Jaripeo
SYNOPSIS
(Formerly Milpa)
The jaripeo is the heart of what it means to be a Mexican cowboy, a celebration of machismo with huge importance to the largely diasporic community from Michoacán. But looking closely, the same rodeo arena can reveal another world: a knowing glance between two men, a small brush of the hand on another’s back. Using the jaripeo as the stage on which we follow the lives of our characters, a space opens up to question: What lies beneath the performance of machismo? How does queer desire survive in oppressively traditional spaces? How will our protagonists find belonging in masculinity, in their community—and within themselves?
Jaripeo is a participant of the 2024 (Egg)celerator Lab.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Efraín Mojica (they/them) is a photographer, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist from the Mexican State of Michoacán living in Mexico City. Their work has been shown in galleries including Kunstverein Neukolln and MZ Galleries in Berlin, Magia Roja in Barcelona, the Factory in Seattle, and Zyanya in Mexico City. Video art is a central part of Efraín’s art, and their filmmaking, in turn, is heavily influenced by their conceptual artwork which explores the translation and interpolation of different mediums—light, sound, and matter.
Rebecca Zweig (she/her) is an award-winning writer, poet, and filmmaker living in Mexico City. Her work has been featured in such places as The New York Times, The Nation, and Revista Nexos, among others, and is forthcoming in Harper’s and n+1. Her documentary directorial debut with Efraín Mojica has received support from the Points North Fellowship and the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Sarah Strunin (she/her) is a documentary producer living in Los Angeles, California. She recently worked as a Producer at This Machine Filmworks and as a freelancer she has worked closely with award-winning directors Liza Mandelup, R.J. Cutler, Cecilia Peck, Nancy Schwartzman and Ben Sinclair. She was a 2023 Points North Fellow for Jaripeo (formerly Milpa), and is producing two other feature films that have together received support from Catapult, IDA, SFFILM, and BAVC.
Holder of the Sky
SYNOPSIS
In the creation story of the Oneida tribe of Wisconsin, two twins competed for two very different ways of life. The right-handed twin paved a peaceful path, living in harmony with all living things; the left-handed twin plotted a path of destruction. When goodness prevailed, the right-handed twin earned Oneida’s fabled namesake, Holder of the Sky.
Holder of the Sky follows three Wisconsin tribal members—an Oneida farmer, an Ojibwe spearfisher, and a Menominee logger—whose lives have been shaped by the contemporary manifestation of the left-handed twin. As they compete with land and resource mismanagement, anti-Indian biases, and hate groups, they struggle to honor their traditional lifeways. Their realities have been shaped by legacies of land loss and broken promises, but their everyday lives are filled with acts of resistance. This film lifts up the voices of people who are a vital part of the American story but are too often grossly overlooked.
Holder of the Sky is a participant of the 2024 (Egg)celerator Lab.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Tsanavi Spoonhunter (she/her) is a Northern Arapaho and Northern Paiute nonfiction film director, producer, and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a Master of Journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley, with a documentary film concentration. Tsanavi is a fellow at Firelight Media, Open Society Foundations, and Nia Tero, and was a Woodstock Film Festival resident in 2023.
Anatomy of a Life
SYNOPSIS
When Richard Snyder is diagnosed with dementia, his daughter Emma begins documenting their remaining time together. She finds herself racing against the clock to secure the care he needs — before he loses his memories, his savings, and his home. As Richard’s disease progresses, he is no longer able to speak for himself; the film finds his voice through the words of his alter ego, the protagonist of his unfinished novel. America’s nightmarish elder care system takes over Emma’s life, through both vérité footage and recreations, Anatomy of a Life portrays the reality of the end of life both by those disappearing and the ones they are leaving behind.
