What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — until now.
When Ruby Duncan faces the stigma and harassment of a fraud-obsessed and broken system she ignites “Mother Power,” mobilizing a welfare rights group to march down the Strip demanding dignity, justice, democratic participation, and an adequate income in 1971.
Based on the book Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty by Annelise Orleck, the film challenges the pernicious lie of the “Welfare Queen,” and highlights the visionary leadership of low-income grassroots organizers whose courage, tenacity and dreams could not be quashed, against all odds.
The book has been revised and updated to accompany the PBS Broadcast of Storming Caesars Palace.
Filmmaker Hazel Gurland-Pooler with Ruby Duncan
Storming Caesars Palace was nominated for Best Documentary Feature and won the Shine Award for a first-time filmmaker at BlackStar Film Festival in 2022. Hazel and the film received support from Big Sky Pitch, Black Public Media’s Incubator 360+ and PitchBLACK, Firelight Media's Documentary and Impact Labs, Film Independent's Documentary Lab, The Gotham’s Film & Media Institute, and Brown Girl Doc Mafia’s Feedback Loop.
Previously, Hazel directed 10 episodes of PBS’s celebrity genealogy series, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. By exploring pioneering ancestors, immigrant roots from around the world, and our DNA, Hazel hopes that viewers will realize that we are more similar to each other than we are different.
Hazel created and produced a five-part, shorts doc series about the daily lives of often-overlooked, low-income New Yorkers called, My Everyday Hustle. Part of WNET's multi-platform public media initiative, Chasing the Dream: Poverty & Opportunity in America, the series streamed on PBS.org and broadcast on PBS’ WORLD channel in 2017.
Hazel produced Roots: A History Revealed for HISTORY, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary Television. Produced in connection with A&E’s reboot of Alex Haley’s mini-series Roots, this special provided an unflinching look at the history of slavery in America. The director’s cut screened at the Bushwick Film Festival in 2016.
Hazel co-produced two hours of the six-hour series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was honored with an Emmy, a Peabody, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia baton, and the NAACP Image award.
Hazel has worked on documentaries for HBO, FRONTLINE, AMC, ABC News, HISTORY, and A&E. She has degrees from Bard College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and lives in NYC with her family.