2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
URSULA LIANG: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Ursula Liang (she/her) is an award-winning director and producer with 25 years of experience in storytelling. Her debut feature, 9-Man (2014), was broadcast on public television and called “an absorbing documentary” by The New York Times. Her second film, Down a Dark Stairwell (2020), had its premiere at True/False and was called “the most essential Asian American documentary in decades.” Her latest feature, Jeanette Lee Vs. (2022), is part of ESPN’s acclaimed 30 for 30 series while her most recent short, Two Strikes (2023), aired on the iconic PBS series Frontline. Her work has been supported by ITVS, Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, and the Center for Asian American Media. Before becoming a filmmaker, Ursula held staff positions at The New York Times Op-Docs, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, Asia Pacific Forum, and Hyphen magazine. She has also produced for television, including UFC Primetime and NBC Spartan Ultimate Team Challenge. Ursula is a member of Film Fatales, A-DOC, IDD, and is the Board Vice President of Brown Girls Doc Mafia. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, she spent two decades in the Bronx, and currently works from Oakland, California
2024 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
ALISA KOVALENKO: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Alisa Kovalenko (she/her) is a Ukrainian award-winning director and a member of the European Film Academy. Alisa’s debut documentary Alisa in Warland, a personal diary through revolution and war in Ukraine, premiered at IDFA in 2015. Home Games, a social fairytale about a young Ukrainian female soccer player, appeared at Sheffield DocFest in 2018, and was again selected at IDFA. Home Games has played at over 100 festivals and was the first Ukrainian creative documentary acquired by Netflix.
In 2019, Alisa started filming a teenage adventure documentary set in war-torn Donbas. We Will Not Fade Away had its World Premiere at the Berlinale 2023. To date, the film has won 15 international awards, including the Ukrainian Film Academy Award 2023 for the best Ukrainian documentary, and it was selected for the European Film Awards 2023.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Alisa immediately joined a volunteer combat unit associated with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Alisa fought in the frontline trenches for months, where she captured footage for her current work-in-progress, Frontline.
Alisa grew up in Zaporizhzhia, in South-Eastern Ukraine, and studied at the Karpenko-Kary National University of Cinema in Kyiv and at the Andrzej Wajda School in Warsaw.
2023 Research & Development Grant Recipients
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to introduce the inaugural Chicken & Egg Pictures Research & Development Grant cohort. The 2023 grants provide experienced directors with $10,000 USD for research or $20,000 USD for development of a new documentary project. The research and development stages are particularly challenging for independent films, and often go unpaid. The R&D Grant aims to provide filmmakers with the freedom and support to invest in the creative process during these critical phases. Furthermore, recipients will have access to the Chicken & Egg Pictures team and a community of filmmakers, offering additional peer support, mentorship opportunities, and deeper connections within the documentary industry.
The 2023 Chicken & Egg Pictures Research & Development Grant is supported by Netflix’s Fund For Creative Equity, a dedicated effort to help build new opportunities for underrepresented communities within entertainment.
The 27 Research & Development Grant recipients listed below are divided into two segments: 1) The Research Grant recipients who are in the ideation period including identifying secondary sources, following storylines, and building foundational relationships, and 2) The Development Grant recipients who are in a deeper exploration period including securing access to core characters and collaborators, solidifying budgets, fundraising, story development, and other pre-production priorities.
