We’re Back to the Cinemas at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival!
The Tribeca Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a return to the cinemas in 2021. The festival runs from Wednesday, June 9 to Sunday, June 20 with programming that can be accessed in person and virtually.
At Chicken & Egg Pictures, we are looking forward to the shared experience of film, as New Yorkers head back to the movies again. Viewers within the US can access Tribeca’s virtual programming through $15 online stream tickets.
We are also thrilled to let you know that films slated to premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, but postponed due to COVID-19, will also screen at this year’s edition. Granted films featured in the festival include four (Egg)celerator Lab grantees from 2018 and 2019, one Project: Hatched grantee, one Chicken & Egg Award recipient film, three films from the AlumNest, and one VR project. Learn more about the films below, and get your tickets here.
Ascension, dir. 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.
World Premiere │ Tribeca Documentary Competition │ 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab
Enemies of the State, dir. Sonia Kennebeck
An American family becomes entangled in a bizarre web of secrets and lies when their hacker son is targeted by the U.S. government, making them all Enemies of the State.
US Premiere │ 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab
Pray Away, dir. Kristine Stolakis
Former leaders of the “pray away the gay” movement contend with the aftermath unleashed by their actions, while a survivor seeks healing and acceptance from more than a decade of trauma.
World Premiere │ 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab
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.
New York Premiere │ 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab
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.
Project: Hatched 2020
Stateless, dir. Michèle Stephenson
Through the grassroots campaign of electoral hopeful Rosa Iris, director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary reveals the depths of racial hatred and institutionalized oppression that divide Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
2016 Chicken & Egg Award
Simple as Water, dir. Megan Mylan
A look at war and displacement through the lens of parenthood from Megan Mylan, Academy-Award winning director of Lost Boys of Sudan and Smile Pinki. This feature documentary unfolds as a sequence of cinematic short stories revolving around Syrian families living in Turkey, Greece, the US, Germany, and Syria. Each chapter is an intimate portrait of parents—often mothers alone—as they work to rebuild their children’s lost sense of security and possibility. It is a story that is both urgent and timeless.
World Premiere │ 2018 Grant
VR Experience
The Changing Same: Episode 1, dirs. Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster & Yasmin Elayat
AlumNest Films
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show, dir. Yoruba Richen (2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)
Selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival
Women In Blue, dir. Deirdre Fishel (AlumNest for Care)
Selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival
Untitled Dave Chappelle documentary, dirs. Julia Reichert (2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Steve Bognar
Egg-citing news! This world premiere will be Tribeca’s closing night film.
See you at the cinema! Post by 2021 Summer Communications Intern Mariana Sanson.
Nest-supported Filmmakers Nom’d for the NAACP Image Awards!
We were honored to see five Nest-supported filmmakers on the recently announced nominations list for the 52nd annual NAACP Image Awards, which are known for “celebrating outstanding achievement in the areas of film, TV, music and literature—from an African American perspective.”*
Coded Bias — Outstanding Documentary (Film)
Coded Bias, directed by Shalini Kantayya, explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her subsequent journey to push for the first-ever US legislation to govern against bias in artificial intelligence. The documentary aims to shine a light on the threat artificial intelligence poses to civil rights and democracy. The film participated in Project: Hatched 2020.
Through the Night — Outstanding Breakthrough Creative (Motion Picture)
Loira Limbal and her work on Through the Night are nominated for Outstanding Breakthrough Creative (Motion Picture). 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. The film participated in the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab.
AlumNest filmmakers nominated include Chicken & Egg Award Recipients Yoruba Richen, Dawn Porter, and Grace Lee:
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show by Yoruba Richen — Outstanding Directing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture) and Outstanding Writing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture)
And She Could Be Next by Grace Lee and Chicken & Egg Pictures Board Member Marjan Safinia — Outstanding Documentary (Television)
John Lewis: Good Trouble by Dawn Porter — Outstanding Documentary (Film)
Congratulations to all the nominees! We will be watching the awards ceremony from our Nest on Saturday, March 27th at 8 pm ET.
