Search Results for: The Racial Terror Project

Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project

SYNOPSIS

Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project is an immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America. It’s a respectful, haunting story infused with magical realism and Afrofuturism about the uninterrupted cycle of the history of white racial oppression—past and present.

Changing Same seeks to confront the US’s history of lynching and examine how the US’s legacy of racial violence continues to influence contemporary issues such as mass incarceration, crime and justice. Changing Same uses time-travel and magical realism to enable participants to experience the evolution of racial violence in the US and make connections between the past and present, as well as contemplate how our history of racism continues to have a lasting effect on human conditions in the US today. At the end of the experience, participants travel to an Afrofuturist world to imagine a more equitable future for all, one that is attentive and accountable to the violences of the past.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Michèle Stephenson looks at the camera, has curly short hair, and wears hoop earrings. Black and white portrait, trees out of focus in the background.Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots to tell compelling, personal stories. Her work has appeared on a variety of platforms, including PBS and Showtime. Her film,  American Promise,  was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary. She was recently awarded the Chicken & Egg Award and is a Guggenheim Fellow and Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow.

 

Joe Brewster is in front of the camera and looking away from it. He wears a white shirt with a bowtie. Portrait in black & white.Joe Brewster uses his psychiatrist training to inform the social issues he tackles as a filmmaker.  Brewster is a Spirit Award and three-time Emmy Award nominee.  His documentary, American Promise, won Jury Prize at Sundance.  Brewster’s outreach accomplishments include a BritDoc Prize for developing one of the most innovative impact campaigns.

Impact & Innovation Initiative grantees announced!

Chicken & Egg Pictures is thrilled to provide support this year to three groundbreaking projects through our Impact & Innovation Initiative.

Image from The F Word: A Foster to Adopt Story, directed by Nico Opper

The F Word: A Foster to Adopt Story, directed by Nico Opper

Season 1 of The F Word revealed the story of one queer couple adopting from foster care in Oakland, CA. Season 2 continues their story while amplifying other voices in the foster care world: birth families, foster youth, adoptees, adoptive parents of color, and social entrepreneurs working to repair a broken system.

Breathe, directed by Winslow Porter and Milica Zec*

A communal experience connecting us through the simple power of existence, Breathe transforms users into Rose, a young girl orphaned after a devastating war. Rose’s life changes drastically after the trauma of living out formative years inside a conflict zone. Through her eyes, viewers live out the greatest joys and most profound struggles from her adolescence to adulthood. Each moment is inextricably shaped by her upbringing—yet she is able to find strength in small interconnected moments with those she loves.
Even as humanity continues to fail and harm each other, Breathe seeks to remind us of the solace we can find in our similarities; we are all human, and we are all connected.

The Racial Terror Project, by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster

The Racial Terror Project is a groundbreaking immersive virtual reality, room-scale installation in which users time travel along the last route of Claude Neal, who was brutally hunted down and lynched by a mob of white men in Florida in 1934, and meet his descendant community today and his ancestors in the era of slavery. The Racial Terror Project tells the story of how our present-day lived experiences of racial violence and discrimination reflect a long, insufficiently-acknowledged history of white racial oppression that dates back to slavery and continues today.

We can’t wait to go along for the journey as these exciting projects push the boundaries of storytelling!

*Chicken & Egg Pictures also supported Tree, the first virtual reality experience in the trilogy that Breathe belongs to.

Eight Nest-supported Films Receive Emmy® Nominations!

Chicken & Egg Pictures sends massive congratulations to the eight Nest-supported films that received a nomination for the 43rd Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards. The honors will be presented live in two ceremonies, with Documentary Categories taking place on Thursday, September 29, 2022, at 7:30 pm EDT.

“Through our mission to advance gender equity in the documentary film industry, Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to support women and nonbinary filmmakers whose work expands our collective consciousness. We congratulate all Nest-supported filmmakers for their tremendous achievements, and for crafting stories that advance social change.” -Jenni Wolfson, Executive Director of Chicken & Egg Pictures.

