An evening of Shakespearean comparison featuring discussion and performances of MacBeth

The Cooper Union and The New Yorker present a free screening of The New Yorker Documentary’s award-winning short documentary Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon, directed by filmmaker and Cooper Union School of Art alumnus Bill Morrison and produced in collaboration with Invisible Institute.

When masked and nameless US Border Patrol agents abduct a man from a residential street in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood without a warrant, his neighbors attempt to obstruct the vehicle carrying him from leaving their block. Continuing the language they developed with their Oscar-nominated short Incident, Morrison, working again with journalist-producer Jamie Kalven and joined by journalist María Inés Zamudio, combined CBP body-cam footage with cell phone recordings shot by neighbors on the scene to capture a specific moment in the rise of fascist policing in America.

Following the documentary, Morrison will be joined by his co-producer Kalven and Devashish "Dave" Basnet, senior immigration policy strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), for a discussion about justice, surveillance, and the state-sponsored abuse of power.

Registration on EventBrite is required. However, an EventBrite ticket does not guarantee entry as this is a first-come-first-served free event. Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon is part of the award-winning New Yorker Documentary series, which showcases innovative short films from around the world. Produced by both emerging and renowned filmmakers, the series offers uncommon perspectives on issues that matter to us now. The film is streaming now on The New Yorker’s digital platforms.

Bill Morrison has been called “the poet laureate of lost films” (New York Times, 9/21/2021). He has premiered feature-length documentary films at the New York, Sundance, Telluride, and Venice film festivals. Decasia (2002) was the first film of the 21st century to be named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), which holds a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Incident (2023) won the International Documentary Association’s Best Short Film Award from in 2023, the Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Nonfiction Short in 2025, and it was nominated for an Academy Award in Documentary Short in 2025. His most recent film, Sawyer Avenue: Sunday Afternoon (18’, 2026) premiered this year at Visions du Réel 2026, and is available on newyorker.com

Jamie Kalven is a writer and founder of the Invisible Institute. He is the author of Working With Available Light: A Family’s World After Violence and the editor of A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America by his father Harry Kalven, Jr. He has reported extensively on patterns of police abuse and impunity. He was the plaintiff in Kalven v. Chicago, in which the Illinois appellate court ruled that documents bearing on allegations of police misconduct are public information. His reporting first brought the police shooting of Laquan McDonald to public attention; and he co-produced 16 Shots, an Emmy Award-winning documentary on the McDonald case. His 2016 series “Code of Silence” in The Intercept exposed the criminal activities of a team of corrupt Chicago officers operating in public housing and has contributed to the exonerations of 183 individuals. Among the national awards he has received are the 2015 George Polk Award for Local Reporting, the 2016 Ridenhour Courage Prize, the 2017 Hillman Prize for Web Journalism, and the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. The Invisible Institute received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2021 and 2024, and for Audio Reporting in 2024.

Devashish "Dave" Basnet is the senior immigration policy strategist at NYCLU, where he helps shape the organization’s immigration docket across New York State. He previously served as senior immigration policy manager at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), where he led the Immigrant Rights program, served as policy expert for NYIC's priority legislative and budgetary campaigns, and advised advocates and lawmakers on issues relating to deportation, due process, detention, and mass incarceration at every level of government. Across these roles, his work advising lawmakers and building coalitions in partnership with a broad network of immigrant justice advocates has helped drive the most significant strengthening of sanctuary law protections that New York City and New York State have seen in recent years. The son of Himalayan Sherpas, Basnet is a DACA recipient and former TPS holder from Nepal who was raised in Woodside and Jackson Heights, Queens. He is driven to blend lived experience with rigorous policy and advocacy work for immigrant justice in the United States. He holds a Master’s of Public Policy and a Master's in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, where he attended as the first Nepali Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in political science from Hunter College of the City University of New York.

The Gardiner Foundation Great Hall Forum presents the New York-stage premieres of two short operas, Trials and Tears and Sacajawea: Women of Many Names