25 to Life
TFI Suppport
Tribeca All Access® 2008
Logline
William Brawner was infected with HIV before he turned two and kept it a secret for over twenty years. Now he seeks redemption from the women of his promiscuous past and embarks on a new phase of life with his wife, who is HIV-negative.
Michael Brown
Director, Producer
New York-based filmmaker Michael Brown was raised in the southern town of Petersburg, Virginia. As his father organized the local talent shows and his mother videotaped community events, Michael gained an interest in the arts. Later, he left Petersburg to live in the city, Boston, Washington, DC, then Los Angeles, and travel abroad to Ghana, Nigeria, and Italy. While in Washington, DC, Michael helped operate, Life Pieces To Masterpieces, an arts center for young males who lived in Lincoln Heights public housing. Also in DC, he attended Howard University where he worked closely with filmmakers Bill Duke and Haile Gerima. Soonafter, Michael would attend NYU's film schoolwhere he was taught by Spike Lee, and an intern on “When the Levee Broke”. Inspired by his experiences, Michaelworks to create honest stories with characters as complex as the people he knows. His most recent short, "A Riot in the Dark", won Best Short Film at the Harlem International Film Festival. "A Riot in the Dark" was also a Wasserman Finalist for Best Graduate Student Film at New York University. After NYU, starting in November 2006, Michael beganworking as the personal cameraman for Sean “P. Diddy” Combs where he recently helped shoot Combs’ documentary, “If I Were King”. In addition to working in documentary filmmaking, Michael is now focused on writing his first feature film.
Emily Chang
Producer
Emily C. Chang is a writer, producer, and actress based in New York City. Her background stems from a variety of fields, including television, writing, music, and theater, and community activism. Co-producer and host of "The Lounge" on ImaginAsian TV, she is also developing several other projects for the network, including "NY Tokyo Music Festival" and "Take Out." She has been Associate Producer for a series of commercials for the Chevy Tahoe, as well as Walmart's Metro7 clothing line. Emily received her BA in English from the University of Chicago and her MA in Performance Studies from New York University's Tisch
School of the Arts. Emily is also a founding member of the renowned pan-Asian spoken word group, I Was Born With Two Tongues, which was named in A. Magazine's "A List" of 2001's Top 25 Most Influential Asian Americans. She also was artistic director of Mango Tribe, a women's arts collective, with which she co-wrote/directed their premiere production, "Mangoes, Cigarettes, and My Mama's Hands" (Chopin Theater, Chicago), and the sold-out runs of original production "Sisters in the Smoke" in Chicago and New York (HERE Arts Center Mainstage, 2003).