Michael Latt and Lead With Love have worked on an array of events, initiatives and campaigns including MLK Now, A Celebration of Art, Love + Radical Imagination, #JusticeForFlint, Sundance Film Festival, #MalcolmX Day, The Hope & Redemption Prison Tour, Blackout Black Friday, Just Mercy Now, Directors Guild Of America Awards, #WeMatterToo, Vote To Live and more. Topline details of case studies and examples for past projects that Michael Latt and Lead With Love have produced, led and/or supported in recent years are featured here. For more comprehensive case studies, visit the pages linked below.
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL (CASE STUDY): Michael Latt and Lead With Love have worked at 8+ Sundance Film Festivals over the years in a variety of capacities from advising the Festival to marketing select films that premiered at Sundance.
- Sundance Film Festival x Facebook Partnership: While advising Sundance Film Festival, Michael Latt designed, orchestrated and executed a strategic partnership between Sundance Film Festival and Facebook around an original video content series that Latt directed and produced. The 10+ videos published during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival generated more than 10 million views and 50 million impressions. This was a 8,233% increase in views and a 400% increase in impressions compared to the previous year.
- Fruitvale Station, The Birth of a Nation + More: Latt oversaw the marketing and social media for projects including Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler created by Yance Ford, Terence Nance, Sophia Nahli Allison and more, Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation and more. For films like Fruitvale Station and The Birth of a Nation, Latt worked closely with each filmmaker to develop integrated marketing strategies and manage all digital marketing activities.
- Special Activations + Events on the Mountain: Over the years, Lead With Love has brought a diverse group of organizations, Black-owned companies and artists to Sundance for their first time including Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Color of Change, April Reign, Values Partnerships, Devin Allen and more to activate at the Festival.
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WORK WITH GLENN KAINO (CASE STUDY): Lead With Love has collaborated with Artist Glenn Kaino across multiple activations and projects since 2021 including a Special Edition of PACE Live, A Forest For The Trees Opening Night and a series of digital engagements for Pass The Baton with Megan Rapinoe, Sabrina Fulton, Jesse Williams and more.
- PACE Live: Art + Radical Imagination - Lead With Love organized and co-hosted a special event with Glenn Kaino and PACE Gallery during Frieze NY 2022 around the opening of Kaino's new exhibit with Olympian Tommie Smith. PACE Live: Art + Radical Imagination featured live conversations with LaTosha Brown, Tommie Smith, Nse Ufot, Brea Baker, Ilyasah Shabazz, Michael Latt and more and a celebratory reception with live musical performances and refreshments.
TILL MOVIE IMPACT + CULTURE CAMPAIGN (CASE STUDY): Lead With Love and Kimberly Steward’s KPMF organized a variety of activations across the country around the release of the movie TILL in 2022. The campaign focused on two pillars: the Impact of Images and Honoring Black Women. ‘Honoring Black Women’ included multiple engagements hosted alongside leading organizations and Black women-owned businesses that promoted TILL, elevated the voices of influential Black Women and provided leaders with healing and uplifting experiences. Michael Latt also curated a collection of archival photos captured by trailblazing Black Photographers such as Gordon Parks, Kwame Brathwaite and Deana Lawson and young Black Photographers like Devin Allen, Noemie Marguerite and Reggie Cunningham. The ‘Impact of Images’ collection was on view for 25+ days at two Black-owned fine art galleries in South LA and Atlanta where Lead With Love co-hosted programming and special events for the community. Additionally, Lead With Love collaborated with renowned Artists BMike Odums and Whitney Alix to paint a large-scale mural in South LA at the Black-owned space The Beehive. This historic 150+ foot mural was dedicated to Emmett and Mamie Till, Radical Black Art and Revolutionary Love.
MLK NOW (CASE STUDY): Over the past five years, Blackout for Human Rights has hosted their annual special MLK Day event to celebrate the radical legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that has become one of the largest MLK Day celebrations in the nation. MLK Now 2016 - 2020 have taken place at the historic Riverside Church in Harlem and featured special guests including Harry Belafonte, Chris Rock, Common, Lupita Nyong’o, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael B. Jordan, Black Thought, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Octavia Spencer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ryan Coogler, J. Cole, Uzo Aduba, Tessa Thompson and more.
