FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“AMERICAN PROMISE” Receives Three Emmy Nominations

July 22, 2015 – (BROOKLYN, NY) AMERICAN PROMISE, the feature documentary 14 years in the making, receives three Emmy nominations for Best Documentary, Outstanding Coverage of a Current News Story Long Form, and Outstanding Editing. Directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson and edited by Erin Casper, Mary Manhardt, and Andrew Siwoff (and a number of other editors who helped over the years), AMERICAN PROMISE is a co-production of Rada Film Group, ITVS and POV’s Diverse Voices Project and is a part of the American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, made possible by the Corporate for Public Broadcasting.

“An extraordinary documentary about race, family and education that’s at once epic and intimate…” – Rogerebert.com

“Not only provides illuminating insights into racial and cultural issues, but explores family dynamics common to all.” – Boston Globe

The 36th Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards, whose mission is to honor the documentary films, news reports, and multimedia projects that exemplify the best of broadcast journalism, will be presented on September 28, 2015 at a ceremony at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall in New York City.  All nominations are available on the National Television Academy’s website: www.emmyonline.tv.

About AMERICAN PROMISE: AMERICAN PROMISE spans 13 years as Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, middle-class African American parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., turn the cameras on their son, Idris, and his friend, Seun, after they are accepted to The Dalton School, one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. Chronicling the boys’ divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation at Manhattan’s Dalton School, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about American society and its relationship to black male achievement while also exploring broader issues of race, class and opportunity.

Highlights from the AMERICAN PROMISE campaign: Major institutions, from United Way to the Open Society Foundations, have used AMERICAN PROMISE and associated resources to elevate their work on black male achievement, contributing to credibility for the field, and inspiring other organizations to follow suit. The film’s broadcast on POV reached over 1.5 million people, and schools, organizations, and individuals have organized thousands of community screenings to date. The campaign has also created numerous tools to contribute to increased awareness and change in the black male achievement sector, including the book, Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life (Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work), Promise Clubs, a national network of parenting support groups, modules and classroom discussion guides for youth, parents, and educators (in collaboration with Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center), which was a finalist for the Revere Award. In 2014, the campaign was awarded the BRITDOC-PUMA  Impact Award for a Documentary Film that has made the most Impact on Society.

AMERICAN PROMISE is available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes, and available for purchase on Amazon and iTunes. For more information visit the website and follow the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

### For inquires contact: Jessica Jones, Impact Producer, Jessica@americanpromise.org ###