Songwriter & Vocalist of the song “A Tree of Life”

IDINA MENZEL

Songwriter & Producer of the song, “A Tree of Life”

KATE DIAZ

Director, Writer, & Producer

TRISH ADLESIC

MODERATED BY JAZZ TANGCAY (Variety)

Screening Link available upon Registration

YouTube Live Stream Q&A 

Monday, December 5, 1:00PM (PT)

A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting is a documentary that looks at one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks in American history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. TV-MA | 78 Minutes

Idina Menzel is a powerhouse multi-hyphenate: a singer, an actress in film and TV, a songwriter, a Broadway star, and a philanthropist. She rose to fame for her role as Maureen in the popular Broadway musical Rent, and her career took off when she won a Tony Award for her role as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in the smash musical Wicked.  Her voice can be heard as Elsa in Disney’s Oscar® winning Frozen. The film’s song “Let It Go”, voiced by Menzel, became an instant international phenomenon, winning the Oscar® for Best Original Song – where Menzel performed it at the ceremony – and the Grammy® Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The track reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, making Menzel the first artist with both a Billboard Top 10 hit and a Tony Award for acting.

A skillful songwriter, Menzel’s prolific recording career includes multiple cast albums and solo albums: Still I Can’t Be Still, Here, I Stand, idina, and her latest album, Christmas: A Season of Love, which was released in October 2019 via Schoolboy Records/Decca Records, US.  Produced by veteran A&R legend Ron Fair (Christina Aguilera, Mary J. Blige, The Pussycat Dolls, Keyshia Cole, Vanessa Carlton, Fantasia), the album features Ariana Grande, Billy Porter, Josh Gad, and Idina’s husband, Aaron Lohr. Christmas: A Season of Love is the second-holiday album from Menzel, following her October 2014 release of Holiday Wishes, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Holiday Albums chart and gave Menzel a Top 10 album on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart. Her third studio LP of original songs, idina, landed in the Top 30 on Billboard’s Top 200 charts upon its release in 2016.  Menzel received the Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award at Billboard’s annual Women in Music event in 2014 and performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl XLIX.

This Fall, Menzel can be seen in the upcoming Enchanted sequel, Enchanted 2: Disenchanted, alongside Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, and Susan Sarandon. Later this year, Menzel’s documentary Which Way to the Stage?, which follows her along her journey to headline Madison Square Garden, will be released on Disney +.

Kate Diaz is an LA-based composer-songwriter-producer.  She is the composer/co-lyricist of a new musical in development at La Jolla Playhouse. Kate has scored animated series, feature documentaries, and docu-series, and she also composes music for trailers and commercials.  Her pop/rock songs have been placed in multiple tv shows, and she recently co-wrote and produced an end credits song for an upcoming documentary.  A multi-instrumentalist, she self-produces her scores and songs.  

Trish Adlesic is the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated producer/director of A Tree Of Life and was at her childhood home the day of the heinous attack. Trish teamed with Josh Fox and HBO to produce Gasland and Gasland II, which received an Academy Award nomination and won an Emmy. These seminal documentaries expose the environmental devastation and public safety hazards of “fracking.” Gasland premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010 and Gasland Part II premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013 to much acclaim. Trish and Josh Fox led a diverse group of stakeholders (elected officials, NGOs, government institutions, and concerned citizens) to use the film to advocate for and then pass the first ban on fracking in America, in Trish’s hometown of Pittsburgh. 

Trish co-directed with Geeta Gandbhir and co-produced I Am Evidence along with Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU) about the alarming number of untested sexual assault kits in America. It premiered on HBO in April, 2018. I Am Evidence was awarded the prestigious duPont Columbia prize and was a Peabody finalist. The film was awarded a Primetime Emmy Honors award and also received the Silver Gavel award for excellence in journalism from the American Bar Association. I Am Evidence received two Emmy nominations, and won the Emmy Award for best documentary. The wide distribution and screening of I Am Evidence also inspired an unprecedented examination of the experience of sexual assault survivors in the justice system and the testing of decades-long backlogged rape kits. I Am Evidence‘s education and social action campaign led to 48 pieces of legislation across the United States. 

Trish has over 20 years of experience working in narrative filmmaking with such notable directors as Gus Van Sant, Finding Forrester, James L. Brooks, As Good as It Gets, Michael Mann, The Insider, Jim Sheridan, In America, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and Sidney Lumet, Night Falls on Manhattan. She worked on the hit TV show Law & Order: SVU for 14 seasons.

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