Ascension Soars at Cinema Eye Honors!
Huge congratulations to the Ascension team for picking up three awards at the 15th Annual Cinema Eye Honors: Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score, and Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film.
Plus a special shoutout to AlumNest filmmakers Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, and the In the Same Breath team for their win in the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Film For Broadcast.
Ascension
dir. & prod. Jessica Kingdon
prods. Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nathan Truesdell
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Jessica Kingdon and Nathan Truesdell
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score
Dan Deacon
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
Jessica Kingdon
Ascension examines the contemporary “Chinese Dream” through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. In cinematically exploring the aspiration that drives today’s People’s Republic of China, the film plunges into universal paradoxes of economic progress.
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Film For Broadcast
In the Same Breath
dir. Nanfu Wang
prods. Jialing Zhang, Carolyn Hepburn, Sara Rodriguez, Julie Goldman, and Christopher Clements
Take a look at the complete list of award winners by visiting 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.
Chicken & Egg Pictures at SXSW 2022!
We are egg-stremely excited to see two Nest-supported films and four AlumNest films in the SXSW 2022 line-up! For the first time in two years, films will have in-person screenings (most will also have online screenings afterwards).
The festival will take place in Austin, Texas, from Friday, March 11 through Sunday, March 20. Take a look at the films from the Nest below:
Mama Bears
dir. & prod. Daresha Kyi
prod. Laura Tatham
Mama Bears is an intimate exploration of two “mama bears”—conservative, Christian mothers who have become fierce advocates for LGBTQ+ people—and a young lesbian whose struggle for self-acceptance exemplifies why the mama bears are so important.
Mama Bears is a 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee, and is participating in SXSW World Premiere – Documentary Feature Competition.
Get your tickets with this link.
Sign up for the Mama Bears doc newsletter to receive updates from the film team.
Boycott
dir & prod. Julia Bacha
prod. Suhad Babaa, Daniel J. Chalfen
When a news publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona and a speech therapist in Texas are told to choose between their jobs and their political beliefs, they launch legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech in 33 states in America.
Boycott was supported through Julia Bacha’s 2019 Chicken & Egg Award, and is a SXSW Texas Premiere–Festival Favorites (Acclaimed standouts from festivals around the world).
Get your tickets with this link.
Sign up for the Boycott newsletter to receive updates from the film team.
AlumNest films
Look At Me
dir. Sabaah Folayan (Whose Streets?)
prods. Darcy McKinnon, Chloe Campion
Video Visit
dir. & prod. Malika Zouhali-Worrall (2019 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)
Descendant
dir. & prod. Margaret Brown (The Great Invisible)
prods. Kyle Martin, Essie Chambers
TikTok, Boom.
dir. & prod. Shalini Kantayya (Coded Bias)
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 SXSW World Premiere – Visions.
Check out the full line-up by visiting this link.
Nest-supported Films at Big Sky Film Festival
We are happy to see Project: Hatched 2021 grantee Daughter of a Lost Bird, Nest-supported film Boycott, and AlumNest film A Decent Home in the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival line-up. The 19th edition of the festival will take place in Missoula, Montana, with in-person screenings from Friday, Feb. 18 through Sunday, Feb. 27, and access to the virtual program from Monday, Feb. 21 through Thursday, Mar. 3.
Daughter of a Lost Bird
dir. & prod. Brooke Pepion Swaney
prods. Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, Jeri Rafter
A Native adoptee reconnects with her birth family and her Lummi heritage—confronting her identity. Her singular story represents many affected by the Indian Child Welfare Act and Indian Adoption Project in the US.
Get your tickets to watch in-person or online with this link.
Boycott
dir & prod. Julia Bacha
prod. Suhad Babaa, Daniel J. Chalfen
Boycotts have long been a tool used by Americans rallying for social and political change, from civil rights leaders to anti-apartheid activists. But in recent years, 33 US states have introduced anti-boycott legislation or executive orders designed to penalize individuals and companies who choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. Boycott looks at the cases of a news publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona, and a speech therapist in Texas whose careers are threatened by the harsh measures of these new laws. A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center, the film is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.
Boycott was supported through Julia Bacha’s Chicken & Egg Award.
Get your tickets to watch in-person or online with this link.
From the AlumNest
A Decent Home
dir. & prod. Sara Terry
prods. Alysa Nahmias, Sara Archambault, Gretchen Landau
A Decent Home addresses urgent issues of class and economic (im)mobility through the lives of mobile home park residents who can’t afford housing anywhere else.
