Overview:
Tadia Toussaint, a Brooklyn native and Emmy-nominated filmmaker, explores NYC’s housing disaster in her newest documentary. A former Haitian Instances reporter, Toussaint attracts on her storytelling roots to advocate for housing fairness and lift consciousness about systemic inequities.
Brooklyn-born filmmaker and multi-hyphenate artistic Tadia Toussaint snagged a nomination on the 67th Annual Emmy Awards for her 19-minute documentary tackling housing insecurity in New York Metropolis. However for Toussaint, the undertaking is only one a part of her mission to highlight systemic points and underrepresented voices by means of storytelling.
Toussaint, a producer at BRIC TV in Brooklyn—a community devoted to community-focused storytelling and elevating marginalized voices—collaborated along with her documentary crew on housing insecurity, with 5 members creating movies on the subject, two of whom additionally earned Emmy nominations alongside Toussaint for her summer season 2023 launch that she produced, edited, and directed. Over the previous decade, she has produced greater than 20 quick documentaries centered on social justice.
After over ten months of researching housing points in New York, Toussaint uncovered particulars she hadn’t totally understood earlier than. Initially deliberate as a five-minute movie to make the subject extra accessible to individuals, the documentary expanded to aim to reply many questions concerning town’s failure to make sure equitable housing and interrogate the truth that individuals of coloration make up the vast majority of shelter residents.
Her purpose was to lift consciousness and encourage change inside the housing system. Toussaint interviewed politicians and trade specialists, a few of whom have already used her movie to assist legislative efforts.
“The maths ain’t mathing, and that’s primarily what I found,” Toussaint stated. For Toussaint, the actual query now surrounding NYC’s housing disaster is, “Who’s going to repair the issue?”
Toussaint started her profession as a author at The Haitian Instances over 10 years in the past, reporting on the neighborhood by leveraging her connections with creatives and sharing tales she discovered whereas increasing her position in the neighborhood. Her first piece of reporting was overlaying the breakup of the favored Haitian compas band Carimi, protection she revisited ten years later to write down about their reunion.
“At my core, I’m an artist,” Toussaint stated, reflecting on the eagerness that fuels the numerous initiatives she has undertaken over time. A music artist as properly, she describes herself as a social justice advocate and artivist.
Music is what first drew her into the world of NYC artwork & tradition and neighborhood constructing. She lately directed music movies for artists Stacy Barthe and Alan Cave, whereas quietly creating and placing out her personal music below the identify, TADIA.