Celebrating Executive Director Jenni Wolfson and Nest-supported Filmmakers Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Memberships
Chicken & Egg Pictures is egg-cited and proud to share some big news: our dearest Executive Director Jenni Wolfson, 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab recipients Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh (Writing With Fire), 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab recipient Jessica Kingdon (Ascension), 2021 Chicken & Egg Award recipients Cristina Ibarra and Jialing Zhang, and 2022 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Brett Story have been invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
We also want to congratulate Bob Moore (producer of Project: Hatched 2021 grantee Dope Is Death) and Nathan Truesdell (producer of 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab recipient Ascension) for their invitations!
The Class of 2022 is 44% women, 37% percent underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 50% hail from outside of the United States.
Congratulations to the Class of 2022!
The Nest at Sheffield DocFest 2022
We are thrilled to see four Nest-supported films and two AlumNest films at the 29th edition of Sheffield DocFest. Taking place from Thursday, June 23 through Tuesday, June 28, this festival’s edition is an invitation to ‘ReConnect’ with documentary and each other.
Projects from eight Nest-supported filmmakers will be participating at the MeetMarket, Sheffield DocFest’s pitching forum. The market will take place in-person for the first time since 2019 from Monday, June 27 through Tuesday, June 28 and will move online in the days following the festival.
Alis
dirs. & prods. Clare Weiskopf, Nicolas van Hemelryck
prods. Alexandra Galvis, Radu Stancu
Alis is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist, and the winner of the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Get your tickets with this link.
BEBA
dir. & prod. Rebeca Huntt
prod. Sofia Geld
BEBA is a Project: Hatched 2022 grantee.
Get your tickets with this link.
Electric Malady
dir. Marie Lidén
prod. Aimara Reques, Lorna Jane Ferguson
Electric Malady is a 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
Get your tickets with this link.
Midwives
dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
prods. Bob Moore, Ulla Lehmann, Mila Aung-Thwin
Midwives is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and Special Jury Award winner at Sundance 2022.
Get your tickets with this link.
From the AlumNest
- The Joys and Sorrows of Young Yuguo
dir. Ilinca Calugareanu, prod. Mara Adina
World Premiere in the International Short Competition - The Great Abandonment
dirs. & prods. Shirley Abraham, Amit Madheshiya
MeetMarket
Eat Bitter
dirs. Ningyi Sun, Pascale Appora-Gnekindy
prod. Mathieu Faure
Eat Bitter is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist.
Hummingbirds
dirs. Silvia Castaños, Estefanía Contreras
prods. Jillian Schlesinger, Leslie Benavides, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin
Hummingbirds is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist.
Life + Life
dir. & prod. Contessa Gayles
Life + Life is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
Matryoshka
dir. & prod. Maricarmen Merino
prods. Paulina Villegas, Karla Bukantz
Matryoshka is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
The Wife Of
dir. & prod. Volia Chajkouskaya
prods. Ivo Felt, Christian Popp, Marius Markevicius
The Wife Of is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
AlumNest projects at the MeetMarket
- #NunsToo Documentary
dir. Lorena Luciano, prod. Filippo Piscopo - DALTON’S DREAM
dirs. Kim Longinotto, Franky Murray Brown, prod. Lorine Plagnol - The Gender Project (working title)
dir. & prod. Kimberly Reed, prods. Louise Rosen, Robin Honan
Meet Our Team at Sheffield DocFest
Our Executive Director Jenni Wolfson and Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova will be representing Chicken & Egg Pictures at the MeetMarket.
Check out the full line-up with this link and the complete list of MeetMarket projects with this link.
The Nest is back at DOC NYC PRO FALL 2021!
The line-up for DOC NYC PRO FALL 2021 was recently announced with in-person panels during thematic days taking place from Thursday, November 11 through Thursday, November 18 at Cinépolis Chelsea. Here at Chicken & Egg Pictures, we are proud to see current grantees and AlumNest filmmakers sharing their expertise throughout the week.
