Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West first came across the name Pauli Murray while working on their Oscar-nominated documentary “RBG.” Murray was a pivotal figure in shaping litigation and thinking around gender and racial equality, years before the civil rights or women’s movements. Murray, who was also Black and gender fluid, organized a sit-in to protest segregated lunch counters in Washington, D.C., in 1943, 17 years before the more well-known Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in. Cohen and West track the extraordinary life of this little-known trailblazer in “My Name is Pauli Murray,” which premieres at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. The mostly virtual festival runs through Wednesday.
Broadcasting Live from the German American Bank Studio