Search Results for: black mothers
Black Mothers Love & Resist
SYNOPSIS
Black Mothers Love & Resist is the first feature-length documentary to examine the “Mothers of the Movement,” a growing, nationwide network of mothers whose African-American children have been killed or attacked in acts of racist violence. With unprecedented access, the film is a character-driven exploration of these Black mothers’ efforts to heal through solidarity and sustained organizing. The film is also a journalistic investigation of the strategies employed by the mothers to bring their children’s attackers to justice and the political pathways that have opened up as a result of their organizing.
Black Mothers is a participant of the 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Débora Souza Silva is a documentary filmmaker whose work examines systemic racism and inequality. Her work has been featured on PBS, BBC, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, and Fusion. Silva started her career as a TV reporter in Brazil before moving to California to pursue a Master in Journalism at UC Berkeley. She is a recipient of the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant, the Investigative Reporting Program fellowship, Tribeca All Access® grant, The Center for Investigative Reporting film-residency, SFFILM’s residency, Athena Works-In-Progress fellowship, Glassbreaker Films grant, Berkeley Film Foundation grant, Fork Films grant, and the Firelight Media Documentary Lab Fellowship.
Sol in the Garden
SYNOPSIS
A day after her 19th birthday, Sol shot and killed a rival gang member. After a five-year fight against the death penalty, she was sentenced to 31 years in prison to life with parole. Little did she know that her incarceration would lead her to a new passion: gardening. “Gardening is my freedom,” says Sol, echoing the words of South African leader Nelson Mandela, who gardened during his incarceration in the apartheid regime. Sol learned about the power of gardening through the Insight Garden Program located in 11 prisons in California. For Sol, gardening is a way to map memory and transform its landscape into something more beautiful than what had been formerly sown—sexual abuse, gang, and gun violence.
After release from prison, Sol (Sun in Spanish) re-discovers East Oakland through utopian visions and community gardening with Oakland’s Planting Justice worked by the formerly incarcerated and for the community. Through gardening and reflection, Sol—who became a passionate activist against gun violence and mass incarceration—creates new memories and a vision for Oakland as a place where she heals and transforms her own community. Her backstory as a Sureños gang member provides a stark contrast to her life-giving gardening practice today.
Sol in the Garden is a 2022 Critical Issues Fund grantee.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR-PRODUCERS
Débora Souza Silva (she/her) is a documentary filmmaker whose work examines systemic racism and inequality. Her work has been featured on PBS, BBC, The NYT, and Fusion. She is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award, a Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Egg(celerator) Lab grantee, and a Firelight Media Documentary Lab fellow. Her work has also been funded by Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Fork Films, Catapult Film Fund, Berkeley Film Foundation, Sisters in Cinema, California Film Institute, and Cal Humanities, among other organizations. Black Mothers Love & Resist, her debut feature documentary, follows the mothers behind the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Emily Cohen Ibañez (she/her) is a Latinx filmmaker based in Oakland who earned her doctorate in Anthropology with a certificate in Culture and Media at New York University. Her film work pairs lyricism with social activism, advocating for labor, environmental, and health justice. Her documentary Bodies At War/Mina (2015) premiered at El Festival de Cine de Bogotá. Her short films reach wide audiences internationally, including distribution through The Guardian, The Intercept, and Independent Lens online. Emily’s work has been funded by JustFilms Ford Foundation, Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Sundance, and Fulbright, among other organizations. Her feature documentary debut, Fruits Of Labor had its world premiere at SXSW 2021; it has won multiple awards on the festival circuit.
The Nest at Big Sky Documentary Film Fest
The 20th annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival took place from February 17 through February 26 in Montana. We were proud to see four Nest-supported films and seven AlumNest films in the line-up, as well as a retrospective dedicated to 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Penny Lane.
Black Mothers Love & Resist
dir. & prod. Débora Souza Silva
prod. David Felix Sutcliffe, Adina Luo
Black Mothers Love & Resist is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
The Hamlet Syndrome
dirs. Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolowski
prod. Magdalena Kaminska
The Hamlet Syndrome was supported through Elwira Niewira’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
From the AlumNest
Nest-supported filmmaker Penny Lane was selected as the 2023 Retrospective artist. The retrospective includes six films directed by Lane from 2010 to today, including Nest-supported Hail Satan?, The Pain of Others; and Nuts!, Our Nixon, and The Voyagers.
- For the Record
dir. & prod. Heather Courtney
prod. Paul Stekler - Sealed in Blood
dir. Sofian Khan
prod. J. Motts - Lily Gladstone: Far Out There
dir. & prod. Brooke Pepion Swaney
prod. Jeri Rafter
Lily Gladstone: Far Out There will being having its World Premiere
Post written by Spring intern Tess Caldwell
Nest-supported films at San Francisco International Film Festival!
