Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Stephen Maing, the Co-Director of Union

By Lucy Spicer

One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there's always more we can learn about them as people. This year, we decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!

Stephen Maing's work as an artist has been compelled by a sense of urgency since the beginning. Growing up the son of immigrants in a large extended family whose lives were informed by loss, war, and intergenerational trauma was probably early training in the study of human behavior, he recalls. As a young person, I was desperate to escape, engage the world, and make socially and politically conscious art and music.

Maing's latest directorial effort is definitely one that most of the world could - and should - engage with, as it confronts a brand recognized across the globe: Amazon. Co-directed by Brett Story, Union follows the groundbreaking Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, New York, led by the union's unshakable founder, Chris Smalls. I hope people feel the indelible sense of urgency and purpose that we did while filming. That for most workers, it is no small decision to challenge one's own employer, let alone a ruthless adversary like Amazon, says Maing. For our organizers, every step forward was hard-earned, and watching the harnessing of collective power in real time was harrowing but wildly inspiring.

Union is the fourth documentary Maing has directed with support from Sundance Institute and the second to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Maing and Story took home the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change at the 2024 Festival. Read on to hear more from Maing, including his advice to emerging filmmakers and what legacy he hopes to leave with Union.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/give-me-the-backstory-get-to-know-steph...
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