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!
The Whickers Announces 2018 Award Recipient
The Whickers recently announced the recipient of the 2018 The Whickers/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award: congratulations to Ilinca Calugareanu and the A Cops and Robbers Story 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 Accelerator Lab participants, was conceived to ensure that more women enter the nonfiction filmmaking pipeline. Previous recipients include The Feeling of Being Watched by Assia Boundaoui and The Surrender of Waymond Hall by Jane Greenberg.
A Cops and Robbers Story follows Corey Pegues, one of the highest ranking black executives in the NYPD, who revealed 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. The project was recently featured as a docustory in The Guardian. Said director Ilinca Calugareanu, “It is such an honour to be this year’s recipient of The Whickers/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award. Thank you for believing in us and in the importance of Corey Pegues’s story. Your support means so much!”
Ilinca’s debut documentary feature, Chuck Norris vs. Communism, is currently available for streaming on Netflix.
Post by 2018 Communications Intern Morgan Lee Hulquist.
The Nest at 2018 Human Rights Watch Film Festival
The 2018 Human Rights Watch Film Festival (HRWFF) in New York City will feature four Chicken & Egg-supported films and filmmakers! Make sure to catch a screening of the following films if you happen to be in the New York City area between June 14-21!
You can look at the full list of the documentaries featured here.
A Thousand Girls Like Me*, directed by Sahra Mani (2016 Diversity Fellow Initiative)
In Afghanistan where systematic abuses of girls rarely come to light, and seeking justice can be deadly, one young woman says “Enough.” Khatera was brutally raped by her father since the age of nine and today she raises two precious and precocious children whom he sired. Against her family’s and many Afghanis’ wishes, Khatera forces her father to stand trial. This is her incredible story of love, hope, bravery, forgiveness, and truth.
Screening(s):
June 19, 9 pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
June 20, 7 pm at the IFC Center
Get your tickets here.
*A Thousand Girls Like Me will have its US premiere at the 2018 HRWFF.
Naila and the Uprising*, directed by Julia Bacha
Weaving together interviews, news footage, and expressive animation, award-winning documentarian Julia Bacha inventively chronicles the remarkable journey of Naila Ayesh, who in the late 1980s joined a clandestine movement of Palestinian women who played a pivotal role in the nonviolent uprising known as the First Intifada.
Screening(s):
June 16, 7 pm at IFC Center
Get your tickets here.
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support Naila and the Uprising but supported director Julia Bacha’s film, Budrus.
On Her Shoulders*, directed by Alexandria Bombach (2018 SXSW LUNA / Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)
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.
Screening(s):
June 14, 7 pm at the Film Society of Lincoln center’s Walter reade theatre
Get your tickets here.
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support On Her Shoulders but supported director Julia Alexandria Bombach through the SXSW LUNA / Chicken & Egg Pictures Award.
The Unafraid*, directed by Heather Courtney and Anayansi Prado (2017 Chicken & Egg Pictures mentee)
High School seniors Alejandro, Silvia, and Aldo, like most of their friends, are eager to go to college and pursue their education. However, their home state of Georgia not only bans them from attending the top five public universities, but also deems them ineligible for in-state tuition at public colleges due to their immigration status as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients. In response, these three ambitious and dream-filled students divert their passions towards the fight for education in the undocumented community. As President Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric against immigrants gains momentum, and amid constant threat of losing their DACA status and being deported, The Unafraid follows these inspirational members of the generation of “undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid” young people who are determined to overcome and dismantle oppressive policies and mindsets.
Screening(s):
June 21, 7 pm at IFC Center
You can buy tickets to the Human Rights Watch Film Festival here.
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support The Unafraid but supported director Anayansi Prado’s film, Children in No Man’s Land.
Look Out For the Nest at the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival!
Chicken & Egg-supported filmmakers Julia Bacha, Alexandria Bombach, Christina King and Elizabeth Castle, Amy Ziering, Lorena Luciano, Laura Nix, and Chicken & Egg Pictures Board of Directors member, Alexandra Shiva, will all have documentary features at the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival!
The 44th annual event will take place May 17th-June 10th. Tickets are on sale now.
Warrior Women, by Christina D. King and Elizabeth Castle (2017 Diversity Fellows Initiative)
The women of the American Indian Movement fight from a vulnerable place only matriarchs can understand—it is a battle for their children and the culture they hope to preserve for them. Warrior Women chronicles the struggle of Madonna Thunder Hawk and Marcy Gilbert, a Lakota mother and daughter whose fight for indigenous rights started in the 1970s and continues today at Standing Rock.
Through archival footage, verité, and video art, we experience Thunder Hawk’s dedication to Red Power and come to understand that activism is necessary for the very survival and success of Native culture and values for the next generation.
Warrior Women will have its US premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Showtimes:
Monday, May 21 at 7:00 PM
Saturday, May 26 at 6:30 PM
Sunday, May 27 at 1:00 PM
Buy tickets here.
It Will Be Chaos, directed by Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo
Life in Southern Italy is thrown into a tailspin when refugees arrive by the thousands and the locals are left to fend for themselves. Eritrean survivor Aregai, trapped in the Italian faltering immigration system, goes underground to reach Northern Europe. Through his journey, intercut with the road trip to Germany of a Syrian family, the clash between the newcomers and the locals escalates in real time.
