Dee Hibbert-Jones produces animated documentary films that explore the crisis in the criminal justice system and the US racial divide, alongside her collaborator Nomi Talisman. Blending animation, documentary, and the aesthetics of the graphic novel, Hibbert-Jones and Talisman challenge entrenched attitudes, immersing viewers in a complex world of feelings and experiences, engendering empathy and critical reflection. Working with mitigation specialists, they have built relationships of trust with prisoners and families at the heart of their recent work. The collaborative’s most recent animated documentary short “Last Day of Freedom” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, and it won the International Documentary Association Best Short award, as well as a regional Emmy. The film screened at thirty international festivals, and won twelve festival awards. In 2016 she was awarded a Congressional Black Veteran’s Braintrust Award, and a Gideon Award for support to indigent minorities. Hibbert-Jones is a Professor of Art, Film, and Digital Art New Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she is founder and co-director of SPARC, a Social and Environmental Research Center.

Nomi Talisman works with her collaborator Dee Hibbert-Jones to make art, film, and interactive projects that look at the ways power structures and politics impact everyday lives, bringing to life larger issues of criminal justice and civic responsibility. Blending animation, documentary, and the aesthetics of the graphic novel, the team challenges entrenched attitudes, immersing viewers in a complex world of feelings and experiences, engendering empathy and critical reflection. Working with mitigation specialists, they have been able to build relationships of trust with prisoners and families at the heart of their recent work. Their animated short film “Last Day of Freedom” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, and it won an Emmy and the International Documentary Association Best Short. Talisman’s work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA grant, among others, and was screened and exhibited internationally. For her work on “Last Day of Freedom,” Talisman was awarded a California Public Defenders Association Gideon Award, for support to indigent minorities, and a United States Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust Award in recognition for her outstanding national commitment to civil rights and social justice.