Anatomy of a Life is a participant of the 2024 (Egg)celerator Lab.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Emma Francis-Snyder (she/her) is a New York-based activist and award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her directorial debut, Takeover (2021), was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy® and shortlisted for an Academy® Award. Takeover was part of the New York Times OpDoc series, and shortlisted for the IDA and Cinema Eye Awards. Emma was the Movement Speaker at the 2023 Alzheimer’s Association Imagine Gala. She has been invited to speak at Georgetown University, Princeton, and the NYC Department of Education.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipients
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to introduce the ninth cohort of our Chicken & Egg Award. This program awards women and gender-expansive documentary filmmakers who are at advanced- stages with a $75,000 grant as well as a tailored year-long mentorship program that is targeted to the goals of each individual grant recipient.
“Filmmakers are experts on what they need to push their artistic and personal development forward. Heavy oversight often stonewalls creative breakthroughs. Chicken & Egg Pictures believes that filmmakers, especially those who face barriers related to their gender, race, class, and location, should have financial freedom and flexibility as they embark on new projects. Unrestricted funding remains the cornerstone of the Chicken & Egg Award, and we have witnessed extraordinary breakthroughs with past winners by adhering to this model.”
– Elaisha Stokes, Senior Program Manager
The 2024 Chicken & Egg Award recipients are Alisa Kovalenko, Beth Aala, Jumana Manna, Katy Léna Ndiaye, Nailah Jefferson, Sierra Pettengill, Ursula Liang, and Violet Du Feng. Each awardee will receive an unrestricted $50,000 career grant and a $25,000 project grant.
Since 2016, the Chicken and Egg Award has granted unrestricted funding to accomplished industry veterans. For the first four years, the program supported US-based filmmakers, before expanding globally. In 2023, Chicken & Egg Pictures grew the grant cohort from six to eight directors. Each Awardee receives a $75,000 grant and year-long tailored mentorship, attends a creative retreat, participates in monthly peer-to-peer cohort calls, and travels to a major film festival where Chicken & Egg Pictures hosts a culminating retreat and facilitates high-level industry networking opportunities around distribution, funding, and more.
Please click on the Recipients’ names for more information on each filmmaker and give these visionary directors a warm welcome to the Nest!
2024 COHORT
- Alisa KovalenkoMore info >
Alisa Kovalenko
- Beth AalaMore info >
Beth Aala
- Jumana MannaMore info >
Jumana Manna
- Katy Léna NdiayeMore info >
Katy Léna Ndiaye
- Nailah JeffersonMore info >
Nailah Jefferson
- Sierra PettengillMore info >
Sierra Pettengill
- Ursula LiangMore info >
Ursula Liang
- Violet Du FengMore info >
Violet Du Feng
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
NAILAH JEFFERSON: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Nailah Jefferson (she/her) is a New Orleans born filmmaker intrigued and inspired by the enduring human spirit. Her most recent film, Commuted, premiered at the 2023 New Orleans Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary and Best Louisiana Documentary. Commuted tells the story of Danielle Metz, a woman whose triple life drug sentence was commuted by President Obama after serving 23 years. The film will be available on PBS in 2024.
In 2023, Nailah’s acclaimed HBO Original documentary, Donyale Luna: Supermodel, about the first Black supermodel to grace the covers of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, but whose legacy was lost to history, made its debut. Donyale Luna: Supermodel was an official selection of the American Black Film Festival and Sheffield DocFest. The Huffington Post named it one of the best films of 2023.
In 2021, Nailah released the short documentary Descended From The Promised Land: The Legacy of Black Wall Street. It shed light on surviving families still coping with the injustices their ancestors endured during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The film was screened at DOC NYC, Martha’s Vineyard Black Film Festival and is currently streaming on Black Public Media’s AfroPop Youtube channel.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
JUMANA MANNA: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Jumana Manna (she/her) is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land, and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture, and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorization and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. She has directed and produced three award-winning feature films, Foragers (2022), Wild Relatives (2018), A Magical Substance Flows Into Me (2016), and four shorts. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
KATY LENA NDIAYE: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Katy Léna Ndiaye (she/her) is a film director and producer whose films offer a window into contemporary Africa, tracing its journey through history and memory. Her lens has a particular focus, a gentle spotlight on women’s perspectives regarding transmission and heritage. Her work has earned awards at festivals across the globe.
