A crowd of about 150 peppered filmmaker and 2000 Brown graduate Jeff Zimbalist with questions about how he’s managed to survive and thrive as a filmmaker, during the 13th annual Casey Shearer Memorial Lecture on Friday, April 5, 2013. Zimbalist, who won international acclaim for his films The Two Escobars and Favela Rising, jokingly replied that it was amazing that he didn’t get killed in making the films, which looked at the role of drug money in the rise of Colombian soccer and how a Brazilian squatter settlement chose to stand up to the teenage drug armies and corrupt police force. When asked what attributes were most important to success, he chose perseverance, for it gives one the ability to keep things moving in spite of the odds presented. Zimbalist was a classmate of Casey Shearer for whom the event was held.