While directing television specials for “Oprah” in South Africa, Gilda experienced the transformational power of filmmaking.
VUSI Media began producing social impact entertainment (SEI) for one of the best SEI creators in the biz, Ms. Oprah Winfrey. Under contract to Harpo Studios, Gilda helmed Oprah’s ABC primetime special, Building A Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. The high ratings received drove record donations to Ms. Winfrey’s public charity, the Angel Network.
Also, while in Africa, Gilda directed a Christmas Kindness special for Oprah‘s daily series, a magical party for one thousand AIDS orphans living in child-headed households. Gilda directed brand integration with Nike, Revlon, Build-A-Bear, etc., to raise $500,000 in essential goods and services for the children.
No stranger to filming in extreme conditions, Gilda helped to produce/direct Oprah’s Hurricane Katrina coverage with Nate Berkus. Filming in ground zero of New Orleans’ demolished and toxic 9th Ward, Gilda profiled families literally picking up the pieces of their lives after the storm. Soon, it was time to rebuild, and Gilda documented the ground-up construction of one hundred homes for Katrina survivors across four states, including Angel Lane outside of Houston – a housing development partnership between the Oprah Winfrey Foundation & Habitat For Humanity.
Upon the Oprah show’s final farewell, Gilda founded VUSI Media and produced the award-winning short documentary, Let My People Vote. The project grew into a remarkably effective partnership with voting rights activists working to increase awareness around voter suppression in the American South.
Let My People Vote has been invited to screen at Columbia University in NYC, New York University, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, Tennessee State HBCU, MLK’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, The New York Public Library, CUNY, Fordham University, and many others. As a result of VUSI’s strategic media collaboration, the film’s protagonist was subsequently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and landed in the Time 100.
To date, VUSI’s impact filmmaking has been supported by Google, the Levi Strauss Foundation, NOW, AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, etc. — all of whom recognize that thought-provoking content aligns with and provides value to their organizational mandates and company goals.
As we enter the 2024 presidential election season, VUSI can be engaged to assist you with creating progressive political messaging across all media platforms.