Get your tickets to watch in-person or online with this link.
Meet Our Team at Big Sky Film Festival
Filmmaker Engagement Manager Jaad Asante will be attending the festival from Wednesday, February 23 to Saturday, February 26. If you are there, catch up with her!
Take a look at the full line-up with this link.
Ascension and Writing With Fire Nominated for the 94th Academy Awards!
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed their 2022 Oscar® nominations list on Tuesday, February 8. We are egg-static and sending massive congratulations to the two (Egg)celerator Lab grantees nominated for Best Documentary Feature: Ascension and Writing With Fire.
The in-person ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 27 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, and will be televised on ABC. Please join us and celebrate these films and filmmakers!
Ascension
dir. & prod. Jessica Kingdon
prods. Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nathan Truesdell
Ascension examines the contemporary “Chinese Dream” through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. In cinematically exploring the aspiration that drives today’s People’s Republic of China, the film plunges into universal paradoxes of economic progress.
Ascension participated in the 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab.
Writing With Fire
dirs. & prods. Rintu Thomas & 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.
Check out a video of the filmmakers receiving the news with this link.
Read the full nomination list visiting this link.
AlumNest filmmakers nominated for the NAACP Image Awards!
We were honored to see three Chicken & Egg Award filmmakers on the nominations list for the 53rd annual NAACP Image Awards, recognizing achievements by Black artists across film, TV, literature, music, and more.
Congratulations to all the nominees! Tune in to the live ceremony on Saturday, February 26 at 8 pm ET on BET.
Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer
dir. and prod. Dawn Porter
2017 Chicken and Egg Award recipient Dawn Porter was nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture).
Black and Missing
dirs. Samantha Knowles, Yoruba Richen, Geeta Gandbhir, Nadia Hallgren
prods. Samantha Knowles, Nimco Sheikhaden
Two Chicken & Egg Award recipients Yoruba Richen and Geeta Gandbhir were nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture). Both were directors on the four-part HBO documentary.
Yoruba Richen was also honored with nominations for Outstanding Documentary for her films American Masters: How It Feels To Be Free*, prod. Julie Sacks, and High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America**, prods. Jonathan Clasberry, Christina Lenis, Lauren Vance.
Check the full nomination list with this link.
*Film developed during Yoruba Richen’s Chicken & Egg Award year
**Yoruba directed the episode: Freedom.
Midwives Wins Special Jury Award at Sundance 2022!
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival Awards were announced on Friday, January 28. Chicken & Egg Pictures was egg-static to see 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Midwives and Nest-supported filmmaker Margaret Brown receive Special Jury awards from the festival, which was held online from Thursday, January 20 to Sunday, January 30.
Congratulations!
Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Excellence In Vérité Filmmaking
Midwives
dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
prods. Bob Moore, Ulla Lehmann, Mila Aung-Thwin
Check out 2017 Chicken and Egg Award recipient Dawn Porter presenting the Award with this link.
A special congratulations to AlumNest filmmaker Margaret Brown (The Great Invisible) on receiving the U.S. Documentary Competition Special Jury Award: Creative Vision for Descendant!
Check out the full winners’ list with this link.
Nest-supported Films on the SIMA 2022 Finalists’ List
Congratulations to the two Nest-supported films and four AlumNest projects for being finalists for the 10th Annual Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA 2022). The SIMA Awards recognize storytelling that ignites social change and portrays the most pressing social issues. Chicken & Egg Pictures was the proud recipient of the SIMA Vanguard Award in 2020 and we’re thrilled to see so many supported films recognized this year.
Winners will be announced on Thursday, February 10, in the meantime take a look at the 2022 finalists from our community and check the full list with this link.
Writing With Fire
dirs. & prods. Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh
Documentary Feature finalist
Pray Away
dir. & prod. Kristine Stolakis
prods. Jessica Devaney and Anya Rous
Documentary Feature finalist
From the AlumNest
Documentary Feature
A Thousand Cuts
dir. & prod. Ramona S. Diaz
prod. Leah Marino
Documentary Shorts
Lost World
dir. Kalyanee Mam
prods. Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee, Adam Loften, Kalyanee Mam
Witness – Reckoning With Laughter
dirs. Amber Fares
prods. Rhana Nator, Samantha Adler de Oliveira, Rachel Leah Jones, Aine Pennello, Maria Costea, Reem Haddad, Fiona Lawson-Baker
Impact Videos
Video Visit
dir. & prod. Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Ascension, Simple As Water & Writing With Fire on the 94th Oscars® shortlist
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Tuesday, December 21 their shortlist for documentary features and documentary short subject. At Chicken & Egg Pictures we are sending massive congratulations to the 3 Nest-supported films on the list: Ascension, Simple As Water, and Writing With Fire, as well as to the 5 films from the AlumNest.
