Documentary filmmaker Kimberley Ferdinando is drawn to deeply personal stories at the intersection of journalism and justice.
Whether she’s exploring the life and legacy of a feminist sex educator (The Disappearance of Shere Hite) or the right-to-die legal battles surrounding Terri Schiavo (Between Life & Death), a common thread binds together many of the films she’s produced.
“They each unmask underlying power structures in society through deeply personal narratives, and question how we can do better to create a more equal and more just world,” said Ferdinando, a 2004 Fordham graduate and the executive producer of NBC News Studios.
She began working on her latest film—The Sing Sing Chronicles—in 2016. That’s when she visited Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez at the maximum-security Sing Sing Correctional Facility, about 30 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, where he’d been serving 25 years to life for a murder he didn’t commit.
“He was a father desperate to get home to his children, and even though there were many glaring issues in his case, he’d exhausted all of his appeals,” Ferdinando said. “I connected with JJ immediately, and it was clear there was an important story to tell.”
Eight years and more than 1,000 hours of archival footage later, The Sing Sing Chronicles— a four-part docuseries—is bringing that story to light. The series premiered at the DOC NYC film festival on November 16, and it aired on MSNBC the following weekend. (It’s available for streaming on the DOC NYC website until December 1).
The Sing Sing Chronicles highlights the bond NBC News crime reporter Dan Slepian formed with Velazquez over two decades—an unlikely connection that led to the exoneration of six men who were wrongfully convicted, including Velazquez, who was granted clemency in 2021 and finally exonerated on September 30 of this year. The docuseries is built on more than 20 years of investigative reporting by Slepian, who also recently authored a book recounting the experience.
As showrunner and executive producer of the series, Ferdinando said she’s extremely proud to be a part of a project detailing the complications of the criminal legal system and how a wrongful conviction can impact generations.
Launching a Media Career at WFUV
The award-winning journalist and filmmaker credits her success to the principles of journalism she learned as an undergraduate at Fordham, where she double majored in communication and media studies and Spanish language and literature. While completing her studies, she worked as an anchor, producer, reporter, and eventually news manager at WFUV, Fordham’s public media station.
“That radio station changed my life,” said the Staten Island native who chose Fordham after becoming familiar with the Lincoln Center campus while attending Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.
She did her first news broadcasts on WFUV shows Mixed Bag with 1967 Fordham grad Pete Fornatale and Vin Scelsa’s Idiot’s Delight, where she continued working five years after graduating.
With 20 years under her belt at NBC, Ferdinando recently returned to the University for “Fordham to the Frontlines: Alumni Journeys in News & Media.” The event, sponsored by the Career Center, featured several other successful grads and brought them together with students—an experience she described as “really heartening.”
“Career paths are unpredictable,” Ferdinando said. “If you don’t put yourself out there and say what you want to be doing, it’s hard to bring that to fruition. We really encouraged them to hone in on what they want to be doing and go after it.”
—Erica Scalise, FCRH ’20
