John Legend Among Honorees For Greenwich International Film Festival Changemaker Gala

GREENWICH, CT — The Greenwich International Film Festival is set to hold its annual Changemaker Gala on Thursday at L'Escale in downtown Greenwich, and the night promises to be an inspiring one.

Receiving the prestigious GIFF Changemaker Award will be Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award-winner and musician John Legend, Emmy and Tony Award-winner and producer Mike Jackson, and Emmy Award-winner Ty Stiklorius, a music executive and founder/CEO of Friends At Work.

The three are producers and founders of Get Lifted Film Co., a production company dedicated to uplifting diverse voices through film, theater, publishing and television.

"We're excited. This has been a time when I think more positive stories need to be told, and the work this company is doing is very rewarding," GIFF Executive Director Ginger Stickel told Patch.

"The Changemaker Award is our most prestigious award of the year. We give other awards for filmmakers, we give out inspiration awards, but the Changemaker Award really exemplifies an artist who is also a humanitarian, and somebody who embodies hope and change in a positive way," Stickel added.

Past honorees include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Eva Longoria Baston, Ashley Judd, Renée Zellweger, Christy Turlington Burns, Gretchen Carlson, Freida Pinto, Trudie Styler, Abigail Breslin, Harry Belafonte and Mia Farrow.

"We are honored to be accepting this year’s Changemaker Award from our friends at the Greenwich International Film Festival," said Get Lifted executives in a news release. "From the beginning, Get Lifted Film Co., has worked to make a difference in the culture, not only in what you see on screen and stage, hear in music, and read in books, but also in everyday life for the community."

Thursday's gala will benefit Hill-Freedman Records, the school record label of Hill-Freedman World Academy, a public high school in Philadelphia, Pa., that serves over 95 percent black and brown students with a variety of backgrounds and talents.

To date, Hill-Freedman Records has completed seven albums of student songs, supported largely by independent funding through grants and nonprofit partnerships. Get Lifted Co., has worked with the record label in the past.

"This generous gift of support to our students and program recognizes and affirms the importance of our students’ creative voices and will help them to accomplish their mission to provoke positive change in the world through their music," said Ezechial Thurman, Hill-Freedman Records founder and program director, in a news release.

The school was featured in an HBO documentary that premiered this week, titled "Stand Up & Shout: Songs From a Philly High School." The film is available for streaming on the streaming service Max.

Students from the school will be at the Changemaker Gala for a special performance.

"It's just an incredibly talented group of students who are creating their own music. They're writing it, they're performing it. We are blessed and excited to have a small group of students coming to the Changemaker Gala to treat our audience to a performance," Stickel added. "We are a festival that is about the arts, so the fact that we're benefiting a school that has a focus in the arts and specifically in music is really exciting."

There will also be other special performances on Thursday by Adrienne Warren, who won a Tony Award for her role as Tina Turner in "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical," and Country Music Award-nominees The War & Treaty.

Blessing Offor, a past finalist on "The Voice" and friend of GIFF, will close out the performances for the night.

Actor Jay Ellis will lead an awards presentation, and MSNBC's Katy Tur will moderate a Q&A session with Legend, Jackson and Stiklorius about how Get Lifted Co., came to be. An after-party will also feature DJ April Larkin.

"I do think it's going to be an inspiring evening," Stickel said. "I think the audience should come in expecting the unexpected."

Tickets are still available for Thursday's gala. For more information on Get Lifted Co., and Hill-Freedman World Academy, check out the GIFF website.

With the 2023 GIFF program winding down, residents should be on the lookout for programming in 2024. Information on GIFF memberships can be found here.