Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg

Portrait co-founder, filmmaker 

"White Noise" is the definitive inside story of the alt-right, following Richard Spencer, Lauren Southern, and Mike Cernovich as they ride a wave of racist ideas to viral fame. Even as the movement breaks into the mainstream, it fractures, leaving its leaders to grapple with backlash, infighting, and self-doubt. 

White Noise

On San Carlos Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona, unemployment is high, and firefighting jobs are one of the few stable opportunities for work. The Geronimo Hotshots are an elite firefighting crew based out of San Carlos, who spend most of the year on the road, battling the most intense wildfires in the United States.

The Geronimo Hotshots

When Clyde Ross, Mattie Lewis, and Ethel Weatherspoon settled in the West-side neighborhood of North Lawndale, they hoped to achieve the American dream of owning a home. At the time, however, federal policies known as redlining prevented blacks from getting real mortgages, forcing them to buy from real-estate speculators "on contract.

The Story of the Contract Buyers League

A documentary series about people who choose to throw expectations out the window and forge their own paths.

To Live Deliberately

On June 13, 2018, Honduran asylum-seeker Anita and her five-year-old son, Jenri, were forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Thanks to a pro bono lawyer, Jodi Goodwin, who aggressively advocates for their release from their respective ICE detention centers, Anita and Jenri are reunited after a month apart. But the damage has been done. The Separated, a documentary from The Atlantic, is an intimate window into the chaos and trauma caused by the separation. "You don't love me anymore,” Jenri says to Anita after they arrive at a temporary shelter. “You're not my mom anymore."

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The Separated

When Clyde Ross, Mattie Lewis, and Ethel Weatherspoon settled in the West-side neighborhood of North Lawndale, they hoped to achieve the American dream of owning a home. At the time, however, federal policies known as redlining prevented blacks from getting real mortgages, forcing them to buy from real-estate speculators "on contract." The contracts, homeowners soon discovered, turned out to be a scam. In this short documentary, Ross, Lewis, Weatherspoon, and a community organizer named Jack Macnamara recount the story of how they formed the Contract Buyers League and fought back.

The Contract Buyers League

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, is an Obama-era policy that granted a work permit and temporary protection from deportation to children that came to the U.S. with unregistered parents. Now, the fate of more than 750,000 people is unclear. Donald Trump said he would repeal the policy during his campaign. He later promised something “that’s going to make people happy and proud.” DACA recipients are now pursuing advanced degrees and full-fledged careers. Sixty-five are in medical school in the United States, and approximately half of them are enrolled in the Loyola-Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. The Atlantic spoke with these medical students and residents about the anxiety surrounding the future. “I think about it for about five seconds, I find it a little unbearable to think about, and then I forget about it because it just doesn’t fit in my brain,” says Marina DiBartolo, a medical resident at the University of Pennsylvania. “Right now, there’s no path to legalization.”

What Will Happen to Undocumented Doctors?

There are more than 6,000 men currently imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola—three-quarters of them are there for life, and nearly 80 percent are African American. It's the end of the line for many convicted criminals in Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate of any state in the U.S. In this Atlantic original documentary, national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg goes inside Angola to speak with inmates and with warden Burl Cain, who has managed the prison for two decades. Cain and his colleagues grapple with the crucial question: What does rehabilitation look like when you're locked away for life?

Angola for Life

Produced for Facebook Watch, this explainer series is hosted by award-winning science journalist Ed Yong. The series was finalist for a National Academies Communications Award in 2018.

Animalism

A documentary series explores the experiences of women leaders, featuring former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Compton mayor Aja Brown, and more