There were no red carpets, banners, media lights or tables festooned with flowers, candles and dinnerware, but the 2020 Sentinel Awards, celebrating their 20th anniversary, did have plenty of one important thing: Heart.
Back by popular demand, Hollywood, Health & Society organized a storytelling workshop for nuclear and security experts for the second consecutive year, this time a virtual four-day event held in mid-September that included 25 members of the atomic community Zooming in from locations such as the U.K., Vienna and Washington D.C.
Storytellers and experts explored ageism and the fight for visibility (and finding work) in the entertainment industry during an online discussion presented by Hollywood, Health & Society, in partnership with the WGAE and WGAW.
Hollywood, Health & Society, in partnership with the WGAE and WGAW, presented a virtual talk focusing on older adults and the challengers of caregiving during the pandemic. The panel was part of a series of discussions via Zoom on a variety of topics affected by COVID-19.
What threw the topic of over-incarceration in the U.S. into sharp relief wasn't so much the bleak laundry list of statistics that underscored the fact that we lock up more people than the rest of the world—and for longer periods of time. Instead, it was a simple question directed at the audience just prior to the start of the panel discussion "Beyond Bars: Changing the Narrative on Criminal Justice."
In a sometimes moving and deeply personal ceremony, the 2019 Sentinel Awards honored 13 TV shows for outstanding storylines dealing with critical topics such as addiction, criminal justice, mental health, nuclear risk and sexual assault.
Writer/producer Sarah Watson (“The Bold Type,” “Parenthood”) opened the Atomic Storytelling workshop with a quote from the film “Dead Poets Society," meant to inspire students at an elite boarding school to look at writing with an authentic and emotional perspective: “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
At one point during the discussion on how Hollywood can help change the narrative about drug addiction and mental health, screenwriter John August ("Aladdin"), the panel moderator, asked the speakers on stage to recount something they had seen in a film or on TV that they didn’t want to see anymore.
In a scene at the end of a wrenching episode of the FOX medical show "The Resident," whose storyline focuses on the death of a Black woman after she gives birth, the chief of surgery of the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital tells the grief-stricken husband: “Your wife suffered what we refer to as a ‘never’ event—something that should never have happened.”
