Masterfully told with pointy precision, AMERICAN PROMISE spans 12 years in the lives of two middle class black families as they navigate their family experience when they choose to send their two young sons to a prestigious Manhattan private school.

PBS premiere 2014
Sundance Film Festival (2013) – U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking

Produced by: Rada Studio
Directors: Joe and Michelle Stephenson
Co-Director of Photography: Jon Stuyvesant

Recorded over six years, Raising Bertie delivers an authentic and tender portrait of the lives of three young boys as they face a precarious coming of age within Bertie County, a rural African-American community in North Carolina.

A co-production of Kartemquin Films and Beti Films. The film is funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation. Broadcast premiere was on PBS POV in 2017

Director: Margaret Byrne
DP | Producer: Jon Stuyvesant
Producer: Ian Kibbe
Editor: Leslie Simmer