RESEARCH GRANT RECIPIENTS
- Marah Strauch (dir. & prod.) | Eric Bruggemann (prod.) | Austria, United States
- Corine Shawi (dir. & prod.) |Nancy Sabbagh (prod.) | Lebanon
- Daniela Muñoz Barroso (dir.) | Leila Montero (prod.) | Cuba
- Anjali Nayar (dir.) | Kenya-Jade Pinto (dir.) | Canada, India, Kenya
- Sandra Luz López Barroso (dir.) | Karla Bukantz (prod.) | Mexico
- Violeta Ayala (dir. & prod) | Redelia Shaw (prod.) | Dan Fallshaw (prod.) | Australia, Bolivia
- Ilinca Calugareanu (dir. & prod.) | Romania, United Kingdom
- Erika Cohn (dir. & prod.) | United States
- Yoruba Richen (dir. & prod.) | Lacey Schwartz Delgado (dir. & prod.) | Mehret Mandefro (prod.) | Kristi Jacobson (prod.) | United States, Ethiopia
DEVELOPMENT GRANT RECIPIENTS
- Tatiana Fernández Geara (dir. & prod.) | Wendy P. Espinal (prod.) | Dominican Republic (I am my Grandma’s Granddaughter)
- Sabaah Folayan (dir. & prod.) | United States (Worth the Risk (working title))
- Rita Baghdadi (dir. & prod.) | Sahar Yousefi (prod.) | United States, Morocco (Stallions)
- Iva Radivojević (dir. & prod.) | Madeleine Molyneaux (prod.) | Marija Stojnić (prod.), Andrijana Sofranić Šućur (prod.) | Serbia (Formerly Yugoslavia), United States (When The Phone Rang)
- Angeliki Aristomenopoulou (dir.) | Rea Apostolides (prod.) | Yuri Averof (prod.) | Greece, Iceland, United Kingdom (Holy Human Angel)
- Farihah Zaman (dir. & prod.) | Jeff Reichert (prod.) | United States, Bangladesh (Soulmates)
- Luchina Fisher (dir. & prod.) | Yvonne Welbon (prod.) | Thomas Allen Harris (prod.) | United States (The Untitled Gary Fisher Project)
- Svitlana Lishchynska (dir.) | Anna Kapustina (prod.) | Alex Tondowski (prod.) | Derren Lawford (prod.) | Ukraine, Germany, United Kingdom (A Bit Of A Stranger)
- Habiba Nosheen (dir. & prod.) | Amar Lohana (prod.) | Pakistan, Canada, United States (The Gymnasts of Machar Colony)
- Isabella Rinaldi (dir. & prod.) | Arya Rothe (dir. & prod.) | Cristina Hanes (dir. & prod.) | Italy, India, Romania (Untitled)
- Bora Lee-Kil (dir.) | Sona JO (prod.) | Republic of Korea (Our Bodies)
- Cynthia Lowen (dir. & prod.) | Jon Cohrs (co-dir.) | Jim LeBrecht (prod.) | United States (Kids Like Me)
- Grace Lee (dir. & prod.) | Alicia Sams (prod.) | United States (The Franklin Experiment)
- Petra Costa (dir. & prod.) | Brazil (Untitled 2)
- Elwira Niewiera (dir.) | Poland, Germany (Untitled 3)
- Mila Turajlić (dir. & prod.) | Carine Chichkowsky (prod.) | Serbia, France, Canada (Second World Second Sex)
- Sarvnik Kaur (dir. & prod.) | Quentin Laurent (co-prod.) | India, France (Disruption)
- Carmen Castillo (dir.) | Camille Laemlé (prod.) | Macarena Aguiló (prod.) | Chile, France (Memories of an Oblivion)
Suddenly TV
SYNOPSIS
In April 2019, after the fall of President Omar al-Bashir, Sudanese from across the country congregate in Khartoum to demand civilian rule. Demonstrators occupy the military headquarters. As the weeks pass, the besieged protest grows into a utopian settlement with library tents, communal kitchens, concerts, and health clinics. In this liminal space, a group of young revolutionaries create an imaginary television station—a playful act that grows into an urgent conjuring of a new Sudan.
Suddenly TV is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Roopa Gogineni (she/her) is a filmmaker and photographer based in Paris. For a decade she lived in East Africa where she developed a practice rooted in co-creation. Her films have premiered at festivals including IDFA, Hot Docs, and Sheffield DocFest. I am Bisha (2018), her documentary chronicling a satirical puppet show in rebel-held Sudan, received the Oscar-qualifying Full Frame Award for Best Short and a Rory Peck Award. Suddenly TV (2022), her latest short film about magical thinking and revolution, earned the SXSW Special Jury Award and the IndieLisboa Short Film Grand Prize.
Bad Press
SYNOPSIS
When the free press is swiftly repealed on the eve of an election year for the Muscogee Nation, tenacious Muscogee reporter Angel Ellis fights to bring it back. The election is full of twists and turns, and she refuses to leave the fate of the media to its outcome.
