Ai-jen Poo and Lydia Storie Start Give Not Take Media to Create Content on Care, Aging, and Disability

Ai-jen Poo and Lydia Storie Launch Give Not Take Media

Ai-jen Poo and Lydia Storie, executive producers of the award-winning Sundance film Take Me Home, have announced the founding of Give Not Take Media. This new production company is dedicated to developing film and television projects that explore themes of care, aging, and disability.

Poo co-founded Caring Across Generations, an advocacy organization focused on family care, which has been involved in projects such as The Pitt and Night Bitch. Storie brings considerable industry experience, having worked at Original Media, Endemol Studios, and Muse Entertainment, among others. Give Not Take Media is backed by Caring Across Generations, with Poo and Storie at the forefront.

Take Me Home, directed by Liz Sargent, premiered at Sundance this year and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. The film narrates the journey of a cognitively disabled woman caring for her aging parents, serving as a feature-length adaptation of Sargent’s earlier short film of the same name, which also debuted at Sundance in 2023. The feature will have its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Perspectives section.

Poo and Storie, who served as executive producers for the film, previously organized a White House screening for the short film. Their involvement played a crucial role in initiating the feature-length project, including addressing access needs on set.

As the new production company launches, Sargent emphasized the importance of Poo and Storie’s support in her filmmaking process. “Their support—creative, practical, and unwavering—gave me the freedom to make this film, seeing an unconventional lead was the bold and strongest choice,” she said. “They champion filmmaker-forward storytelling, with a sense of care that lives both in front of and behind the camera—an understanding that how we make a film impacts the creative result.”

Storie expressed excitement about the company’s mission, stating, “We’re absolutely thrilled to launch Give Not Take Media to grow our work finding creative funding solutions and supporting artists, while advancing our pro-social mission.”

Poo added that the new label aims to ensure that film and television more accurately represent the complexity and humanity of caregiving experiences. “Give Not Take Media will leverage a generational opportunity to change our culture in America, to better value and support what matters most,” she remarked.