Check out each nomination below and celebrate the filmmakers and their teams with us:

A Thousand Cuts

dir. & prod. Ramona S. Diaz

prods. Christopher Clements, Julie Goldman, Carolyn Hepburn, Leah Marino

Reflection of Maria Ressa talking on the phone on a rearview mirror.
Still from A Thousand Cuts via Variety

Nominated for: 

  • Outstanding Social Issue Documentary
  • Best Documentary

Supported through Ramona’s 2018 Chicken & Egg Award


Coded Bias

dir. & prod. Shalini Kantayya

Still from Coded Bias

Nominated for: 

  • Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary 

Coded Bias was a Project: Hatched 2020 grantee


Picture a Scientist

dirs. & prods. Sharon Shattuck & Ian Cheney

prod. Manette Pottle

Still from Picture a Scientist

Nominated for: 

  • Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary 

Picture a Scientist was a Project: Hatched 2020 grantee


Pray Away

dir. & prod. Kristine Stolakis

prod. Jessica Devaney and Anya Rous

Still from Pray Away

Nominated for:

  • Outstanding Social Issue Documentary 

Pray Away was a 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee


Simple As Water

dirs. & prod. Megan Mylan

prod. Robin Hessman

Simple As Water still
Still from Simple As Water  

Nominated for:

  • Outstanding Direction: Documentary 

Simple As Water was a 2018 Nest-supported project


Storm Lake

dirs. Beth Levison & Jerry Risius

prod. Beth Levison

Still from Storm Lake

Nominated for:

  • Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary

Storm Lake was a Project: Hatched 2021 grantee


Takeover

dir. Emma Francis-Snyder

prod. Tony Gerber

A photography of a demonstration, there are men an women, some of them wear berets, some raise their fists up, some hold signs, many are screaming something
Still from Takeover

Nominated for:

  • Outstanding Short Documentary 

Takeover is a Project: Hatched 2022 grantee


The Changing Same: An American Pilgrimage

dirs. Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster

prods. Scatter, Rada Studio

A digitally constructed environment in which a cabin is surrounded by enlightened particles. A woman in a bigger scale than the house is in the back.
VR still from The Changing Same: An American Pilgrimage via Creative Capital

Nominated for: 

  • Outstanding Interactive Media: Innovation 

The Changing Same: An American Pilgrimage was supported through the 2017 Impact and Innovation Grant


From the AlumNest  

  • In the Same Breath
    dir. Nanfu Wang
    prods. Jialing Zhang, Carolyn Hepburn, Sara Rodriguez, Julie Goldman, and Christopher Clements 
    Nominated for: Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Best Documentary  

  • Through Our Eyes: Apart  
    dirs. Geeta Gandbhir, Rudy Valdez
    prods. Beth Miranda Botshon, Jessica Devaney, Lisa Diamond, Anya Rous
    Nominated for: Best Short Documentary

Check out the full nominations list with this link.

Congratulations to Kelly Duane de la Vega, Yvonne Welbon, and AlumNest filmmakers on their Academy Membership!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Tuesday 819 new members invited to join their membership ranks, with 36% of invitees from underrepresented racial and ethnic communities and 45% women.

We are so proud to see two Chicken & Egg Pictures team members on the list: Head of Partnerships & Impact Kelly Duane de la Vega and Senior Creative Consultant Yvonne Welbon were invited to the Academy’s documentary branch! Congratulations to Yvonne, Kelly, as well as 9 AlumNest filmmakers on their Academy membership invitation status.

Find the full list of Nest members and grantees joining The Academy and learn more about them below: 

Chicken & Egg Pictures Team

 

Kelly Duane de la Vega, Head of Partnerships & Impact at Chicken & Egg Pictures, plays an integral role in several of our programs, including Docs by the Dozen and Project: Hatched. She is also an independent director, producer, writer, and impact campaign strategist. Her feature documentaries have screened at film festivals worldwide, opened theatrically, and broadcast nationally on POV/PBS and Netflix. Kelly is a member of our AlumNest and was a Nest-supported grantee for The Return

Yvonne Welbon, Senior Creative Consultant at Chicken & Egg Pictures, is an award-winning independent filmmaker, producer, educator, entrepreneur, and consultant. She has successfully produced and distributed over 20 films including Living With Pride: Ruth Ellis @100, winner of ten best documentary awards and Sisters in Cinema, a documentary on the history of black women feature film directors. Her films have been shown on PBS, Starz/Encore, TV-ONE, IFC, Bravo, the Sundance Channel, BET, HBO, and in over 100 film festivals around the world. 

