GREENWICH — The Greenwich International Film Festival’s Thursday evening Changemaker Gala had an award-winning trio as the guests of honor — John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorius.
The three Changemaker Award winners are the producers and founders of Get Lifted Film Company, a production company with a goal of amplifying underrepresented voices through television, film, theater and publishing.
“We started the company Get Lifted over a decade ago,” Stiklorius told Greenwich Time. “The intention was to tell stories that could crack people’s hearts open so that they would feel something and hopefully go out and do something and take some action.”
The Changemaker Award honors artists who use their platform and role in the film industry to continue positive social change. Wendy Stapleton, GIFF’s chairwoman, said GIFF’s core belief “is that stories have the ability to create pathways of empathy between people of different backgrounds and cultures,” which is a reason why her organization chose to honor Get Lifted this year, she said.
“It is these pathways of empathy that will hopefully be able to heal us as a society and create a more just world,” Stapleton said in a statement.
Past changemaker award honorees include Lin Manuel-Miranda, Abigail Breslin, Ashley Judd and Mia Farrow.
“I think (being a changemaker) means using your power to help other people, to uplift other voices, to use your social capital to actually make a difference in the world,” Legend said.
The gala, which was held at the L’Escale in Greenwich, benefited Hill-Freedman Records, Hill-Freedman World Academy’s record label. Hill-Freedman is a public school based in Philadelphia that serves more than 95 percent Black and brown students “with a variety of backgrounds and talents including serving 26 percent of students who have complex support needs including autism,” according to a statement.
Some Hill-Freedman students and alumni attended and performed at the gala. Other performers included Tony Award Winner Adrienne Warren, Country Music Award Nominee The War and Treaty and singer-songwriter Blessing Offor.
“It’s beyond words for us … We were really at a point where we relied on outside funding and it has dried up,” said Ezechial Thurman, Hill-Freedman World Academy’s executive director. “This is absolutely going to change lives in our community.”
Stiklorius, Jackson and Legend are executive producers for the HBO documentary “Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School,” which follows a few Hill-Freedman World Academy students as they write, produce and record songs for a completed album.
“We just saw how powerful this program is and we wanted to make sure it can keep growing,” Legend said. “They have challenges with funding the program and we saw how important it was through filming the documentary and producing it and getting it ready for HBO. We didn’t want to go through all that with them, watching them inspire everyone and have the program not be funded in the future, so we want to make sure we did our part to help fund this program.”
MSNBC anchor Katy Tur moderated a Q&A with Jackson, Legend and Stiklorius at the gala and Actor Jay Ellis presented the honorees with their award.
Ellis, whose film credits include “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Somebody I Used to Know,” said he enjoys attending film festivals to “support filmmakers, storytellers and independent films.” But he has a connection to the three GIFF honorees — he was in “Breaking Through,” a film Get Lifted produced.
“Mike, Ty and John have been in my life for a very long time,” Ellis said. “They are friends of mine. I have done a movie with them before and so it’s an honor to be here to support them.”
Jackson said that Get Lifted has “a lot of great things in the pipeline.”
“I think our hope is that we continue to join projects and develop projects that affect change,” Jackson said. “I think it’s a mission statement for our company.”
The trio joked that after the gala, they were going to enjoy New Haven pizza, a Connecticut food staple Stiklorius and Legend ate while gigging in an acapella group in college.
“We couldn’t decide which one we liked more … We love Connecticut, especially this time of year when the leaves are changing,” Stiklorius said. “It’s so beautiful up here.”
