team that defeated Harvard University in 2015. This accomplishment—and other parts of his story—are featured in the Ken Burns produced, Emmy-nominated documentary College Behind Bars. Tatro is an active member of the Fortune Society’’s board of directors and, for the 2022 election cycle, served as the senior advisor of strategic outreach at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.