 

AlumNest Filmmakers

 

Cocaine Prison Violeta AyalaVioleta Ayala (Cocaine Prison) is a Quechua film director, producer, writer and artist. She is best known for directing the award winning documentaries Cocaine Prison (2017), The Fight (2017), The Bolivian Case (2015), and Stolen (2009). She is an alumnus of the Film Independent, IFP, Berlinale, HotDocs, and Good Pitch, and is a Tribeca and Sundance Fellow. Violeta writes about the War on Drugs for the Huffington Post and is a recipient of the 2013 Bertha Britdoc Journalism Award.

Julia Bacha (2019 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient, Budrus) is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, Guggenheim fellow, and Creative Director at Just Vision. Her directing credits also include My Neighbourhood (2012) and Naila and the Uprising (2017). 

Sophie Deraspe (The Amina Profile) is one of the leading figures of new Quebec cinema. She directed feature documentary Le profil Amina/A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile, which was selected as a World Cinema Documentary at Sundance and won the Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs. Her feature narrative Antigone was chosen as Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival and represented Canada at the Oscars in the category Best International Feature Film.*

LoveTrue Alma HarelAlma Har’el (LoveTrue) began her work as a photographer and a video jockey in dance clubs, before becoming a music video director. Her film Bombay Beach received a nomination for a 2011 Independent Spirit “Truer than Fiction” Award and has been taught in several universities, including Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Center. Har’el creates narrative work that plunges deep into the heart of imagination and creates surreal, dream-like poetic meditations on life.*

My Perestroika Robin HessmanRobin Hessman (My Perestroika) is a is a documentary filmmaker and independent producer whose most recent film, My Perestroika, premiered at Sundance and received a Peabody Award in 2012. In addition to My Perestroika, Robin is co-producer of the Peabody-Award winning film, Tupperware!, and the PBS biography of Julia Child. 

Nishtha Jain (2020 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient) is a multi-award-winning filmmaker best known for her films Saboot (2019), Gulabi Gang (2012), Lakshmi and Me (2007) and City of Photos (2004); her films are self-reflexive and explore the political in the personal, a recurring theme in her films being work or travail. She is a 2019 Fulbright Scholar and Film Independent Global Media Make. 

The New Black Yoruba RichenYoruba Richen (2016 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient, The New Black) is a documentary filmmakers whose work explores issues of race, space, and power. Her new film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom premiered on the Smithsonian Channel in 2019, and her most recent project The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show was selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. 

Michèle Stephenson (2016 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient, The Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project) pulls from her Caribbean roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling personal stories that resonate beyond the margins.  Her work has appeared on platforms like PBS, Showtime, and MTV. Her newest film Stateless (Apátrida) reveals the depths of racial hatred and institutionalized oppression that divide Haiti and the Dominican Republic and was selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. 

 

Mila Turajlić (2020 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient) is an award-winning director and archive scholar born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her films include The Other Side of Everything and Cinema Komunisto. In 2018, she was commissioned by MoMA to create archive-based video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture.

 

*Sophie Deraspe and Alma Har’el were invited to the Academy under the Directors category. 

Congratulations to all!

Nest-supported Films on POV’s 32nd Season

Egg-cellent news from POV, television’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films, as they announced yesterday the slate for their Season 32 broadcast. Nine out of POV’s sixteen feature films this season are helmed by women directors, and six of those films are Nest-supported projects or by Nest-supported directors.

At Chicken & Egg Pictures, we are so proud to support women filmmakers whose voices are changing the world, one television broadcast at a time. Make sure to set your DVR or stream on pov.org or amdoc.org in order to catch these powerful documentaries:

Roll Red Roll Nancy Schwartzman
Roll Red Roll, directed by Nancy Schwartzman

Roll Red Roll, directed by Nancy Schwartzman will be the opening film for the new season, broadcasting June 17 on all PBS stations and across its platforms and pov.org and amdoc.org.

In small-town Ohio, at a pre-season football party, a horrible incident took place. What transpired would garner national attention and result in the sentencing of two key offenders. As amateur crime blogger Alex Goddard uncovers disturbing evidence on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, documenting the assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team, questions linger around the collusion of teen and adult bystanders. Roll Red Roll explores the complex motivations of both perpetrators and bystanders in this story, unearthing the attitudes at the core of their behavior. The Steubenville story acts as a cautionary tale of what can happen when adults look the other way and deny that rape culture exists. With unprecedented access to police documents, exhibits and evidence, the documentary feature unflinchingly asks: “why didn’t anyone stop it?”

