November Film

Moderator

Elizabeth S. Lenivy

Elizabeth S. Lenivy is an attorney with the Simon Law Firm, P.C., in St. Louis and focuses her practice on medical malpractice, product defect, and mass tort litigation. Born in South Korea, Liz moved to the St. Louis Metropolitan area at the age of three. She graduated from St. Louis University with a B.A. in English and a certification in Legal Studies. She is also a 2015 graduate of St. Louis University School of Law, where she attended as an 1843 Scholar. She is a board member of the Young Friends of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and a member of several professional organizations including the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, the Missouri Asian American Bar Association, and the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys. During her senior year at SLU, she was elected President of the Korean Student Association and focused her tenure on raising funds and awareness for North Korean refugees. .

Panelists

Wesley Bell

Wesley Bell has been the Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County since 2019 and is the first African American to serve in this position. He has served with distinction across the spectrum of the legal profession as a public defender, defense attorney, judge, professor, and prosecutor. He is an advocate for ending mass incarceration, eliminating “debtor's’ prison” practices, and rebuilding trust between communities and the prosecutor’s office. He also advocates that every person should have equal rights and opportunities within the criminal justice system.

Aisha Sultan

Aisha Sultan is a nationally syndicated columnist and features writer. Her work connects with parents trying to balance work and home life, while raising kids in a complex, digital age. The Society of Features Journalism has repeatedly recognized her commentary as among the best in the country. The Asian American Journalists Association honored her coverage of the unrest in Ferguson, Mo,. with an Excellence in Print national writing award. She is a former Knight Wallace Fellow, during which she took a sabbatical at the University of Missouri to dive into how technology is changing modern life. She also produces videos and films, hosts a weekly podcast, speaks at conferences and frequently appears on television. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred print and digital publications, including The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Quartz and runs weekly in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She lives in St. Louis with her husband and two children.

Megan Crane

Megan Crane is an attorney and Co-Director of the MacArthur Justice Center. In the fall of 2018, she launched the Missouri Wrongful Conviction Project, in partnership with the Midwest Innocence Project. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, Ms. Crane clerked on the D.C. Court of Appeals and worked as a commercial litigator, at which time she successfully pro bono represented a man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life without parole, helping him earn his freedom after 17 years in prison. She began her post-conviction career in California with the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, representing men and women sentenced to death. Prior to joining the MacArthur Justice Center, Ms. Crane was the Co-Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where she represented wrongfully convicted youth in post-conviction litigation in state and federal court. In addition to her work in the courtroom for individual clients, Ms. Crane has taught clinical courses on criminal post-conviction defense litigation, juvenile justice and wrongful convictions, frequently presents and publishes articles on police interrogations of youth, and assists in litigation involving coercive interrogations and extreme sentencing, including writing amicus briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court.

Sarah Fenske

Sarah Fenske is the executive editor of Euclid Media Group, supervising publications in 8 cities across the U.S., including St. Louis' own Riverfront Times. Prior to her recent three-year stint as host of St. Louis on the Air on St. Louis Public Radio, she worked as a writer, columnist and editor in Cleveland, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and St. Louis, serving as editor in chief of the LA Weekly and the Riverfront Times. Sarah spends her free time trying to shore up local journalism in St. Louis via the new nonprofit River City Journalism Fund. She and her husband are raising their two young daughters in the city's Compton Heights neighborhood.

FILM SYNOPSIS

In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Sentenced to life, he spends years fighting to survive until investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented push for social action that would unite Asian Americans and inspire a new generation of activists.

Nearly five decades later, award-winning journalists Julie Ha and Eugene Yi excavate this largely unknown yet essential history in their riveting Sundance selection Free Chol Soo Lee. Combining rich archival footage, firsthand accounts, and narration drawn from personal writings, this poignant documentary paints an intimate portrait of the complex man at the center of a movement and serves as an urgent reminder that his legacy is more relevant than ever.

PRESS QUOTES

● "A powerful indictment of systemic racism and the criminal justice system"
– The Chicago Reader

● "Stunningly relevant... belongs in the same category as The Central Park Five, The Thin Blue Line, Making a Murderer, and 13th"
– The Playlist

● “Extraordinarily moving... what documentary filmmaking should strive for”
– RogerEbert.com