It Will Be Chaos will have its US premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Showtimes:
Saturday, May 26 at 8:30 PM
Monday, May 28 at 12:30 PM
Buy tickets here.
Note: Chicken & Egg Pictures has not directly supported the following films but has supported the filmmakers and directors in the past.
Naila and the Uprising, by Julia Bacha*
Weaving together interviews, news footage, and expressive animation, award-winning documentarian Julia Bacha inventively chronicles the remarkable journey of Naila Ayesh, who in the late 1980s joined a clandestine movement of Palestinian women who played a pivotal role in the nonviolent uprising known as the First Intifada.
Showtimes:
Thursday, June 7 at 6:30 PM
Sunday, June 10 at 12:00 PM
Buy tickets here.
* Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support Naila and the Uprising but supported director Julia Bacha’s film, Budrus
On Her Shoulders, by Alexandria Bombach (2018 SXSW LUNA / Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)
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.
Showtimes:
Tuesday, May 22 at 6:00 PM
Wednesday, May 23 at 3:30 PM
Buy tickets here.
The Bleeding Edge, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering*
Investigative filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering present a searing exposé of modern medical devices, a billion dollar industry whose technological advancements have lead to unparalleled innovations, yet is rife with lax regulations, corporate cover-ups, and profit driven incentives that have lead to deadly risks for unsuspecting patients.
Showtimes:
Monday, May 28 at 1:00 PM
Wednesday, May 30 at 9:15 PM
Buy tickets here.
* Chicken & Egg Pictures did not supportThe Bleeding Edge but supported co-director Amy Ziering’s film, The Invisible War
Inventing Tomorrow, by Laura Nix (2018 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient)*
Meet the passionate teen innovators from around the globe who dedicate their blood, sweat, and Bunsen burners to craft cutting-edge solutions to the world’s environmental threats and present their findings at the world’s largest high school science competition, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Showtimes:
Friday, May 18 at 4:30 PM
Friday, June 1 at 6:30 PM
Saturday, June 2 at 11:30 AM
Buy tickets here.
* Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support Inventing Tomorrow but supports director Laura Nix through our 2018 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award program.
This Is Home, by Alexandra Shiva (Chicken & Egg Pictures Board of Directors)*
Alexandra Shiva’s stirring, empathetic documentary chronicles the travails of four Syrian refugee families as they arrive in Baltimore with just eight months’ time allowed to find jobs, learn English, and adapt to life in the U.S. when the sudden 2017 travel ban imposed by the Trump administration further complicates their situation.
Showtimes:
Wednesday, May 30 at 6:00 PM
Thursday, May 31 at 3:30 PM
Buy tickets here.
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support This is Home but director Alexandra Shiva is a member of the Chicken & Egg Pictures Board of Directors.
For a list of all films, screening dates and times, check out the Seattle International Film Festival Guide here.
Post by 2018 Spring Programs Intern Dinayuri Rodriguez.
United Skates wins Tribeca Audience Award
Congratulations to United Skates directors Tina Brown & Dyana Winkler for their 2018 Tribeca Audience Award win! Chicken & Egg Pictures supported Tina and Dyana’s project with our 2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative.
Next, United Skates will be hitting up Toronto’s Hot Docs Film Festival, so be sure to catch them there!
Read more about the film and its filmmakers in this No Film School interview.
Accelerator Lab Open Call starts May 3!
Mark your calendars! The Accelerator Lab Open Call will open on May 3, 2018, 12 pm EST.
The Accelerator Lab is focused on identifying and supporting women nonfiction directors working on their first or second feature-length documentary. Each project receives a $35,000 grant in three parts for the production of a film, to be developed over the course of the 12-month program. All directors of the ten projects come together at various points over the course of a year for an intensive period of professional development, tailored mentorship and workshops with industry experts, creatively fusing the art and craft of filmmaking with best practices and peer-to-peer support.
Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on the Accelerator Lab Open Call and other News from the Nest!
Past grantee projects have included:
32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide, directed by Hope Litoff
Premiered at the 2017 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival
Now available on HBO, HBO NOW, and HBO GO.
A reflection on the life and suicide of Ruth Litoff, a successful artist, a pathological liar, and the filmmaker’s sister. By looking back on Ruth’s incredible highs and lows, bursts of creative genius, depression, secrets, and lies, a vivid portrait will emerge of the brilliant woman the filmmaker is not sure she ever really knew. This is her attempt to understand what happened.
The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui
Premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival
In the Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago where director Assia Boundaoui grew up, most of her neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers hundreds of pages of declassified FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11—code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal.” With unprecedented access, The Feeling of Being Watched weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened to her neighborhood in the 90’s and probes why her community feels like they’re still being watched today. In the process, she confronts long-hidden truths about the FBI’s relationship to her community. The Feeling of Being Watched follows Assia as she pieces together this secret FBI operation, while grappling with the effects of a lifetime of surveillance on herself and her family.
Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folayan, co-directed by Damon Davis
Premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Now available on DVD and streaming
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.