On Her Shoulders, directed by Alexandria Bombach

On Her Shoulders, directed by 2019 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Alexandria Bombach (2018 SXSW LUNA/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient) will broadcast July 22.

This empowering documentary presents 23-year-old Nadia Murad, a Yazidi genocide survivor determined to tell the world her story. Determined advocate and reluctant celebrity, she becomes the voice of her people and their best hope to spur the world to action.

Inventing Tomorrow, directed by Laura Nix
Inventing Tomorrow, directed by Laura Nix

Inventing Tomorrow, directed by 2018 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Laura Nix will broadcast on July 29.

Meet passionate teenage innovators from around the globe who are creating cutting edge solutions to confront the world’s environmental threats – found right in their own backyards – while navigating the doubts and insecurities that mark adolescence. Take a journey with these inspiring teens as they prepare their projects for the largest convening of high school scientists in the world, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

Mudflow Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander
Grit, directed by Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander

Grit, directed by Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander, will broadcast on September 9.

Grit is the story of a huge, toxic mudflow in Indonesia widely believed to be caused by shoddy drilling practices. The mud volcano has been erupting violently for the past eight years, burying 17 villages and permanently displacing 60,000 people. Grit follows ordinary Indonesians seeking justice for this disaster during a national election in which one presidential candidate has promised restitution—and the other has not.

The Feeling of Being Watched Assia Boundaoui 2016 Accelerator Lab
The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui

The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui (2016 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee) will broadcast on October 14.

In the Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago where director Assia Boundaoui grew up, most of her neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers hundreds of pages of declassified FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11—code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal.” With unprecedented access, The Feeling of Being Watched weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community fell under blanket government surveillance.

Blowin’ Up, directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal

Blowin’ Updirected by 2019 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Stephanie Wang-Breal will broadcast on October 21.

Blowin’ Up looks at sex work, prostitution, and human trafficking through the lens of New York State’s criminal justice system. The film captures the growing pains of our nation’s first human trafficking intervention court in Queens, New York, and how we define trafficking and prostitution from many different perspectives: the criminal justice system, the social welfare system, and, most importantly, the women and girls who are at the center of it all.

Changing Same Michèle Stephenson Joe Brewster Impact Innovation Initiative 2018
Changing Same, directed by Michèle Stephenson Joe Brewster

Changing Same, directed by Impact & Innovation Initiative grantees Michèle Stephenson (also a 2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Joe Brewster, is on the second season of POV’s Shorts program, following On Her Shoulders.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is supporting the immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience based on the short film, Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project.

Check your local listings for broadcast times and more information.

Nest-supported Filmmakers at True/False 2019

The True/False Film Festival offers a four-day weekend of creative placemaking in which filmmakers, artists, musicians and others remake the mid-sized college town of Columbia, Missouri.

And we have some egg-cellent news! Four documentaries by Nest-supported filmmakers will be screening at the festival, happening from Thursday, February 28 to Sunday, March 3.

American Factory, directed by Julia Reichert (2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Steve Bognar

Dizzying, hilarious and devastating, this tale of two factories makes for a landmark story of workplace anxiety. Directors Reichert and Bognar have spent a decade documenting the plight of Ohio’s factory workers, and their dedication pays off when they are given astonishing access to Fuyao, a Chinese auto glass manufacturer, as it revives a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton.

  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 2:30PM / Jesse Auditorium
  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 9:15PM / The Globe
  • Saturday, Mar. 2 / 6:30PM / Missouri Theatre
  • Sunday, Mar. 3 / 6:00PM / The Picturehouse

One Child Nation, (2017 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee), directed by Nanfu Wang (also a 2018 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Jialing Zhang

How much control does a person have over their own life? In China, state control begins before a child is even born.

  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 4:30PM / Forrest Theater
  • Saturday, Mar. 2 / 3:15PM / The Picturehouse
  • Saturday, Mar. 2 / 7:00PM / Jesse Auditorium
  • Sunday, Mar. 3 / 9:30AM / Missouri Theatre

Changing Same Michèle Stephenson Joe Brewster Impact Innovation Initiative 2018The Changing Same, directed by Impact & Innovation Initiative grantees Michèle Stephenson (also a 2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Joe Brewster

In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where one native resident runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is supporting the immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience based on their short film. In Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America.

