Ep 479: Ordinary Heroes with Bernie Furshpan and guest Adam Mazo on hmTv

“In this episode of Ordinary Heroes on hmTv, host Bernie Furshpan speaks with filmmaker and educator Adam Mazo, co-founder of the Upstander Project, about the importance of standing up against injustice and the power of storytelling to inspire change.

Drawing from the lessons of the Holocaust and other historical injustices, Bernie and Adam explore the difference between bystanders and upstanders and why ordinary people have the ability and responsibility to act when they witness hate, bullying, or discrimination. Adam shares how the Upstander Project began, how documentary films such as Coexist and Dawnland illuminate hidden histories, and why film can be such a powerful tool for building empathy and awareness.

The conversation also reflects on the legacy of Holocaust survivors, the dangers of silence in the face of injustice, and practical ways educators, communities, and young people can cultivate courage, compassion, and responsibility.

At a time when the world often feels divided, this episode reminds us that even small acts of courage can make a meaningful difference. Becoming an upstander does not require extraordinary power. It simply requires the willingness to care for others and to speak up when something is not right.”

Listen at hmTv.

Points North Community Film Screening : Dirigo Docs

“Every year the Camden International Film Festival presents the best short documentaries made in and about Maine. By popular demand, we're bringing our favorite Maine-made shorts from the past 10 years to the Colonial. This program will feature seven films focusing on the people, animals, and puppets living in this special part of the world.

Weckuwapok (The Approaching Dawn) Dir. Lauren Stevens, Tracy Rector, Kavita Pillay, Roger Paul, Chris Newell, Adam Mazo, Taylor Hensel, Jacob Bearchum – CIFF, 2022”

Continue reading at Maine Public.

Acadia: Yo-Yo Ma and the Wabanaki Play for the Dawn

“Ana González: Would you describe yourself as an outdoorsman? 

Yo-Yo Ma: No. No, I'd like to pretend that I am. I have many fantasies of parachuting someplace and going, you know, fly fishing or rock climbing. But I, I'm not … is this being recorded? 

Ana González: Yes. 

Yo-Yo Ma: What is this? 

Ana González: Well, I want to know why are you making a podcast about being outside so much?

Yo-Yo Ma: Oh, that's a very good question. Well, first of all, it's what doesn't exist in my life that I know is missing. 

ANA GONZÁLEZ: Hi, I'm Ana González and this is Our Common Nature, a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma through this complicated country to help us all find that connection to nature that so many of us are missing. We climb mountains, play music, play music, drive dirt roads, recite poetry, traverse rivers and oceans and our own brains –  all to figure out how to better live on our planet. Together.”

Continue lisenting or reading at WNYC Studios.

Fourth Annual Watertown Celebrates Indigenous People’s Day on Oct. 12, Free Entry

“Watertown’s 4th celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day will be held on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025, from 12:00 to 3:30 p.m. at the Hosmer Elementary School, 1 Concord Road, Watertown, MA.  The free event will feature Indigenous musicians, artists and vendors.

Performers include: Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers; Teddy Hendricks, Mashpee Wampanoag & Nipmuc, storyteller; and Maria Hendricks, Assonet & Mashpee Wampanoag, MC.  Artisans Darius Coombs and Eleanor Coombs, Mashpee Wampanoag, will be demonstrating how to create wampum and corn husk dolls. Participants will be able to make their own corn husk dolls. Gianni Hendrix, Mashpee Wampanoag & Nipmuc, will provide face painting. 

Wampwheels, a food truck, will be outside on Concord Road and will be selling delicious Indigenous food that people can bring into the event. Indigenous vendors include: Claudia Fox Tree, Arawak-Taino iukaieke Guainia, Arawak Designs, Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Leslie Tuplin, First Nation Mik Maq-Lennox Island – PEI, Native Solutions and Cindy Shelley, Up the Creek Traders. Belmont Bookstore will be selling books by and about Indigenous people and the Watertown Free Library Bookmobile will have books about Indigenous people to borrow.

A special feature of this year’s celebration will be a preview of “Pigsgusset and Watertown: What You Didn’t Know About the Original Peoples and the Founding of Watertown,” a Storymap.  Presenters include Dr. Mishy Lesser, Upstander Project and Dr. Nathan Braccio, Assistant Professor of History at Clark University. They will be joined by Marilynne K. Roach and Joyce Kelly of the Historical Society of Watertown. Those who attend will be among the first to view the newly created storymap.”

Continue reading at Watertown News.

Inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival Celebrates Diversity on Screen Sept. 5-7

“Works from filmmakers with ties to Jamaica Plain will be screened during the inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival, Sept. 5-7, at the Loring Greenough House.

Founded by Alice Hutton, the co-director of programs for the Loring Greenough House, and Yenaba Sesay Davies, the three-day festival will take place on the property of the Loring Greenough House. Attendees are asked to bring their own seating; all films are ticketed.

