Split Screen: Towards a Feminist Framing

Week 4: Towards a Feminist Framing

Guest Speaker: 
Deepa Shivaram, White House Correspondent at NPR

In this session, attendees will develop practical tools and strategies for implementing feminist framing in media creation and consumption, including:

• Collaborative development of feminist framing guidelines
• Workshop on technical aspects (angles, lighting, composition) of feminist representation
• Discussion of strategies for implementation in various media contexts

*Please note: It is not required to have attended prior sessions in order to sign up for this event.

About Split Screen: Behind the Lens of Sexism in American Politics
This four-week seminar explores how American media portrays women in politics from the perspective of a cinematographer. Led by Azza Cohen, former Official Videographer and Director of Video to Vice President Kamala Harris (2022-2025), participants will examine media coverage and develop critical perspectives. Together, students will brainstorm pathways for more equitable visual representation in the American media landscape.
 

About Deepa Shivaram
Deepa Shivaram is a White House Correspondent at NPR, where she covers day to day news of the president and vice president for radio, digital, and podcasts. Prior to joining NPR, Deepa was a campaign reporter at NBC News, embedded with the Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren campaigns during the 2020 election. Deepa got her start in journalism freelancing for the BBC in Washington and at NBC News before she became an associate producer at NBC's Meet the Press. She is an alum of George Washington University and a member of the Asian American Journalism Association. 

About Azza Cohen
Azza Cohen (she/her) is an award-winning director, writer, and founder who served from 2022-2025 as the Official Videographer and Director of Video for Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House. After January 20, 2025, Azza and her wife Kathleen Borschow (HLS ‘15) started Cohen Borschow Media, a film and video production company specializing in nonfiction storytelling.

As a writer, her Inauguration Day op-ed “I Was Kamala Harris’ Videographer” for Slate went viral and trended on Apple and Yahoo News for over a week. She is currently writing a book on framing women through a feminist lens from a cinematographer’s point of view, as well as a bimonthly column for The Contrarian called “Split Screen” which dissects sexist imagery in the media. She is represented by Aevitas Creative.

Azza earned an MFA in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford (funded by the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program), an MA from the University of Galway (funded through a Mitchell Scholarship), and a BA from Princeton.

As a director, her MFA thesis film FLOAT! — a short documentary that captures Azza’s captivating Bubbe’s journey learning how to swim at 82 — was acquired and released online in January 2023 by The New Yorker. FLOAT! celebrated its world in-person premiere at the Academy Award-qualifying FLICKERS’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, where Azza won first prize for work by a female director. FLOAT! subsequently won both the audience choice and best documentary awards at the DC Shorts International Film Festival, was an official selection at the Academy Award-qualifying Austin Film Festival, and won Best Short and Best Documentary at the Shortie Film Festival, among others.

At Stanford, Azza also directed Dear Hormazd, a 16mm profile of a Zoroastrian couple urging their son to keep the faith; directed Nothing left to do but marvel, an experimental short filmed in soft focus inspired by her chronic migraine; and co-directed Bruce’s Dream, an immersive short about a retired racehorse re-learning to ride as a therapy horse for kids on the autism spectrum. And she produced Drew de Pinto’s Compton’s ‘22, which was nominated for an IDA Documentary Award and distributed by The New Yorker. As an undergraduate, Azza directed Refugee, Refugee, an award-winning micro documentary about a Rwandan refugee adjusting to life in New Jersey; and Specks of Dust, an award-winning short documentary about activists risking everything to fight human trafficking in India.

Azza is eternally grateful to Andrew Jarecki, who gave her a first film credit as an intern on The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. A Highland Park, IL native, Azza lives in Washington, DC with her wife and co-founder Kathleen and their barky rescue dog Rex.