Meet The Filmmaker: Michael J. Critelli

Meet the Filmmaker: Michael J. Critelli

“From The Rough”

Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Location: NY NATAS, 1375 Broadway (between 37thand 38thStreets), Suite 2103
Reception: 6:00-6:30 PM ~ Program: 6:30-8:00 PM
 
*Free to NY NATAS Members!
$15 for those without current NY NATAS membership.
 
"From the Rough," starring Taraji P. Henson, Tom Felton, Michael Clarke Duncan and LeToya Luckett is inspired by the true story of Tennessee State University coach Catana Starks, the first woman ever to coach a college men's golf team. This feature film was produced by Michael J. Critelli, who had this to say about why he made this film:
 
“Growing up, my family felt unusual empathy with black people. Because my mother worked as a public health nurse's aide, we got to know her black professional nursing friends. I grew up watching incomprehensible brutality against well-behaved black people in the South on TV. My parents had been direct victims of discrimination when they were younger. Even in my generation, attending schools dominated by members of other ethnic groups, I experienced more subtle forms of discrimination, including degrading ethnic jokes from some classmates. I spent 30 years at Pitney Bowes, 11 years as CEO, because Pitney Bowes welcomed all kinds of people. Walter Wheeler, its longest serving CEO, had been a National Urban League (NUL) board member. Like Pitney Bowes, the NUL invited everyone, black, white, young, old, male, female, Democrat or Republican, to aspire to the American dream. I accepted the NUL's invitation to join its Board in 1997, became its chairman for five years, and served for 13 years. Both organizations created and celebrated success stories for women and people of color.  In 2004, I discovered such a story. My younger son's white Swedish chess coach told me he had secured a golf scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black college. The coach was a black woman by the name of Dr. Catana Starks. When she began coaching in 1988, she fielded a black golf team, but was forced to recruit mostly or all white non-U.S. golfers after the mid-1990's.  This documentary tells her story."
 
Michael J. Critelli is CEO of Dossia, and the former Executive Chairman of Pitney Bowes Inc., a $6.3 billion mailstream solutions company. During the 34 years since he completed his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin and was awarded a J.D., cum laude at Harvard Law School, he has had a distinguished career as a company, industry, and community leader.  As Executive Chairman, Mr. Critelli led the Pitney Bowes’ focus on the emerging opportunities in the external environment, including postal reform and transformation in the U.S. and globally, and market opportunities arising from the company's innovation and leadership in areas such as health care, government services and corporate social responsibility.
 
 
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED DUE TO BUILDING SECURITY. ALL NAMES MUST BE ON GUEST LIST.
Please RSVP via email
info@nyemmys.org to reserve a seat. Use film title “From The Rough” in subject line of email. Space is limited.
 
Produced & Moderated by Sumner Jules Glimcher.

Location: NY NATAS
1375 Broadway
New York , NY 10018

Date: Sept. 21, 2011, 2 p.m. - Sept. 21, 2011, 4 p.m.