We are egg-cited to see three Nest-supported filmmakers, and two AlumNest filmmakers participating at the 65th San Francisco Film Festival, taking place from Thursday, April 22 through Sunday May 1, with a full in-person lineup.
Mija
dir. & prod. Isabel Castro
prod. Tabs Breese, Yesenia Tlahuel
With Doris’ voice as our guide, Mija uses VHS archive, verité footage, and camcorder vlogging to tell the story of two young women’s coming-of-age journeys as they look for success and belonging. The film is an immensely emotional and intimate portrait honoring the resilience of immigrants and their children.
Mija is a 2021 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the McBaine Documentary Feature Competition.
Black Mothers Love & Resist
dir. & prod. Débora Souza Silva
prod. David Felix Sutcliffe
Wanda Johnson and Angela Williams, mothers of young Black men victimized by police brutality, come together and build a network of community-led support, mutual aid, and healing in this trenchant documentary.
Black Mothers Love & Resist is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Documentaries: USA section.
Midwives
dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
prods. Bob Moore, Ulla Lehmann, Mila Aung-Thwin
A tale of the complicated relationship between Rohingya and Buddhists in Myanmar, told over five years through the eyes of two midwives from either side of the divide.
Midwives is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Documentaries: USA section.
From the AlumNest
- The Janes
dirs. Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes
prods. Emma Pildes, Daniel Arcana, Jessica Levin - TikTok, Boom.
dir. & prod. Shalini Kantayya
prods. Ross M. Dinerstein, Danni Mynard
A special shout out to our Co-Founder & Board President Julie Parker Benello, producer of Sell/Buy/Date (dir. & prod. Sarah Jones, prods. David Goldblum, Julie Parker Benello), screening in the Documentaries: USA section.
Check out the full line-up with this link.
Six Nest-supported filmmakers receive The Spark Fund!
We are egg-tremely proud to see six Nest-supported filmmakers among Firelight Media Spark Fund’s 36 recipients. This one-time opportunity offers a $50,000 stipend to established, independent documentary filmmakers who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) and whose work on humanities-themed projects was disrupted by the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Congratulations to all the recipients!
2016 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Assia Boundaoui (The Feeling of Being Watched)
2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Débora Souza Silva (Black Mothers)
Nest-supported filmmaker Farihah Zaman (Remote Area Medical)
2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Grace Lee (American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs)
2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Michèle Stephenson
Nest-supported filmmaker Vaishali Sinha (Made in India)
We are sending an extra special congratulations to our Senior Creative Consultant Yvonne Welbon, who was also selected as one of the recipients.
Check out the full list of recipients and learn more about them with this link.
A Half Dozen Nest-supported Films at Hot Docs This Year!
Hot Docs Film Festival, the largest doc festival in North America, is on now until May 9. Get your tickets here, and watch the following Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films at the virtual festival:
- Apart, dir. Jennifer Redfearn | International Premiere
- Bangla Surf Girls, dir. Elizabeth D. Costa | World Premiere
- Between Fire and Water, dirs. Viviana Gómez Echeverry and Anton Wenzel | North American Premiere
- Through the Night, dir. Loira Limbal
- Writing with Fire, dirs. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh
- Users, dir. Natalia Almada
AlumNest films:
- In the Same Breath, dir. Nanfu Wang | International Premiere
- Until Further Notice, dir. Tiffany Hsiung
(Egg)celerator Lab granted films participating in the Hot Docs Forum:
- Against the Tide, dir. Sarvnik Kaur
- Black Mothers, dir. Débora Souza Silva
- The Last Nomads, dir. Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić
Announcing 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees!
Announced via Women & Hollywood today, we are proud to present the ten grantees of the 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab for emerging documentary filmmakers, set to receive a total of $400,000 toward their first or second feature-length documentaries.
This year, participants hail from eight different countries including Brazil, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Spain, and include filmmakers such as Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund recipient Snow (Hnin Ei Hlaing), PitchBLACK winner Nailah Jefferson, and Emmy-winning producer Violet Du Feng. Several films in this cohort explore similar themes through vastly different subjects: A Photographic Memory, Black Mothers, and Machtat tell stories of motherhood through art and memory, racial injustice, and marriage in the context of patriarchy. Commuted and Polaris are both stories of women’s lives after incarceration, one taking place in New Orleans and the other between France and the Arctic.
Please click the granted film’s titles for more information on each project and give these women filmmakers a warm welcome to the Nest.
Hidden Letters
Directors: Violet Du Feng, Zhao Qing (CHINA)
Two young Chinese Millennials in rural and metropolitan China look toward the wisdom of an ancient, secret woman-only script in order to navigate their lives in a world still dominated by men.