Hutton, who has a journalism background, contacted filmmakers with Jamaica Plain ties about eight months ago when she first conceived of the idea for the festival: “[I] thought, ‘What's the best way to throw the umbrella as wide as possible?' So I just made a lot of calls,” she told the Boston Globe…

Saturday evening will showcase Dawnland, directed by filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research. It centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children and their interactions with state child welfare authorities in Maine.”

Continue reading at Rock 92.9.

The first-ever Jamaica Plain Film Festival highlights voices from the neighborhood

“The first Jamaica Plain Film Festival will take place Sept. 5-7 at the Loring Greenough House, showcasing dynamic works by filmmakers with neighborhood ties.

Festival founder Alice Hutton moved to Jamaica Plain in March 2020 from London. In 2021, she joined the Loring Greenough House, where she serves as co-director of programs. The community-centered, evening events invite locals and food trucks to gather in the garden and grounds of the 18th-century Sumner Hill former residence; this year, it runs through October.

Hutton was encouraged by the Thursday series’ popularity to organize the three-day film festival, with the help of co-founder Yenaba Sesay Davies. Films are ticketed and will be screened on the property’s lawn; attendees are asked to bring their own seating, such as blankets or low-seat, folding chairs…

Saturday evening will feature “Dawnland,” directed by local filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research and centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children being forcefully displaced by state child welfare authorities in Maine.

Upstander Project — a Boston-based organization that produces impact-centered documentary films, including “Dawnland,” and likewise educational and advocacy work — will speak prior to the screening, with Mazo, who lives in JP, joining for a Q&A following. The North American Indian Center of Boston will also present at the pre-screening Beer Garden reception to educate attendees about the status of Native American rights in Massachusetts. “Because of our work with ‘Dawnland,’ I’ve grown very connected to making sure that we’re being better neighbors and collaborating with folk from the Massachusetts tribe at Ponkapoag,” said Mazo. “[That we’re] learning and teaching those stories, as well, which is really critical to the work that we do.”

Continue reading at The Boston Globe.

Jamaica Plain Film Festival Highlighting Local Filmmakers This Weekend

“The three-day Jamaica Plain Film Festival (JPFF) is this weekend and will be screening the work of local filmmakers from Jamaica Plain, other parts of the city, and New England.

Award-winning journalist JPFF co-founder Alice Hutton said, “We hope to showcase the incredible talent in Jamaica Plain and New England, provide a platform for diverse, marginalized voices and open up space for people to come together in difficult times.”

The festival is taking place Sept. 5-7 in the gardens of the Loring Greenough House where Hutton is also the programs director. The festival is being co-presented with Imag9ne Media. The Hive beer garden and Streetcar will host pre-film receptions on the lawn…

Some of the films being screened include:
• Salma’s Home is the feature debut of Jamaica Plain-based Palestinian-Jordanian director, Hanadi Elyan, on three generations of Jordanian women. Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker.
• Dawnland is an Emmy-winning documentary on stolen native children in Maine, by Jamaica Plain-based director Adam Mazo, and The Upstander Project. Q&A afterwards with Mazo.”

Continue reading at Jamaica Plain News

‘A vehicle of genocide’: These Mass. towns were founded on the killing of Native Americans

“As she dug for clues about her ancestors in the pages of Petersham, Massachusetts’ local history , Jennifer Albertine struck the underbelly of the town her family has called home for 11 generations.

The present-day boundaries of Petersham are nearly identical to those outlined in a 1733 grant , in which colonial Massachusetts carved out a chunk of Nipmuc land, divvied it up into roughly 50 to 100-acre parcels, and doled it out to 72 volunteer bounty hunters as a bonus for scalping 10 Abenaki nearly a decade before.

“A Nipmuc person lost that connection — that connection that I have to the land,” Albertine said. “That’s heavy to think about.”

In 1724, at the request of Captain John Lovewell, the Massachusetts government offered 100 pounds — about the annual salary of a schoolteacher at the time — for each male Native American scalp brought to its council in Boston.

Months later, Lovewell’s men massacred 10 Abenaki next to a lake that now bears his name: Lake Lovell in New Hampshire.

Lovewell trudged to Boston, assured the council the victims were over the age of 12, and paraded their scalps around town before weaving a wig out of their hair and departing for another bloody expedition in Maine.

In the decade that followed, soldiers, bounty hunters and their children demanded land previously promised for over half a century of capturing and killing Natives across New England.

In 1733, the government fulfilled that promise for Lovewell’s men, handing out parcels in an area northwest of Worcester. These lots comprised “Volunteer Town” — a nod to the bounty hunters’ murderous initiative — and in 1754, the town was incorporated as Petersham.”

Continue reading at WGBH.