We are egg-cited to see these films on these lists and look forward to the Nominations list, which will be announced on Tuesday, February 8. Nominations voting begins on Thursday, January 27 and concludes on Tuesday, February 1.
The 94th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, March 27 and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide. Take a look at the shortlisted films below and checkout the full list with this link.
Ascension
Directed by Jessica Kingdon
Produced by Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy, and Nathan Truesdell
Simple As Water
Directed by Megan Mylan
Produced by Robin Hessman & Megan Mylan
Writing With Fire
Directed and produced by Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh
From the AlumNest
Documentary Feature
President
dir. Camilla Nielsson
prods. Joslyn Barnes, Signe Byrge Sørensen
In the Same Breath
dir. Nanfu Wang
prods. Jialing Zhang, Carolyn Hepburn, Sara Rodriguez, Julie Goldman, and Christopher Clements
Documentary Short Subject
Águilas
dir. & prod. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
co-dir. & prod. Maite Zubiaurre
Terror Contagion
dir. & prod. Laura Poitras
prods. Anonymous, Yoni Golijov
International Feature Film
Prayers for the Stolen
dir. Tatiana Huezo
prods. Nicolás Celis, Jim Stark
Gender Parity & Nest-supported Films at at Sundance
At Chicken & Egg Pictures we are egg-static to see two (Egg)celerator grantees and feature documentary debuts on the 2022 Sundance Film Festival program: Mija and Midwives, as well as six films by the AlumNest. The festival will come back with a hybrid format, with in-person activities in Park City, Salt Lake City and the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah and with online events from Thursday, January 20 to Sunday, January 30. We are also excited to see that nonfiction films are once again one of the strongest sections of the festival’s program.
Last week, Director Tabitha Jackson and Director of Programming Kim Yutani, announced this edition’s details. Yutani and Jackson shared important statistics about women filmmakers in their program selection:
“Of the submissions to Sundance this year, only 28 percent were from women. Yet among all the features selected, 52 percent were directed by women. When asked whether the programmers decided to boost women auteurs over men, they steered around the question, saying they are always looking to promote female filmmakers. Jackson added: “The slightly depressing fact is that the figure of 28 percent submissions from women has remained pretty static across the years. It is a figure that we would wish to see higher because of what it indicates about the state of the industry. It’s surprising that so few are submitting.”
Sundance Film Festival Unveils 2022 Lineup That Reflects ‘Age of Reckoning’, Nicole Sperling
Learn more about Mija, Midwives, and AlumNest films below:
Mija
dir. Isabel Castro
prod. Tabs Breese, Isabel Castro, Yesenia Tlahuel
Selected as part of the Next category
Premiering on Friday, January 21
Get your tickets
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.
Midwives
dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
prods. Bob Moore, Ulla Lehmann, Mila Aung-Thwin
Selected as part of the World Cinema Documentary Competition
Premiering on Monday, January 24
Get your tickets
Hla and Nyo Nyo are two midwives that work side by side in a makeshift medical clinic in western Myanmar, where the Rohingya (a Muslim minority community) are persecuted and denied basic rights. Filmed over three tumultuous years, their remarkable relationship reveals both tensions and the hope inherent in their common cause.
From the AlumNest
AlumNest filmmakers are soaring into Sundance’s program in the U.S. Documentary Competition to the World Cinema Documentary Competition:
- Descendant, directed by Margaret Brown, prods. Essie Chambers, Kyle Martin
- The Janes, directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, prods. Emma Pildes, Daniel Arcana, Jessica Levin
- TikTok, Boom., directed by Shalini Kantayya, prods. Ross M. Dinerstein. Shalini Kantayya, Danni Mynard
- To The End, directed by Rachel Lears, prod. Sabrina Schmidt Gordon
- The Martha Mitchell Effect, produced by Beth Levison, Judith Mizrachy, dirs. Anne Alvergue, Debra McClutchy
A special shoutout to 2018 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Natalia Almada, whose 2002 short documentary film All Water Has a Perfect Memory, will screen online as part of the “From the Collection” program, a line-up of 40 short films selected to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Sundance Institute. Ticket sales start Friday, December, 17.