Iris Films

Their début production, In the Best Interest of the Children (1977), was a groundbreaking documentary exploring the topic of lesbian motherhood and their right to custody in 1970s America. This formative experience allowed Reid, Stevens and Zheutlin to hone their filmmaking skills across a range of roles and techniques, working within a rotating crew model during the production of the feature-length film. Other notable titles in their catalogue include We All Have Our Reasons; Skin Deep, a documentary on race relations which has had a lasting impact in US university circles; Long Night’s Journey into Day, a Sundance award-winning film about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; One Vote, a short film about women’s suffrage in the US; and Farías: An Afro-Uruguayan Love Story, a documentary spotlighting Uruguay’s Afro-descendant community.

Today, Iris Films remains active and includes Pamela Harris, Aya de Leon, Daisy Hernandez and Maya R. Rupert among its members. Of the founding trio, Frances Reid is still formally involved in the company’s work.

Iris Films is organised as a non-profit dedicated to documentary filmmaking. Its productions focus on issues of social justice and challenge individuals to examine their beliefs and ways of working, with the ultimate goal of driving change. A core aspect of the collective’s work is lending production and editing equipment to communities and organisations engaged in activism and education. This allows them to produce and distribute unique audiovisual content covering issues that align with the company’s values of tolerance, justice, anti-racism and human rights.