With both humor and unparalleled insight, this documentary probes the inner workings of a modern Native American tribe, revealing its media, sovereignty, and elections with a holistic perspective that few audiences have experienced.
Bad Press is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE CO-DIRECTORS AND PRODUCERS
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker (she/her) is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the executive director of the Native American Journalists Association. Bad Press, her directorial debut, was supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation JustFilms, NBC, and The Gotham. The film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression.
Joe Peeler (he/him) is a Sundance award-winning director and editor whose work has appeared on NETFLIX, HBO, FX, ESPN, Hulu and CBS. Peeler began his career apprenticing under legendary director Peter Bogdanovich, and has edited Lucy Walker’s Academy Awards shortlisted documentary short The Lion’s Mouth Opens; multiple episodes of the Netflix original series Flint Town; and Margaret Brown’s SXSW premiere documentary short, The Black Belt.
Big Fight in Little Chinatown
SYNOPSIS
Set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, Big Fight in Little Chinatown takes us into the lives of residents, businesses, and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure. In New York, it is the construction of the world’s largest vertical jail. In Montreal, it is developers swallowing up the most historic block of Chinatown, while big box chains displace the community in Toronto, and a Vancouver legacy business holds steadfast. These communities, resisting the pressure around them, offer Chinatown as a blueprint for inclusive and resilient neighborhoods of the future.
Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Karen Cho (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker known for her socio-political documentaries. Her films include In the Shadow of Gold Mountain, about the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act; Seeking Refuge, on refugees in Canada; and Status Quo?, about the women’s rights movement in Canada, which won Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival. In 2018 Cho was nominated for a Best Directing Canadian Screen Award for her work on CBC’s Interrupt This Program. Karen’s latest film, Big Fight in little Chinatown premiered at DOCNYC in 2022, and won both the Women’s Inmate Jury Award and the People’s Choice Award at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival (RIDM).
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Bob Moore (he/him) is a creative producer at EyeSteelFilm in Montreal, where he has produced more than 40 feature documentaries since 2008. He has been the recipient of more than 100 international awards, including Emmys, Cinema Eyes, Golden Horses, Owls, Phoenixes, and a variety of other celebratory animal-themed prizes. Moore is currently an advisor working with the Sundance Institute, IDFA, QUMRA, Tokyo Docs, Hot Docs, and others.
ABOUT THE CO-PRODUCER
Katie McKay (she/her) is a documentary producer based in Montreal who has been working with Eyesteelfilm since 2016. She was the director, producer, and DP of Body of Water, an interactive meditation on lake swimming. A former preschool teacher, she is formally trained as a cinema projectionist and is the co-founder of the queer femme DJ collective LADIES BEVERAGE ROOM.
Freedom Hill
SYNOPSIS
Marquetta Dicken’s hometown, Princeville, sits atop wet, swampy land along the Tar River in North Carolina. Disregarded by white people, the land was left available after the Civil War and settled by newly freed enslaved Africans, who called it “Freedom Hill” and established a self-sufficient, all Black town. This short documentary follows Marquetta Dickens as she tries to help save her hometown from flooding, and explores the environmental racism that is washing away the historic town of 2,000 people.
Freedom Hill is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Born and raised in the South, Resita Cox’s (she/her) films center Southern, Black communities and explore environmental justice, racial justice, and more. With a degree in journalism from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Resita started her career as a storyteller in TV news as a reporter in North Carolina and later in Chicago. She holds an MFA from Northwestern University in Documentary Film and is a 2021 North Star fellow with Points North Institute. Resita was recently named a 2022 Esteemed Artist by the City of Chicago and is one of Elevate’s 2022 Climate Changemakers.
From the Shadows #missingirls
SYNOPSIS
Every 8 minutes in India, a child goes missing. Countless are victims of sex trafficking. This film follows two women working against this status quo: One, an artist, relentlessly sprays silhouettes of girls on public walls tagged #missing, calling attention to the loss. The second, an activist, accompanies rescued girls across international borders. These parallel narratives intersect, revealing glimmers of hope, as these women imaginatively challenge a powerful trafficking nexus in their country.