*Language courtesy of NAACP Image Awards.
The Nest on the DOC NYC Short List
A special congratulations to the following Nest-supported filmmakers who were selected for DOC NYC’s famous Short Lists for contenders for the documentary short category and contenders for feature documentary category. DOC NYC Film Festival is the largest nonfiction film festival in the US and runs from Wednesday, November 11 to Thursday, November 19.
DOC NYC’s Short Lists are influential for their steady track record of anticipating Academy Award nominees and winners. Check out the Nest-supported films screening at the festival here; the films are available to watch across the US.
DOC NYC Short List: Features
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.
Eli Despres.
The Fight, co-directed by Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and
Eli Despres (Project: Hatched 2020)
The Fight documents a team of scrappy ACLU lawyers battling Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties.
Congratulations to AlumNest filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, whose new film On the Record made the DOC NYC Short List: Features and will screen at the fest. Kirby and Amy were supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures for their project The Invisible War.
DOC NYC Short List: Shorts
Congratulations to the following AlumNest filmmakers on their shortlisted short films: Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Geeta Gandbhir for Call Center Blues, Tiffany Hsiung for Sing Me A Lullaby, Alison Klayman for Flower Punk, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for A Life Too Short.
In the Winner’s Circle section of DOC NYC, catch The Mole Agent directed by 2020 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Maite Alberdi.
*These projects were supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures during the filmmakers’ Chicken & Egg Award year.
Laura Nix and Julia Reichert Nominated for 92nd Academy Awards
Egg-citing news! Announced today, filmmakers Laura Nix and Julia Reichert received Oscar nominations for their nonfiction films Walk Run Cha-Cha and American Factory, respectively.
Walk Run Cha-Cha
Directed by Laura Nix (2018 Chicken & Egg Award);
Produced by Colette Sandstedt
Nominated for Documentary Short
American Factory
Directed by Julia Reichert (2016 Chicken & Egg Award) and Steve Bognar; Produced by Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar, Jeff Reichert, and Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder Julie Parker Benello
Nominated for Documentary Feature
We are so proud to have supported Laura and Julia through our Chicken & Egg Award program and wish them the best of luck! You can stream American Factory on Netflix and Walk Run Cha-Cha on New York Times Op-Docs.
The 92nd Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 9, 2020. A full list the full list of nominees can be seen here.
American Factory Soars at Cinema Eye Honors!
Congratulations to the American Factory team, including co-director and 2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Julia Reichert and Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder Julie Parker Benello, on the accolades they received at the thirteenth annual Cinema Eye Honors at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York on January 6.
American Factory was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking and Outstanding Achievement in Direction.
American Factory is directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert and produced by Steve Bognar, Julia Reichert, Jeff Reichert and Julie Parker Benello.
Plus a special shoutout to AlumNest filmmaker Jehane Noujaim and The Great Hack team for their win in the Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation category.
IDA Shortlist Features Five Supported Films
International Documentary Association (IDA) revealed their annual IDA Documentary Awards shortlists for the Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories.
Congratulations to these five Nest-supported films which are shortlisted for this top honor:
American Factory
Directed by Julia Reichert (2016 Chicken & Egg Award) and Steven Bognar
Produced by Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar, Jeff Reichert, and Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder Julie Parker Benello
Hail Satan?
Directed by Penny Lane (2017 Chicken & Egg Award)
Produced by Gabriel Sedgwick
One Child Nation
2017 (Egg)celerator Lab
Directed by Nanfu Wang (2018 Chicken & Egg Award) and Jialing Zhang
Produced by Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Christoph Jörg, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, and Carolyn Hepburn
Roll Red Roll
Directed by Nancy Schwartzman
Produced by Nancy Schwartzman, Steven Lake, and Jessica Devaney
The Feeling of Being Watched
2016 (Egg)celerator Lab
The Whickers / Chicken & Egg Pictures Award
Directed by Assia Boundaoui
Produced by Jessica Devaney
At Chicken & Egg Pictures, we’re wishing all the shortlisted filmmakers good luck! IDA will announce the final 10 nominees for Best Documentary Feature on Wednesday, October 23, with the awards ceremony on Saturday, December 7.
