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Jialing Zhang: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 7
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Jialing Zhang is an independent filmmaker based in Beijing. She is co-director and editor of Complicit, which follows the intimate journey of a benzene-poisoned Chinese migrant worker who takes on the global electronic manufacturing industry. Lynn also freelances as a local producer for various media including VICE on HBO, Fusion TV, the New York Times, and independent feature documentary projects. She holds a Master’s degree from New York University in documentary filmmaking.
Recently, she co-directed 2017 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee One Child Nation with Nanfu Wang. One Child Nation premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Grand Jury Prize in the US Documentary Competition. The film exposes the devastating consequences of China’s One-Child Policy through the stories of those who lived through it.
Marie Hinson: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 6
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Marie Hinson is an artist and cinematographer who specializes in feature documentaries and commercials and creates site-specific performances and experimental films. As an artist, Marie’s performances, installations, and experimental films have shown in festivals and several group shows. In 2019, she debuted new site-specific performance work, “Stop on the object / move on the image” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is currently working on a writing, performance, and film project about growing up in rural Appalachia as a trans and queer person.
Recently, Marie was a cinematographer and associate producer on Queer Genius which features visionary queer artists Eileen Myles, Barbara Hammer, Black Quantum Futurism and Jibz Cameron. She was also a cinematographer on Alysa Nahmias’ forthcoming documentary about artist Jesse Krimes. She also shot a two year long webseries for Comcast about a massive commissioned art project for their new headquarters which included a Steven Speilberg directed immersive cinematic installation.
Marie’s directorial debut participated in the 2019 Nest Knight Fellowship, with generous support from Knight Foundation. Frank Bey: You’re Going to Miss Me is about an aging blues singer’s return to the stage 17 years after music broke his heart. Frank Bey’s incredible journey reaches a climactic year as he overcomes the loss of his backing band to record his dream album in Nashville.
Stephanie Wang-Breal: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 5
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
A first-generation Chinese American from Youngstown, Ohio, Stephanie Wang-Breal uses film as a tool to subvert the narrative. She is an award-winning filmmaker, commercial director and co-founder of the independent production company, Once in a Blue Films. Wang-Breal has directed three feature length films: Tough Love (2014) and the Nest-supported Wo Ai Ni Mommy (2010) and Blowin’ Up (2018).
She has also directed commercials and short form content with talents and brands such as Tan Dun, Planned Parenthood, Minwax, ESPN, Tiffany & Co, Verifone, and Apple. Wang-Breal’s independent work has been supported and recognized by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, and featured at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Wang-Breal was also awarded a 2019 Chicken & Egg Award, and she resides in Brooklyn, New York with her son and daughter.
Nico Opper: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 4
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Nico Opper is an Emmy®-nominated filmmaker who directed and produced the feature documentary Off and Running, an Audience Favorite at Tribeca and winner of ten international awards including Best Documentary at Outfest and Best Documentary Screenplay at Silverdocs. The film was broadcast nationally on POV, and they received a Fulbright Fellowship to direct Visitor’s Day, which was supported by New York State Council on the Arts, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and The Independent Television Service. Visitor’s Day nationally broadcast on PBS and WORLD Channel.
Recently, they directed and produced the short form docuseries The F Word: A Foster-to-Adopt Story, funded by ITVS for IndieLens Storycast and currently streaming on Soul Pancake in partnership with Participant Media. Season one of The F Word revealed the story of one queer couple adopting from foster care in Oakland, CA and was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series. The second season of The F Word 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 and is supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Impact & Innovation Initiative (past program).
Nico has produced films and television for The Discovery Channel and Here TV, and have been featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film”, Indiewire’s 25 LGBT Filmmakers on the Rise, and most recently DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40”. They have taught filmmaking at Stanford University and San Francisco State University, and is currently an assistant professor at Santa Clara University. In addition to teaching and making films, Nico is the Creative Director of the BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship.
Daresha Kyi: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 3
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Daresha Kyi writes, produces, and directs documentary and narrative film and all kinds of television in Spanish and English. A natural born storyteller, she made her first short, experimental film, Schism, at the age of 16. Currently, she is in post production on the Nest-supported feature documentary Mama Bears about how conservative, Christian mothers are transformed when they decide to accept their LGBTQ children. In 2018, she was commissioned by the ACLU to direct Trans In America: Texas Strong which garnered over 3 million views online, screened at SXSW, won two Webby Awards, and received the Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary in 2019.