Funding Day
Thursday, Nov. 11
The Nuts and Bolts of Equity Investing
Featuring Chicken & Egg Pictures Board member Susan Margolin
Building Budget and Community on Kickstarter
Featuring Nest friend and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd
Producing Day
Friday, Nov. 12
Impact Producing: Case Studies
Featuring Storm Lake director and producer Beth Levison (Project: Hatched 2021) and Impact Producers Alice Quinlan and Hoda Hawa.
Cinematography Day
Saturday. Nov. 13
Introducing the Documentary Cinematographers Alliance
Featuring An Act of Worship director Nausheen Dadabhoy (2019 (Egg)celerator Lab) and Made in Boise cinematographer Jenni Morello.
Editing Day
Sunday, Nov. 14
Ade Launches Guidelines and BIPOC Editors Initiative
Moderated by 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Geeta Gandbhir
Case Study: The Rescue
Featuring Co-Founder Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand
Finding and Shaping Your Main Character
Moderated by Co-Founder Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand
Doc Series Day
Tuesday, Nov. 16
Power Dynamics in Documentary and Journalism
Featuring 2017 Chicken and Egg Award recipient Dawn Porter
Proximity, Access, and Journalistic Distance
Featuring Enemies of the State director Sonnia Kennebeck (2018 (Egg)celerator Lab).
Audience Engagement and Distribution Day
Wednesday. Nov. 17
How to Build Your Audience from Scratch
Featuring And So I Stayed directors Natalie Pattillo and Daniel Nelson (Project: Hatched 2021)
Success?
Featuring Nest friend and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd.
Legal for Docs Day
Thursday, Nov. 18
New Trends in Ethics and Documentaries
Featuring the attorneys Nicole Page and Michelle Lamardo our partner Reavis Page Jump LLP Featuring Nest-supported filmmaker and Pray Away (2019 (Egg)celerator Lab) producer Jessica Devaney.
Post by Communications Intern Mariana Sanson.
The Nest at CIFF
Camden International Film Festival will take place in person in Maine this Thursday, September 16 through Sunday, September 19, and online from September 19 to Sunday, September 26. Here at Chicken & Egg Pictures, we are egg-cited to participate and to see (Egg)celerator Lab film Ascension and AlumNest film Listening to Kenny G.
Special congratulations to the CIFF team who have been diligently working to bring us an immersive in-person festival experience “to share cinema as it was intended, on the big screen and surrounded by community.”
Ascension
dir. Jessica Kingdon
prods. Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy & Nathan Truesdell
Available for in-person screening on Friday, September 17 at 3:00 pm ET | Tickets here
From the AlumNest
Listening to Kenny G, directed by 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Penny Lane, and produced by Gabriel Sedgwick, will be available for in-person (including Drive-in🙌) and virtual screenings | Tickets here
Meet Our Team at CIFF
Representing Chicken & Egg Pictures, our External Engagement Manager will be taking in-person filmmaker meetings with projects from CIFF programming including Points North Fellowship, North Star Fellowship, 4th World Media Lab, and American Stories Doc Fund (sponsored by CNN Films).
Our Co-Founder Wendy Ettinger will also be at CIFF, taking virtual meetings. Take a look at Camden International Film Festival full programming here.
Post by 2021 Summer Communications Intern Mariana Sanson
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.
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
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.
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.
The Nest in the Inaugural DOC NYC 40 Under 40
The DOC NYC Film Festival recently released their inaugural 40 Under 40 List, sponsored by Topic Studios, honoring documentary talents under the age of 40. Of the 40 artists selected, over half are women. Congratulations to all on this honor!