Screens before The Commons:

  • Thursday, Feb. 28 / 7:30PM / Showtime Theater
  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 1:45PM / Forrest Theater
  • Sunday, Mar. 3 / 12:00PM / Showtime Theater
  • Sunday, Mar. 3 / 4:00PM / Jesse Auditorium

Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears (former Nest grantee for The Hand That Feeds)

What’s more important: charismatic political candidates or the behind-the-scenes machine that works to elect them? Knock Down the House gives us both, breathlessly following a new breed of politician alongside a tireless collective of activists enraged by the state of American governance.

  • Thursday, Feb. 28 / 7:00PM / Missouri Theatre
  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 1:30PM / Showtime Theater
  • Friday, Mar. 1 / 10:00PM / Jesse Auditorium
  • Saturday, Mar. 2 / 9:30AM / Showtime Theater

And if you’re not in Columbia, Missouri this weekend, we have some egg-cellent news regarding these women directed documentaries. Netflix has acquired American Factory and Knock Down the House, and Amazon acquired One Child Nation; the three films will be available to stream soon.

The Nest at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Chicken & Egg Pictures is coming to the 2019 Sundance Film Festival! In addition to seeing our filmmakers soar, we are delighted that they are contributing to a festival where 40% of selected films are directed by one or more women, and 53% percent of the directors eligible for the festival’s top prize are women. 

The following Nest-supported projects and filmmakers from our Accelerator Lab and Breakthrough Filmmaker Award programs, along with several directors from our AlumNest, will be celebrating their world premieres.

Jacqueline Olive Always in Season
Always in Season, directed by Jacqueline Olive

Always in Season, directed by Jacqueline Olive (2018 Accelerator Lab)

As the trauma of a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present, Always in Season follows relatives of the perpetrators and victims in communities across the country who are seeking justice and reconciliation in the midst of racial profiling and police shootings. In Bladenboro, NC, the film connects historic racial terrorism to racial violence today with the story of Claudia Lacy who grieves as she fights to get an FBI investigation opened into the death of her seventeen-year-old son, Lennon Lacy, found hanging from a swing set on August 29, 2014. Claudia, like many others, believes Lennon was lynched.

One Child Nation, directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang (2017 Accelerator Lab)

How much control does a person have over their own life? In China, state control begins before a child is even born.

Director Nanfu Wang is also a recipient of the 2018 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award.

American Factory*, directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert (2016 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award)

In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.**

Hail Satan*, directed by Penny Lane (2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award)

A look at the intersection of religion and activism, tracing the rise of The Satanic Temple: only six years old and already one of the most controversial religious movements in American history. The Temple is calling for a Satanic revolution to save the nation’s soul. But are they for real?**

In addition, the following films directed by Nest-supported filmmakers will be featured at the festival:

Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears (director of Nest-supported film The Hand That Feeds with Robin Blotnick)

Shooting the Mafia, directed by Kim Longinotto (director of Nest-supported film Dreamcatcher)

The Great Hack, directed by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim (Jehane is the director of the Nest-supported film The Square)

The Sundance Film Festival will run from January 24 to February 3, 2019. Congratulations to all, and we will see you in Park City! 

 

*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not directly support American Factory and Hail Satan but supported director Julia Reichert and director Penny Lane during their Breakthrough years.

**Synopses courtesy of Sundance Film Festival.

United Skates and Changing Same at the Smithsonian African American Film Festival

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture kicked off its inaugural African American Film Festival on Wednesday, October 24 and runs to Saturday, October 27 with screenings and events happening at the museum, the Freer|Sackler Gallery, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The first of its kind, #AAFest will be a multi-day cinematic experience which celebrates African American culture through both nonfiction and narrative film.  Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to have supported two films at the inaugural festival.

Changing Same Michèle Stephenson Joe Brewster Impact Innovation Initiative 2018
Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Terror Project, directed by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster

The Changing Same, directed by Impact & Innovation Initiative grantees Michèle Stephenson (also a 2016 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient) and Joe Brewster, is screening in competition on Friday, October 26 at 12:45 PM at the Oprah Winfrey Theater in the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where one native resident runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history.”*

Chicken & Egg Pictures is supporting the immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience based on their short film. In Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America.

United Skates Tina Brown Dyana Winkler 2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative
United Skates, directed by Tina Brown and Dyana Winkler

United Skates, directed by Tina Brown and Dyana Winkler (2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative) is also is screening in competition on Friday, October 26 at 4:15PM in the museum’s Oprah Winfrey Theater.