In 2017, she co-directed Chavela, a multiple award-winning documentary about iconic singer Chavela Vargas and produced Dispatches From Cleveland. A 2019 Chicken & Egg (Egg)celerator Lab grantee, 2019 Creative Capital Awardee, and 2017-18 Firelight Documentary Lab Fellow, Daresha Kyi has also produced programming for FX, We TV, AMC, Telemundo, and Fuse, among others. She holds a degree in Film and Television from New York University and attended the directing program at the American Film Institute conservatory.
Lynn Novick: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 2
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Lynn Novick has been making documentaries about American history for nearly thirty years. A director and producer, she has been a principal collaborator of Ken Burns since the early 1990s. Together they have been responsible for more than 60 hours of programming and some of the most critically acclaimed and top-rated documentary films and series that have aired on PBS, such as The Vietnam War, an immersive 18-hour epic that aired on PBS in the fall of 2017.
Other credits include Prohibition, The Tenth Inning, and The War. In 1998, Novick was director and producer (with Burns) of the two-part biographical documentary Frank Lloyd Wright, for which she received a Peabody Award. The film was shown at the Sundance, Telluride, Edinburgh, and Seattle Film Festivals.
Novick directed the Nest-supported project College Behind Bars, a documentary series four years in the making which follows a handful of ambitious and inspiring incarcerated students struggling to earn degrees in one of the most rigorous liberal arts college programs in America—the Bard Prison Initiative.
In the four part miniseries, the students debate and discuss American history and mathematics, philosophy and science, Moby Dick and King Lear, DuBois and Arendt, and simultaneously navigate the difficulties and cruelties of prison life and attempt to come to terms with their pasts. College Behind Bars asks several essential questions: What is prison for? Who in America has access to educational opportunity? Can we have justice without redemption? It aired on PBS in November of 2019 and is currently available to stream on the PBS website.
Tiffany Hsiung: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 1
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen Nest-supported women and gender non-conforming filmmakers. For more Dozen Days of Filmmakers, see here.
Tiffany Hsiung is an international award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto who creates socially conscious work and dynamic artistry, sparking a unique energy in the stories of marginalized individuals and communities. Hsiung’s approach to storytelling is driven by the relationship that is built with the people she meets both in front and behind the lens. By shooting much of her own work, Hsiung obtains unobtrusive access to the stories she captures.
Her Nest-supported project The Apology is a film about memory, told through the relationships of three women—all former comfort women who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II—as they fight for reconciliation and justice as they struggle to make peace with the past.
The Apology premiered at Hot Docs in 2016, and then aired on POV on PBS in October 2018. Over the course of the last year, it has received awards like the duPont-Columbia Award and Peabody Award, among others.
Tiffany is a graduate of Ryerson University Film Program and was awarded The Norman Jewison award. Her short film Binding Borders won the Best Toronto Focus Film Award as well as the People’s Choice Award at the 16th annual Cabbage Town Film Festival, and the Grand Jury prize for R.C.I/Canadian Broadcasting Channel, Digital Diversity.
Her work is fundamentally based on cross-cultural and intergenerational themes set to inspire younger generations and viewers to learn about their own cultures – and social responsibility in the global community.
You can keep up with Tiffany’s work on her website here, and follow The Apology on its film blog.
AlumNest Soaring on the Oscars Shortlist!
Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed their annual shortlists, showcasing the films in consideration for nine categories at the 92nd Academy Awards®, including Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject.
We are so happy for our AlumNest filmmakers on the list. Congratulations to all and good luck!
American Factory
2016 Chicken & Egg Award
Directed by Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar
Produced by Steven Bognar, Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder Julie Parker Benello, Jeff Reichert, and Julia Reichert
Shortlisted for Documentary Feature; Streaming on Netflix
Knock Down the House
Directed by Rachel Lears (AlumNest filmmaker, The Hand That Feeds)
Produced by Robin Blotnick, Rachel Lears, and Sarah Olson
Shortlisted for Documentary Feature; Streaming on Netflix
One Child Nation
2017 (Egg)celerator Lab, 2018 Chicken & Egg Award
Directed by Nanfu Wang (2018 Chicken & Egg Award) and Jialing Zhang
Produced by Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christoph Jörg, Christopher Clements, and Carolyn Hepburn
Shortlisted for Documentary Feature; Streaming on Amazon Prime
The Great Hack
Directed by AlumNest filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (AlumNest filmmaker, The Square) and Karim Amer
Produced by Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim, Pedro Kos, Geralyn Dreyfous, and Judy Korin
Shortlisted for Documentary Feature; Streaming on Netflix
Walk Run Cha-Cha
Directed by Laura Nix (2018 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient); Produced by Colette Sandstedt
Shortlisted for Documentary Short Subject; Streaming on New York Times Op-Docs
Nominees will be revealed on Monday, January 13, 2020, and the ceremony will take place Sunday, February 9, 2020.