She is known for her documentaries about women muralists, Traces (2003) and Awaiting for Men (2007). Her work reflects on transmission, and the nuanced journey of womanhood. Among her recent films is Time is on Our Side (2019), a portrait of Burkinabe rapper Smockey, whose lyrics became a catalyst in the resistance to Blaise Compaoré’s regime in Burkina Faso. Her most recent work, Money, Freedom, a History of CFA Franc (2022), sheds light on the currency of French-speaking Africa and its lingering ties to colonial history.
In 2013, Katy Léna founded IndigoMood Films in Dakar, a platform for her narratives to unfold, and where she accompanies talented directors in bringing their unique visual stories to the screen.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
BETH AALA: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Beth (she/her) is a Filipina-American documentary filmmaker. She has won three Emmy® Awards and a Peabody Award for her work at HBO. Recently, Beth directed and produced Uncharted with Alicia Keys and her organization, She Is The Music. The film premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2023. She also directed and produced This is Brighton, which premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in the fall of 2023.
Beth’s other directing credits include the News and Documentary Emmy®-nominated films Made in Boise and Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon. She is a proud member of various organizations, including A-DOC, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and Filipinx Filmmakers. Additionally, she is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and a Wyncote Fellow.
Beth’s films have received support from organizations such as ITVS, the International Documentary Association, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the New York State Council of the Arts, and Women Make Movies. Her work has premiered at prestigious festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto International Film Festival, and AFI Docs. Furthermore, her films have been featured on HBO, PBS, MTV, Discovery, and A&E.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
SIERRA PETTENGILL: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Sierra Pettengill (she/her) is a filmmaker from Brooklyn. Most recently, she directed the all-archival film, RIOTSVILLE, USA, which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Her previous all-archival feature-length film, The Reagan Show (2017, directed with Pacho Velez), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival; her short The Rifleman premiered at Sundance in 2021, and her previous short, Graven Image (2018), is held at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2013, she produced the Academy® Award-nominated film Cutie & the Boxer, which also won an Emmy® Award for Best Documentary. She has also worked as an archival researcher for many artists including Jim Jarmusch, Mike Mills, and Adam Pendleton. She was a Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow and is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. She serves as a board member of Screen Slate, a cinema nonprofit based in New York.
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
VIOLET DU FENG: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Violet Du Feng (she/her) is an Emmy® Award-winning independent documentarian. She is a Documentary branch member of AMPAS and an adjunct professor at the Journalism School of Columbia University. Violet directed and produced the Oscar® Shortlisted Hidden Letters, which premiered in competition at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, won ten international festival awards, and was broadcast in more than 15 countries. Her debut feature Harbor From The Holocaust (2020) was broadcasted as a PBS/CPB special program, , with music performed by Yo-Yo Ma.
Violet has directed, produced, and executive produced more than ten films over the past decade. Her films have been invited to more than 100 international film festivals and supported by ITVS, IDA, Sundance DFP, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Ford Foundation, Doc Society and IDFA Bertha Fund. Her producing credits include Dear Mother, I Meant To Write About Death (2022), which received a Special Mention at Busan International Film Festival; Singing In The Wilderness (2021), nominee of Golden Alexander Award at Thessaloniki International Film Festival; Confucian Dream (2019), winner of a Special Jury Award at Karlovy Vary International Festival and the Chinese Academy Award of Documentary Film; Maineland (2017), winner of a Special Jury Award at SXSW; and Please Remember Me (2015), the first film to launch a national impact campaign in China which resulted in policy changes. The film was awarded DocImpactHi5 in 2019.
Violet started her career as a co-producer on the critically acclaimed 2007 film Nanking, which won a Sundance Special Jury Award, a Peabody Award, and an Emmy® Award; was distributed theatrically in 30 countries and was the highest-grossing documentary in China. Born and raised in Shanghai, Violet is currently based in New York City.