President Ravi Rajan and CalArts Animation at UN’s HeForShe Impact Summit

Still from Seesaw by Danski Tang, which premieres at the UN’s HeForShe Impact Summit in New York City on Sept. 26. | Image courtesy of the artist.

On Wednesday (Sept. 26) a number of prominent world leaders, global CEOs, activists and celebrities will join forces to launch new global initiatives for gender equality at the 2018 United Nations HeForShe Impact Summit in New York City. The event begins at 10 am EDT and will be live-streamed at www.HeForShe.org/livestream.

Featured speakers include: Her Majesty Queen Rania, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; President of Finland Sauli Niinistö; President of Rwanda Paul Kagame; President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson; actress and UN Women’s Global Goodwill Ambassador Anne Hathaway; actor and activist Winston Duke; and CalArts President Ravi Rajan.

The Summit is a global call to action focusing on significant issues like accelerating women’s economic empowerment, ending gender-based violence, driving gender-balanced leadership and gender equality in Hollywood.

For 2017-18 academic year, the UN Women’s HeForShe movement teamed with CalArts to produce 12 animated student films that highlight issues surrounding gender equality. The special production course was led by Film/Video faculty Pia Borg and Soyeon Kim (Film/Video MFA 01) with guidance from Elizabeth Nyamayaro, Global Head of UN Women HeForShe Movement.

Three of the students will have their HeForShe animated shorts premiere at the Impact Summit: Danski Tang (Film/Video MFA 18), Ana Perez Lopez (Film/Video MFA 18) and Kyung Won Song (Film/Video MFA 19).

The nine other films produced in the class are by animators from the School of Film/Video: Melissa Ferrari (MFA 19), Kyung Won Song (MFA 19), Jenna Caravello (MFA 19), Gabe Mangold (MFA 15), Gabriela Escovar (MFA 19), Chris Bishop (MFA 19), Louise Pau (MFA 18), Minha Song (BFA 20) and Elaine Won Choi (BFA 20). All 12 films are being translated into the UN’s six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French and English) for its 194 member states and will be released online at a later date

Created by UN Women in 2014, the HeForShe solidarity movement has so far mobilized 1.7 million men as advocates for gender equality, generating more than 1.3 billion conversations on social media.

For a behind-the-scenes look at CalArts Animated United Nations Women class, check out the trailer below: