Pulitzer Center 2024 Reporting Fellow Nathan Siegelaub will visit Westchester Community College on October 28 & 29, 2024. There, he will screen his film Sparni to classes and the student newspaper, speaking with them on documentary storytelling and reporting on mental health.
Sparni is the story of a young person’s quest to make the most of their musical gifts. It is an intimate exploration of life with a mental illness in a country where scores of children and teenagers are struggling with similar conditions, seeking help from a health care system in serious need of reinforcements and repair, and, crucially, craving a forum to discuss these issues. Through interviews, animation, narrative rap songs, and scenes unfolding in real time, Sparni brings these issues into sharp focus.
Siegelaub is a writer and documentary filmmaker based in New York. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and psychology, and through his parents discovered a passion for the work of Chaplin, Fellini, Wertmüller, Bergman, Kurosawa—titans of world cinema. A desire to tell true stories led him to Columbia Journalism School and his debut documentary.