When America’s last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture—one that has remained undiscovered by the mainstream for generations, yet has given rise to some of the world’s greatest musical talent.

The Juried Competition Film Awards is Saturday, October  27 at 10:30 AM. Congratulations to Michèle and Joe and Tina and Diana! See you in DC.

*Synopsis courtesy of the Smithsonian African American Film Festival wesbite.

Taking Flight at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival

Nest-supported filmmakers are taking flight at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the oldest all-documentary festival in North America. Its 27th year will kick off on Friday, October 19 and run to Saturday, October 27 in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Here are the Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films, filmmakers, and friends to see in Hot Springs.

Blowin’ Up, directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal

Monday, October 22 at  10:00AM, Cinema One.

Blowin’ Up looks at sex work, prostitution, and human trafficking through the lens of New York State’s criminal justice system. The film captures the growing pains of our nation’s first human trafficking intervention court in Queens, New York, and how we define trafficking and prostitution from many different perspectives: the criminal justice system, the social welfare system, and, most importantly, the women and girls who are at the center of it all.

The Devil We Know, directed by Stephanie Soechtig

Wednesday, October 24 at 10:00 AM, Cinema Two.

Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical—now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans—into the drinking water supply.

Roll Red Roll, directed by Nancy Schwartzman

Saturday, October 20 at 2:30 PM, Cinema Two.

In small-town Ohio, at a pre-season football party, a horrible incident took place. What transpired would garner national attention and result in the sentencing of two key offenders. As amateur crime blogger Alex Goddard uncovers disturbing evidence on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, documenting the assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team, questions linger around the collusion of teen and adult bystanders. Roll Red Roll explores the complex motivations of both perpetrators and bystanders in this story, to unearth the attitudes at the core of their behavior.

United Skates, directed by Dyana Winkler & Tina Brown  (2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative)

Friday, October 26 at 7:00 PM, Cinema One.

When America’s last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture–-one that has remained undiscovered by the mainstream for generations, yet has given rise to some of the world’s greatest musical talent.

The Changing Same, directed by 2016 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster*

Monday, October 22 at 5:00 PM, Cinema One.

“On October 26, 1934, Claude Neal was brutally lynched by a group of white men who stormed the county jail in Brewton Alabama where Neal was being held after being accused of the murder of a 20 year-old white woman, Lola Cannady. Every October 26, Lamar Wilson, a native of Marianna, Florida who now teaches English at the University of Alabama Birmingham, comes home to run a very particular marathon to commemorate the lynching of Claude Neal. Lamar retraces the route Claude Neal took on that fateful night where he ended up hanged on the courthouse grounds.”**

This Is Home, directed by Chicken & Egg Board of Directors member Alexandra Shiva

Tuesday, October 23 at 1:00 PM, Cinema One.

“A stirring, empathetic documentary chronicling the travails of four Syrian refugee families as they arrive in Baltimore with just eight months’ time allowed to find jobs, learn English, and adapt to life in the U.S. when the sudden 2017 travel ban imposed by the Trump administration further complicates their situation.”***

*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support The Changing Same directly but supported director Michèle Stephenson during her Breakthrough year, as well as Michèle and Joe’s VR project Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project, currently in production.

**Synopsis courtesy of Rada Film Group.

***Synopsis courtesy of Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

Congratulations to all and see you in Arkansas!

Announcing our 2018 Accelerator Lab grantees!

Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to announce the third cohort of our Accelerator Lab for first- and second-time filmmakers!

The Accelerator Lab is focused on identifying and supporting women nonfiction directors working on their first or second feature-length documentary. This program brings together ten projects helmed by first- or second-time directors, with a special focus on underrepresented voices.

“Community-building is key to this program,” says Chicken & Egg Pictures Program Director Lucila Moctezuma. “While the Accelerator Lab for first- and second-time filmmakers certainly helps women filmmakers to enter the industry pipeline, it also provides them with a community of support that helps them to stay in the pipeline. The reality of being a film director is that it can often feel daunting and isolating. By explicitly encouraging peer-to-peer mentorship among our cohort, we provide emerging filmmakers with a chance to bond with and learn from one another, to help one another carve a space for themselves in the industry, and to equip them with the strength of a community they can rely on throughout their careers.”

Synopses of the 2018 Accelerator Lab grantees’ compelling projects are below, and you can get to know the directors by viewing the linked project pages. Grantees will work on these films during their program year.