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THE HOPE & REDEMPTION TOUR (CASE STUDY): Lead With Love worked with Common to host 10+ concerts in 10+ different prisons throughout California as part of The Hope & Redemption Prison Tour to bring joy, hope and love to the people inside men and women’s prisons and capture their stories to share outside the prison walls. As part of the Tour in 2017, Common hosted a special free community concert, Imagine Justice, on the grounds of the Capitol building in Sacramento with J. Cole, Andra Day, Ledisi, Goapele and more to advocate for criminal justice reform and share a message of compassion and justice for an audience of over 30,000 people. The day after Imagine Justice, Common joined multiple leading local organizations in the State Capitol for meetings with the former Governor, numerous caucuses and other key legislators to discuss a number of criminal justice reform bills that were all eventually signed into law that September.
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JUSTICE FOR FLINT (CASE STUDY): On the night of the Oscars in 2016, Blackout for Human Rights hosted #JusticeForFlint in Flint, Michigan to support residents affected by the Flint Water Crisis. The event was live streamed from Flint and included special discussions with Flint residents and live musical performances by artists such as Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monae, Jazmine Sullivan, Vic Mensa, Musiq Soulchild and more. Blackout successfully raised over $150,000 for the people of Flint that night. #JusticeForFlint also trended across all major social media platforms throughout the evening with the hashtag accumulating over 3.3 Billion Impressions on Twitter alone.
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2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (CASE STUDY): Leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election and Special Georgia Runoff Election, Lead With Love worked with The Collective PAC, the nation’s largest Black-led PAC, and Common to execute a robust digital and in-person campaign aiming to get out the vote and empower people around the country. Lead With Love and The Collective PAC produced a series of virtual conversations that encouraged people to vote and provided valuable insight on the issues that matter most. The virtual activations were coupled with meaningful work on the ground across the country. The hour long virtual conversations including Black Women Leading The Revolution generated hundreds of thousands of views and featured trailblazing voices including Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Opal Tometi, Common, Marc Lamont Hill, Mayor Michael Tubbs and more. Media Partners for the events included NowThis, BET and Mic.com. Prior to the Election, Common and Lead With Love traveled to 12 different cities in 12 days and participated in a series of activations like live concerts, panel discussions, canvassing, press conferences and more. In December, we returned back to Georgia for a 3 day GOTV tour across the state to support Congressmen Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock.
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LEAD WITH LOVE IN LA (CASE STUDY): As an LA Native, Lead With Love Founder Michael Latt has organized and produced numerous activations and events around Los Angeles at spaces like The Underground Museum, NeueHouse Hollywood, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, California African American Museum, ARRAY Campus, Hammer Museum, The Grammy Museum and more. Some of the events supported by Lead With Love include Blackout Music & Film Festival, ARRAY 360, We Rise Festival, A Toast To The Oscars, LA Film Festival, Question Bridge: Black Males Gathering and additional ones listed below.
- Special Film Experiences: Lead With Love has hosted an array of engaging events for clients around films such as I Am Not Your Negro, Just Mercy, Fruitvale Station, Crazy Rich Asians, Aggie, The Death Of My Two Fathers, With Drawn Arms, The Birth Of A Nation, Till and Selma.
- Stepping Into Your Purpose Conversation Series: In partnership with UCLA's Black Alumni Association and Common's Imagine Justice, Lead With Love produced a series of live community events over three years featuring dynamic conversations with Dr. Angela Davis, Common, Jemele Hill, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Angela Rye and many more.
- #RESIST: Speaking Truth to Power: Alongside influential Native American leaders and allies, Lead With Love produced a special event, #RESIST: Speaking Truth to Power, to support the Water Protectors of Standing Rock and celebrate Native American art and culture. The event featured live musical performances by Common, Andra Day, Mumu Fresh, Aloe Blacc and more, panel conversations with Tara Houska, Heather Rae, Bethany Yellowtail and more, a pop up marketplace featuring Native owned businesses, art installations and more.
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LEAD WITH LOVE + STUDIO BE (CASE STUDY): In 2019, Lead With Love produced a special event with Common at BMike's Studio BE in New Orleans that included a screening, fireside chat with Rep. Ilhan Omar, Angela Rye and Common and a closing reception. The gathering was sponsored by Global Citizen, Imagine Justice and Color Of Change. Lead With Love returned to Studio BE in 2022 during Essence Festival to collaborate with Rep. Cori Bush, BMike and his nonprofit Eternal Seeds to co-host a day of programming with young students around radical freedom dreams and leadership. The day ended with a signature community event that was free and open to the public.
