Meet Joseph Lovett

Writer, Director & Producer of

Children of the Inquisition: Their Stories Can Now Be Told

See the recording of our panel discussion moderated by film writer, director, and producer, Joseph Lovett. The panel features the individual storytellers from the film: Anna Ruth Henriques, and Doreen Carvajal who are all contemporary descendants of the Jewish families forced to convert to Catholicism or flee during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. They discussed the deep impact this film had on them, their families’ journeys, buried history, and complexities of identity.

For more resources for your own personal journey, please see the Children of the Inquisition website: https://childrenoftheinquisition.com/introduction. You are also welcome to reach out to the filmmakers at info@childrenoftheinquisition.com

About our panel

Moderator Joseph Lovett:

Joseph Lovett is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose work has informed, engaged, and inspired people into action. Having worked for ABC, CBS, HBO and Discovery Channel, Joe has been raising awareness of critical health issues throughout his career.

After producing the first investigations on AIDS for ABC’s 20/20, Joe created In A New Light (ABC) a series of annual AIDS outreach and entertainment specials. After ten years producing for 20/20, Joe founded Lovett Stories + Strategies where he has produced and/ or directed numerous feature documentaries and over 35 hours of primetime specials. In 2001, Joe’s film Cancer: Evolution to Revolution for HBO won a Peabody Award and received an Emmy nomination.

Joe’s first doc feature The Accident, a film about family, love and loss premiered at SXSW.  Gay Sex in the 70s and Three Sisters: Searching for a Cure about ALS premiered at Tribeca. Joe executive produced State of Denial on AIDS in South Africa and King Day’s Out which also premiered at Sundance.

His film, Going Blind: Coming Out of the Dark About Vision Loss, and its outreach campaign Going Blind and Going Forward, have ignited a global movement of individuals, grassroots organizations, and medical professionals, sponsoring screenings that raise awareness and improve access to vision enhancement services.

Joe’s latest project Children of the Inquisition: Their Story Can Now Be Told is a documentary film, immersive website, and outreach that unearths 500 years of hidden history and identities. The project reveals the fates of families forced to convert to Catholicism or flee during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.

Over the years, Joe has been honored with the George Foster Peabody Award, the AIDS Leadership Award, the Christopher Award, the Kitty Carlisle Hart Award, an Emmy Nomination, and numerous awards from advocacy organizations.

Anna Ruth Henriques

Anna is an artist whose work is in the permanent collections of New York’s Jewish Museum and El Museo del Barrio, a fine jewelry designer whose collections launched at Barneys, also the creator of a top-selling jewelry line, Aayenda, aiding the post-war Afghanistan-based non-profit organization, Future Brilliance, as well as the author and illustrator of The Book of Mechtilde published by Alfred A. Knopf. Born and raised in Jamaica, she graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts, then received an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. She was the lead in Eleanor Antin’s film, Man Without A World. Anna is currently creating an organic farm retreat in Portugal and writing a memoir of the journey. She considers her greatest accomplishment her daughter, Ise, also an artist and writer.

Carlos Luis DeMedeiros

Carlos is a Brazilian-American artist C.L. DeMedeiros works exclusively with found objects. A former monastic scholar, Mr. DeMedeiros’ work intermingles themes of religious authority, alternative sexuality, politics, subculture and popular culture, and their often fraught intersections. While largely self-taught and often associated with ‘Outsider Art,’ C.L. DeMedeiros’ insightful and sophisticated work has been acknowledged internationally. His work has been exhibited at the New York Public Library, The Art Students League of New York (where it garnered several awards), 80 Washington Square East Galleries, and numerous galleries in Central and South America. Recent notable exhibits include The Ties That Bind for Trinity School’s 300th anniversary, Art and Activism at Bluffton University, Ohio, and Outsider Art Fair in New York City. For the Sing for Hope, Street Pianos Project, Mr. DeMedeiros created twenty pianos which were displayed throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Mr. DeMedeiros’ work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Upcoming exhibition: 5th Homosurrealism at Resistance Gallery in London.

Doreen Carvajal

Doreen, based in Paris, is a former New York Times journalist and author of “The Forgetting River,” which explored her quest to recover her family’s secret Jewish identity. Her journey led from California and Costa Rica to Segovia, Spain and the stone tombs of 15th century converso ancestors investigated by the Inquisition for religious heresy.

 

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