Eskape
Director: Neary Adeline Hay (CAMBODIA/FRANCE)
The survival story of a mother and her daughter, the filmmaker, through the desperate flight from a crumbling Cambodia after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Midwives
Director: Snow (Hnin Ei Hlaing) (MYANMAR)
Two midwives work side by side in a makeshift medical clinic.
Commuted
Director: Nailah Jefferson (US)
Commuted is an intimate look at the life of Danielle Metz and the familial impacts of long-term incarceration.
All of Our Heartbeats Are Connected Through Exploding Stars (previously Stories from the Debris)
Director: Jennifer Rainsford (SWEDEN/UK)
With the Japanese Tsunami of 2011 as a backdrop, All of Our Heartbeats Are Connected Through Exploding Stars assembles a collection of poetic stories about how humans and nature rebuild after trauma.
The Boy and the Suit of Lights
Director: Inma de Reyes (SPAIN/SCOTLAND)
Hoping to rescue his family from poverty, young Borja is torn between tradition and progress as he trains to fulfil his family’s dream of him becoming a bullfighter.
Black Mothers
Director: Débora Souza Silva (BRAZIL)
Violence. Outrage. Impunity. Repeat. Black Mothers follows the journey of two women working to disrupt the cycle of racist police violence within our country’s judicial system.
A Photographic Memory
Director: Rachel Elizabeth Seed (US)
A photographer attempts to piece together a portrait of her mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, a daring journalist and a woman she never knew. Uncovering the vast archive Turner-Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers, the film explores memory, legacy, and stories left untold.
Machtat
Director: Sonia Ben Slama (FRANCE/TUNISIA)
Machtat chronicles the daily life of Fatma and her daughters Najeh and Waffeh, wedding musicians in a small town in Tunisia.
Polaris
Director: Ainara Vera (SPAIN)
Polaris tells the story of two French sisters with opposite lives that reconnect with one another to support the life of a newborn baby.
Note: The parentheses next to the directors’ names indicate the directors’ country or countries of origin.
Announcing our 2022 Critical Issues Fund Grantees!
We are proud to present the twelve grantees selected for the 2022 Critical Issues Fund. The Critical Issues Fund supports filmmakers, with more than $250,000 in funding, whose work is focused on important and topical issues that are currently having a decided and material impact on communities domestically and internationally. The 2022 grant awardees have projects exploring some of the most pressing issues of the moment: the war in Ukraine, gun violence, reproductive justice, and climate emergencies.
“Through the Critical Issues Fund, we have identified films that have the potential to drive social change by sharing these stories with the world now—not years down the line. Chicken & Egg Pictures cares deeply about these issues and believes that a more equitable and just world can be shaped by the power of documentary films. Our hope is that through highlighting these stories told by talented women filmmakers, others will be motivated to action to support the films and the issues they highlight,” said CEO of Chicken & Egg Pictures, Jenni Wolfson. “We live in a world that’s not doing enough to prevent war, gun violence, climate change, or advance reproductive justice. We firmly believe these films can help in the fight for these issues.”
We are thrilled to give these filmmakers a warm welcome to the Nest. The 2022 Critical Issues Fund grantees are:
After Roe (Working title)
Directors: Amber Fares, Geeta Gandbhir (US/CANADA)
After Roe explores the ongoing nationwide battle playing out after the Supreme Court left the fate of tens of millions of women in the hands of politicians across the country.
Breaking the News
Directors: Heather Courtney, Chelsea Hernandez, Princess Hairston (US)
Producer: Diane Quon
Breaking the News follows a group of women and non-binary journalists, bucking the white male status quo, to launch The 19th*—a digital news startup that asks who has been omitted from mainstream coverage and how they can be included.
Displaced
Director: Olha Zhurba (UKRAINE)
Producer: Darya Bassel
Displaced captures a collective portrait of Ukrainians fleeing the grindstones of war, and those who stayed and are forced to adapt to life under constant shelling.
Frontline
Director: Alisa Kovalenko (UKRAINE)
Producer: Katarzyna Kuczyńska
Co-producers: Monica Hellström, Valeryi Kalmykov
Frontline is a diary from the frontline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine by a director and mother turned soldier.
Hollywood Does Abortion (Working title)
Directors & Producers: Barbara Attie, Mike Attie, Janet Goldwater (US)
Producer: Eliza Licht
Hollywood Does Abortion explores descriptions of abortion in film and television, revealing how Hollywood both reflects and distorts this safe but controversial medical procedure.
Intercepted
Director: Oksana Karpovych (UKRAINE/CANADA)
Producer: Les Films Cosmos
Intercepted is a journey through Ukraine that reveals the banality of evil behind the Russian invasion.