Our next open call for the Accelerator Lab will take place in the spring of 2018. For additional information on the program, including application criteria, please visit our Programs page.

Congratulations to our newest grantees, and wishing you a fantastic year!

 

Ilinca Calugareanu

A Cops and Robbers Story, directed by Ilinca Calugareanu (ROMANIA / UK)

Corey Pegues, one of the highest ranking black executives in the NYPD, reveals a few months after retirement that before joining the NYPD he worked the streets dealing crack cocaine for one of the most notorious drug gangs in the US, the Supreme Team. To many he is either a perp in cop costume or a criminal turned hero. But who is the real Corey Pegues?

 

Siyi Chen

People’s Hospital, directed by Siyi Chen (CHINA / US)

As the Chinese society criticizes dysfunctional hospitals, a doctor’s daughter revisits the small-town hospital where she grew up—this time with a camera, in the middle of a chaotic ER.

 

Sonia Kennebeck

Enemies of the State, directed by Sonia Kennebeck (MALAYSIA / GERMANY / US)

An average American family becomes entangled in a bizarre web of espionage and corporate secrets when their hacker son is targeted by the U.S. government.

 

 

The Youth, directed by Eunice Lau (SINGAPORE / US) and Arthur Nazaryan (US)

The Youth is an unflinching look at the forces that drive one to adopt an extreme ideology. Through the eyes of a father who seeks to understand how his son is radicalized by the propaganda of the Islamic State Army, The Youth reveals how a Muslim American family is affected by the geopolitics and polemics that fuel the resurgence of reactionary and right-wing political movements. Through this intimate lens on the Somali community in Minnesota, The Youth explores the racism and prejudices against immigrants, the rise of radical Islam, and what it means to be Muslim in contemporary America.

 

Madeleine Leroyer

Number 387, directed by Madeleine Leroyer (FRANCE)

This is the story of a Greek physician who collects pendants and bracelets.
This is the story of an Italian woman who has been fighting for 15 years to “make bodies talk.”
This is the story of those who watch over the forgotten migrants.
Since the beginning of 2016, 3,649 migrants have died while attempting to reach Europe by sea. 3,649 names, the vast majority of which have been diluted in the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean.
What happens to the dead? Who identifies them?
What do the mothers, the brothers do to try to find their missing loved ones?
For years, medical examiners have been trying to give back a name, dignity, a memory to these forgotten souls.
This film tells their story.

 

Marie Lidén

Electric Malady, directed by Marie Lidén (SWEDEN / UK)

Director Marie Lidén grew up with a mother who suffered from an illness that the world did not recognize—Electrosensitivity. Years later, in a technologically advanced world, Marie gives a poignant account of the lives of two electrosensitives: William, a 41-year-old Swedish man, and Tyler, a 13-year-old Canadian boy. Using Marie’s own family story as a thread, the film explores William and Tyler’s isolated worlds and their families’ unrelenting commitment to help their children.

 

Loira Limbal

Through The Night, directed by Loira Limbal (US)

To make ends meet, Americans are working longer hours across multiple jobs. This modern reality of non-stop work has resulted in an unexpected phenomenon: the flourishing of 24-hour daycare centers. Through the Night is a verité documentary that explores the personal cost of our modern economy through the stories of two working mothers and a child care provider, whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center in New Rochelle, NY.

 

Jacqueline Olive

 Always in Season, directed by Jacqueline Olive (US)

As the trauma of a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present, Always in Season follows relatives of the perpetrators and victims in communities across the country who’re seeking justice and reconciliation in the midst of racial profiling and police shootings. In Bladenboro, NC, the film connects historic racial terrorism to racial violence today with the story of Claudia Lacy who grieves as she fights to get an FBI investigation opened into the death of her seventeen-year-old son, Lennon Lacy, found hanging from a swing set on August 29, 2014. Claudia, like many others, believes Lennon was lynched.

 

Jennifer Redfearn

Reentry (working title), directed by Jennifer Redfearn (US)

Women are now the fastest growing population in the U.S. criminal justice system, increasing at nearly double the rate of men. The majority of women going into prison are serving time for drug related charges. This immersive, character-driven film follows three women—who are part of a new reentry program in Cleveland, Ohio—as they prepare to leave prison, reunite with their children, and find jobs after serving time for drug related charges.

 

Writing With Fire, directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh (INDIA)

In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, be it on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues or within the confines of their homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.

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