Assia Boundaoui, director of The Feeling of Being Watched (2016 Accelerator Lab and recipient of The Whickers Chicken & Egg Pictures Award)
Lyric R. Cabral, director of (T)ERROR and The Rashomon Effect (2017 Accelerator Lab)
Nausheen Dadabhoy, director of An Act of Worship (2018 Diversity Fellows Initiative)
Jessica Devaney, co-director of Love the Sinner (2016 Impact and Innovation Initiative), and producer of the Nest-supported films Always in Season, The Feeling of Being Watched, Roll Red Roll, and Speed Sisters.
Sabaah Folayan, director of Whose Streets? (2016 Accelerator Lab). Whose Streets? premiered on PBS on July 30.
Lana Wilson, director of The Departure and After Tiller
Farihah Zaman, co-director of Remote Area Medical
And congratulations to our other Nest friends!
- Erin Casper, editor of Roll Red Roll (dir. Nancy Schwartzman)
- Mariam Dwedar, camera operator for On Her Shoulders (dir. Alexandria Bombach, 2018 SXSW LUNA/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)
- Danielle Vega, co-producer of Cameraperson (dir. Kirsten Johnson, 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award)
Check out more DOC NYC news from the Nest.
Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder Judith Helfand’s World Premiere at DOC NYC!
In addition to the Nest-supported projects and filmmakers at DOC NYC, we are egg-static to announce our Co-Founder and Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand’s Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, will have its world premiere at the festival.
In addition to co-founding the Nest, Judith has directed several award-winning films including the The Uprising of ’34 (co-directed with esteemed veteran George Stoney), her groundbreaking personal film A Healthy Baby Girl, its Sundance award-winning sequel Blue Vinyl, followed by Everything’s Cool (both co-directed with Daniel B. Gold). She has taught the art of documentary film at New York University, New School, and was the Filmmaker-in-Residence at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies in 2007 and 2009. As much an educator and field-builder as she is a filmmaker, Judith co-founded Working Films and sits on the boards of Great Small Works and The Lower East Side Girls Club.
Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, directed by Judith A. Helfand
Sunday, November 11 at 1:30 p.m. at SVA Theater
Wednesday, November 14 at 2:45 p.m. at IFC Center
In July 1995, Chicago was hit by a record heat wave that claimed the lives of 739 residents, primarily among the elderly, African Americans and those living in poverty. Using this tragedy as a jumping-off point, but referencing other extreme weather catastrophes like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, Cooked provocatively reframes the politics of disaster to encompass extreme inequity, arguing that economically disadvantaged communities should be preventatively treated as disasters taking place in slow motion.*
* Synopsis courtesy of DOC NYC
Congratulations, Judith, and see you at DOC NYC!
Nest-supported Nominees for The Grierson Awards
The Grierson Trust commemorates the pioneering Scottish documentary maker John Grierson. Each year, the trust celebrates documentary filmmaking from the UK and around the world with the British Documentary Awards, more fondly known as The Griersons.
We are honored to announce that Chicken & Egg-supported projects Kingdom of Us and Strong Island were nominated this year.
Kingdom of Us, directed by Lucy Cohen, was nominated for Best Single Documentary – Domestic and Best Cinema Documentary.
Kingdom of Us is a film about memory, identity, and growing up told through the eyes of seven siblings and their mother. Five of the children are on the autistic spectrum and as they move through adolescence, an event of the past keeps drawing them back. Combining observational footage with a rich archive of home movies and songs, the film is both a detective story and coming-of-age tale, exploring universal themes of memory, family, and love.
Strong Island, directed by Yance Ford, was nominated for Best Single Documentary – International.
Set in the suburbs of the black middle class, Strong Island seeks to uncover how—in the year of the Rodney King trial and the Los Angeles riots—the murder of the filmmaker’s older brother went unpunished. The film is an unflinching look at homicide, racial injustice, and the corrosive impact of grief over time.
The Griersons will take place on the evening of Monday, November 5 at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. In the meantime, both Kingdom of Us and Strong Island are available to stream on Netflix.
Congratulations Yance and Lucy and good luck!