Plan C
Director & Producer: Tracy Droz Tragos (US)
Plan C follows the journey of a grassroots network, with a controversial visionary at the helm, as they fight to expand access to abortion pills across the United States, and keep hope alive during a global pandemic and the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Razing Liberty Square
Director: Katja Esson (GERMANY/US)
Razing Liberty Square features Miami as ground zero for sea level rise. When residents of the Liberty Square public-housing community learn about a $300-million revitalization project in 2015, they soon discover that this sudden interest comes from the fact that their neighborhood is located on the highest and driest ground in the city. Now they must prepare to fight a new form of racial injustice: climate gentrification.
Red Zone
Director: Iryna Tsilyk (UKRAINE)
Producer: Darya Bassel
Red Zone shares Tsilyk’s very intimate and female perspective on the question—what does it mean to be a woman in the war times?
Sol in the Garden
Directors: Emily Cohen Ibañez, Débora Souza Silva (US/COLOMBIA/BRAZIL)
Sol in the Garden features Sol—who is released from prison after 16 years of incarceration—and follows her journey as she discovers that coming into her own freedom can be as challenging as living behind bars. Through a community gardening collective of formerly incarcerated horticulturalists in East Oakland, Sol strives to recover her humanity and sense of self.
Untitled Baby Doe Film
Director: Jessica Earnshaw (CANADA)
Producer: Holly Meehl Chapman
Untitled Baby Doe Film intimately explores the phenomena of pregnancy denial through the stories of two women, a generation apart, given life sentences for the deaths of their newborns.
Untitled Uvalde Documentary
Director & Producer: Anayansi Prado (PANAMA/US)
Note: The parentheses next to the directors’ names indicate the directors’ country or countries of origin.
7 Supported Films to Stream at the Cleveland International Film Festival
There’s plenty to stream at the 2021 Cleveland International Film Festival, which runs virtually from Wednesday, April 7 to Tuesday, April 20 on their website.
Granted films featured in the online festival include four 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees: A Cops and Robbers Story, Apart, Through the Night, and Writing With Fire, as well as three additional Nest-supported films. The (Egg)celerator Lab supports first- and second-time filmmakers who are working on a feature length documentary, with a special focus on underrepresented voices. Learn more about the films below, and get your tickets here. Online stream tickets are just $10!
Apart, dir. Jennifer Redfearn
The number of women in U.S. prisons has grown by 800% over the past 40 years. And the vast majority are mothers. In a Midwestern state caught between the opioid epidemic, drug sentencing, and rising incarceration for women, three unforgettable mothers—Tomika, Lydia, and Amanda— return home from prison and rebuild their lives after being separated from their children for years.
Apart participated in the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab.
A Cops and Robbers Story, dir. Ilinca Calugareanu
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?
A Cops and Robbers Story participated in the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab.
The Dilemma of Desire, dir. Maria Finitzo
An exploration of “cliteracy,” and the clash between the gender politics and the imperatives of female sexual desire.
The Dilemma of Desire participated in Project: Hatched 2020.
Down A Dark Stairwell, dir. Ursula Liang
A nuanced look at how two communities of color navigate an uneven criminal justice system, anchored by one polarizing New York City case.
Landfall, dir. Cecilia Aldarondo
Through shard-like glimpses of everyday life in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, Landfall examines a ruined world at the brink of transformation, spinning a cautionary tale for our times.
Landfall participated in Project: Hatched 2020.
Through the Night, dir. Loira Limbal
To make ends meet, Americans are working longer hours across multiple jobs. This modern reality of nonstop 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.
Through the Night participated in the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab. Director Loira Limbal is supported through the 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
Writing with Fire, dirs. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh
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.
Writing With Fire participated in the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab.
In the Same Breath, dir. Nanfu Wang is also screening at the festival. Chicken & Egg Pictures supported Nanfu’s previous film, as well as supported Nanfu through the 2018 Chicken & Egg Award.
Q
SYNOPSIS
For over fifty years, a Syrian movement has been secretly growing into the largest Muslim women’s organization in the world. Through a generational lens, Q takes us deep into the mysterious, unspoken world of the Qubaysiat, the regime-loving Sufis turned cult, through director Jude Chehab, her mother, and her grandmother’s relationship to the group. Q is a journey exploring the inner life of a family where the mothers taught their daughters to love a stranger over one another and themselves, and the abuses, struggles, and triumphs that arose from such an unnatural reality—Q is a story that doesn’t end when Jude calls “cut.”
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Jude Chehab is a Lebanese-American filmmaker who has worked on films in Somalia, Sudan, and Pakistan. Her cinematic interests have drawn Jude to the exploration of the esoteric, the spiritual, and the unspoken. Her work has been awarded fellowships and funding through Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), NeXt Doc, Points North Institute, Firelight Media, and CloseUp. Jude is currently in production on her first feature documentary based in Lebanon and has been supported by International Documentary Association, Independent Television Service (ITVS), Tribeca Film Institute, and Sundance Institute.