Want to gear up for the IDA Awards nominations announcement? Check out these streaming links for the Nest-supported films mentioned above: Roll Red Roll on Netflix, The Feeling of Being Watched on POV, One Child Nation on Amazon Prime, Hail Satan? on Hulu, and American Factory on Netflix.
The Whickers Announces 2019 Recipient: Congratulations Milisuthando!
The Whickers recently announced the recipient of the 2019 The Whickers/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award—congratulations to Milisuthando Bongela and the Milisuthando (working title) team!
Named for pioneering British broadcaster Alan Whicker, The Whickers is dedicated to supporting emerging voices in the field of documentary. The award, focused on supporting one (Egg)celerator participant per program year, was conceived to ensure that more women enter the nonfiction filmmaking pipeline. Previous recipients of this award include The Surrender of Waymond Hall, directed by Jane Greenberg ; The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui; and A Cops and Robbers Story, directed by Ilinca Calugareanu.
It’s 1992 and Milisuthando is enjoying her sheltered childhood in “The Republic of the Transkei”, a dodgy ethnic homeland where, even though apartheid is raging 100 km away, she has no idea of the impending racial calamity beyond her hometown. When Transkei is suddenly dissolved at the end of apartheid, 8-year-old Milisuthando becomes a member of the first generation of black kids to attend “Whites Only” schools in South Africa. Through her probing, often naive journey with a cast of contrary characters, we revisit the old interiors of the “New South Africa”, exploring how racial prejudice and interracial bonding played out in the everyday. And why today, South Africa seems to be making a U-turn towards its ugly racial past.
Milisuthando Bongela is an award-winning writer, editor, and cultural worker with experience in the media, publishing, fashion, art, and film industries in South Africa. Over the last 12 years, her written and cultural work has explored the post-apartheid condition, concerned with the intimate manifestations of race and racism in the everyday and shared intimate spaces. She is currently directing her first feature length documentary on race, love and growing up in the new South Africa.
“When I first read about The Whickers in 2015, I remember wishing my film was good enough to qualify for what looked like amazing grant and opportunity. It was vindicating four years later, to have an opportunity to send some material through to The Whickers through Chicken & Egg. But nobody could have prepared me for the moment when Valerie (Kleeman, founder and chair), Jane (Ray, Artistic Director) and Jane (Mote, Editorial Consultant) came to meet my producer and I to tell us we had been awarded a Whickers grant. On one hand, it’s great that our film is receiving this grant so that we can continue working, but in the greater scheme, this is facilitating the urgent and important process of liberating other perspectives on the human condition, in this case, an African perspective.” — Milusthando Bongela
Thank you The Whickers for your generous support of women and gender nonconforming media makers. Read their announcement here.
The Apology Wins a Peabody Award
Congratulations to director Tiffany Hsiung on her Nest-supported film The Apology, which received one of eight documentary Peabody Awards for documentary.
The Apology is about memory, told through the current relationships three women have with the people closest to them and how these relationships indelibly shape the last years of their lives. The three women – Gil Won-Ok in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Lola Adela in the Philippines – are all former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women forced into military sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
We were honored to be support this powerful film and congratulate director Tiffany Hsiung, the entire The Apology team, and their broadcast partners POV for this huge win.
For the third year in a row, Chicken & Egg Pictures was proud to have supported three of the films nominated in the documentary category: The Apology, Whose Streets?, and Survivors.