A Full Nest at Sundance at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival features line-up was announced today, Wednesday December 4, and we are egg-static for the following women filmmakers, who will be premiering their films at the festival in Park City, Utah from Thursday, January 23 to Sunday, February 2, 2020.
Coded Bias
Directed by Shalini Kantayya (Project: Hatched 2020)
Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the US to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.
Once Upon a Time in Venezuela
Directed by Anabel Rodríguez (Project: Hatched 2020)
Once, the village of Congo Mirador was prosperous. Now it is decaying and disintegrating—a prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself.
The Fight
Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres (Project: Hatched 2020)
Inside the ACLU, a team of scrappy lawyers battle Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties.
A Thousand Cuts
Directed by Ramona Diaz (2018 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)*
Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fueled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press—and her freedom—on the line in defense of truth and democracy.
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Directed by Recipient Kirsten Johnson (2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)*
With this inventive portrait, a cameraperson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
*These films were in development during the filmmaker’s Chicken & Egg Award year.
In addition to these directly supported films, our AlumNest filmmakers (the 300+ talented, diverse women nonfiction directors that we have supported throughout our fifteen years as an organization) are also premiering their films at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival:
Aggie
Directed by Catherine Gund (Born to Fly, Dispatches from Cleveland, and What’s on Your Plate?)
The Last Thing He Wanted
Directed by Dee Rees (Eventual Salvation)
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana
Directed by Lana Wilson (2019 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)
Untitled Kirby Dick/Amy Ziering Film
Directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (The Invisible War)
The Mole Agent
Directed by Maite Alberdi (2020 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)
Congratulations to these incredible women filmmakers on their Sundance-bound films. We’ll see you in Park City!
Nest World Premieres & More at IDFA 2019
IDFA has announced that this year’s festival features the highest percentage of women filmmakers in the event’s 31-year history: 64% of competition titles and 47% of the total program. We were egg-static to see that news, plus the world premieres of Number 387 and The Letter at IDFA this year.
IDFA is home of the second and last Chicken & Egg Award retreat of the year, where Award recipients will be taking meetings about their film projects, which are currently in development and production. Plus 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees Milisuthando (working title) and Between Fire and Water and AlumNest filmmaker (A Thousand Girls Like Me) Sahra Mani’s project Kabul Melody will be heading to the IDFA Forum from Sunday, November 24 to Wednesday, November 27.
Check out the Nest-supported films screening at IDFA below:
Number 387
2018 (Egg)celerator Lab
World Premiere — IDFA Competition for Mid-Length Documentary
Directed by Madeleine Leroyer; Produced by Valérie Montmartin
Find showtimes and more information here.
The Letter
2018 Diversity Fellows Initiative (past program)
World Premiere — Frontlight
Directed and produced by Christopher King and Maia von Lekow
Find showtimes and more information here.
Buddha in Africa
Dutch premiere — Best of Fests
Directed and produced by Nicole Schafer
Find showtimes and more information here.
Always in Season
2018 (Egg)celerator Lab
European Premiere — Frontlight
Directed by Jacqueline Olive; Produced by Jacqueline Olive and Jessica Devaney
Find showtimes and more information here.
One Child Nation
2017 (Egg)celerator Lab
Dutch Premiere — Best of Fests
Directed by Nanfu Wang (2018 Chicken & Egg Award) and Jialing Zhang; Produced by Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christoph Jörg, Christopher Clements, and Carolyn Hepburn
Find showtimes and more information here.
AlumNest Films
Flower Punk
International Premiere — Luminous
Directed and produced by AlumNest filmmaker Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) | tickets and more information here
The Brink
Dutch Premiere — Best of Fests, Focus: The Villain
Directed by AlumNest filmmaker Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry); Produced by Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis | tickets and more information here
Desert One
Dutch Premiere — Masters
Directed by AlumNest filmmaker Barbara Kopple (2011 Chicken & Egg Pictures Celebration Award); Produced by Barbara Kopple, David Cassidy, and Eric Forman | tickets and more information here
Shoofting the Mafia
Dutch Premiere — Masters
Directed by AlumNest filmmaker Kim Longinotto (Dreamcatcher); Produced by Niamh Fagan | tickets and more information here