A String of Pearls: On the Process, Practice, and Legacy of Camille Billops and James Hatch

JT Takagi has been the executive director of Third World Newsreel (TWN) since 2015, after being its business manager. An award-winning filmmaker, Ms. Takagi’s credits include North Korea: Beyond the DMZ; She Rhymes Like a Girl; The #7 Train: An Immigrant Journey; The Women Outside; Homes Apart: Korea and Bittersweet Survival, four of which have aired on national PBS. Also a sound engineer, her credits include the 2024 film Power, Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, the Emmy winning Strong Island, and Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, among many others. Takagi teaches at the City College of New York and the New School and works with several Asian American community groups. She was the sound recordist for Finding Christa, Take Your Bags, and on the last uncompleted film Camille and Jim worked on, Mama and Papa Lala. Takagi is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Roselly Torres, Third World Newsreel (TWN) Distribution and Marketing director, has worked with TWN since 2006, after previously working as director of the Latin American Video Archives, a nonprofit that distributed Latin American and Latinx film in North America. She has a master of art degree in cinema studies from New York University and earned her BA degree in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. She led and managed the theatrical run for A String of Pearls and worked with Camille on distribution of the Hatch-Billops films.