Survivors, co-directed by Anna Fitch, Banker White, and Arthur Pratt
WeOwnTV, American Documentary | POV, ITVS (PBS)
Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmakers, Survivors presents a portrait of their country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the socio-political turmoil that lies in its wake. The film chronicles the remarkable stories of Sierra Leonean heroes during what is now widely regarded as the most acute public health crisis of the modern era.
Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folayan
Whose Streets? LLC, American Documentary | POV (PBS)
A firsthand look at how the murder of one teenage boy became the last straw for a community under siege, Whose Streets? is a story of love, loss, conflict, and ambition. Set in Ferguson, MO, the film follows the journey of everyday people whose lives are intertwined with a burgeoning national movement for black liberation. Whose Streets? participated in the 2016 (Egg)celerator Lab.
And a special congratulations to The Rape of Recy Taylor, directed by Nest-friend Nancy Buirski, which is also nominated.
2019 Sundance Festival Winners
A huge congratulations to Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films and filmmakers who won big at Sundance this year:
One Child Nation
Dirs. Nanfu Wang & Jialing Zhang
Grand Jury Prize – US Documentary Competition
Always in Season
Dir. Jacqueline Olive
Special Jury Award for Moral Urgency – US Documentary Competition
American Factory
Dir. Julia Reichert & Steven Bognar
Directing – US Documentary Competition
It was a big weekend for these incredible filmmakers in more ways than one, with Amazon acquiring One Child Nation and Netflix acquiring American Factory. And a special congratulations to former Nest grantees Rachel Lears (dir. of Knock Down the House – US Documentary Competition Audience Award), Alma Har’el (dir. of Honey Boy – US Dramatic CompetitionSpecial Jury Award for Vision and Craft); and Laura Nix (executive producer of Sea of Shadows – World Cinema Documentary Audience Award).
We couldn’t be prouder of our Nest friends. Learn more about American Factory, Always in Season, and One Child Nation—and the amazing women that made them—through these reads:
‘One Child Nation’: How Nanfu Wang Defied China to Expose Its Dark Side – Indiewire
Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Nanfu Wang – “One Child Nation”– Women and Hollywood
Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jacqueline Olive – “Always in Season”– Women and Hollywood
Sundance 2019: Always in Season an exceptional documentary on communities of memory, history of lynchings – The Utah Review
‘American Factory’: Sundance Review – Screen Daily
Sundance: Netflix Nabs ‘American Factory’ Doc for $3 Million – The Hollywood Reporter
Dark Money and On Her Shoulders on the 91st Oscars® Documentary Shortlist
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced their shortlist for documentary features in consideration for the 91st Oscars® and two Nest-supported films are on the list: Dark Money, directed by Kimberly Reed and On Her Shoulders, directed by Alexandria Bombach. We were egg-static to see these projects included, and that eight out of the fifteen films listed are women-directed docs.
A century ago, corrupt money swamped Montana’s legislature, but Montanans rose up to prohibit corporate campaign contributions. Today, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision —which allows unlimited, anonymous money to pour into elections nationwide—Montana is once again fighting to preserve open and honest elections. Following an investigative reporter through a political thriller, Dark Money exposes one of the greatest threats to American democracy.
Dark Money screened at the AFI Docs Film Festival last summer, had its broadcast premiere on POV on PBS, and was also featured on the International Documentary Association’s shortlist for top feature of 2018 as well.
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.
On Her Shoulders is the 2018 SXSW LUNA/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient. On Her Shoulders was also listed as a top award contender for the documentary feature category on the DOC NYC shortlist and received the 2018 Harrell Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2018 Camden International Film Festival (CIFF).
In addition to being included with the top documentaries of the year, Dark Money and On Her Shoulders will be featured in the OSCARS Spotlight: Documentary Feature Shortlist theatrical release, an opportunity to see all the Academy’s nominations shortlist.
The films will screen theatrically in 13 cities across the United States through Monday, January 21. See here to find a screening.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced Tuesday, January 22, and the Oscars will be held Sunday, February 24 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, televised live by ABC.