From the Shadows #missingirls is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Miriam Chandy Menacherry (she/her) is the Founder and Director of Filament Pictures. Her award-winning films are From the Shadows #Missingirls (2022), The Leopard’s Tribe (2022), Lyari Notes (2015), The Rat Race (2011), Robot Jockey (2007), Stuntmen of Bollywood (2005) and a seven-part series on BBC World. Her films have premiered at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam and been broadcast on Netflix, BBC, Al Jazeera, NGC, TV2, and Arte. Her most recent feature documentary, From the Shadows, had a special screening at SXSW. She was selected in the first cohort of the Global Media Makers Fellowship by Film Independent and the US State Department
ABOUT THE CO-PRODUCERS
Aalia Furniturewala (she/her) has worked as a producer/director in non-fiction and factual programming for more than a decade, including the social issue films The Leopard’s Tribe (2022), which premiered at IDSFFK; Last Kind of Burma (2015); Robot Jockey (2007); and Stuntmen of Bollywood (2005).
Sheena Matheiken (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and co-founder of ¡Bricolagista!, a subterranean filmmaking collective based between Brooklyn and Mexico City.
Anand Ramayya (he/him), founder of Karma Film, is a multiple Gemini Award winning producer focused on filmmaker-driven animation, documentary, and drama.
Gary Byung-Seok Kam (he/him) has produced award-winning documentaries in Korea and worldwide, including Academy Award nominees, and has been an independent filmmaker since 2006.
ABOUT THE IMPACT PRODUCER
Triparna Banerjee (she/her) is a screenwriter and filmmaker. Her first film as Associate Producer, Frozen, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and received multiple global awards, including two National Awards in India. She is a 2019 Global Media Maker Fellow with Film Independent.
Liquor Store Dreams
SYNOPSIS
Growing up a daughter of Korean immigrants who ran a liquor store in South Los Angeles, Director So Yun Um has never seen eye-to-eye with her father on anything—especially not her career choices. Although his liquor store has provided her financial stability to dream big, there is tension between father and daughter, including around the complicated past their Korean culture and store have within the Black community.
Danny Park, in contrast, is drawn back toward home. In the wake of his father’s passing, he quits his dream job at Nike and returns to Los Angeles to help his mother run the family store on Skid Row, where he dreams of uniting the Black and Korean communities at his store.
Liquor Store Dreams is a portrait of two second-generation Korean Americans trying to create their own future by honoring, understanding, and healing their parents’ past.
Liquor Store Dreams is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
So Yun Um (she/her) is a Korean American director and producer born and based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut documentary feature film, Liquor Store Dreams, made its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Her work has screened at Tribeca Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, BFI London, and more. Um is a 2022-2023 BAFTA Breakthrough USA participant and 2021 CAAM fellow.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Eddie Kim (he/him) is a filmmaker, producer, and writer based in Los Angeles, and he is a believer in creating stories that amplify underserved voices. Eddie has deep experience in producing original series for digital media and television. His work has been featured on The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The View, Billboard, Hypebeast, and more.
Now That We Are Together
SYNOPSIS
After an unexpected encounter with a group of women attempting to take back the streets, filmmaker Patricia Balderas Castro embarks on a personal and collective journey to understand the violence she has experienced. Against the resurgence of feminist protests in Mexico, she delves into her own history, her mother’s, and those of the women she fights alongside. Through this exploration, she learns that in a violent world, acts of solidarity, creating modes of self-defense, and preserving joy are revolutionary.
Now That We Are Together is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Patricia Balderas Castro (she/her) is a feminist Mexican filmmaker, graduate of the National School of Film Arts, and co-founder of the production company Bandada Films. She has worked as a director, producer, editor, screenwriter, fixer, boomer, and sound mixer for production houses and independent projects. Her first film, Now That We Are Together, won both Best Movie Directed by a Woman and Audience Favorite at the Morelia International Film Festival. She has designed training and production projects for community cinema and ludic workshops on sexual harassment in the streets for institutions and civil associations. She was also the coordinator of audiovisual production at FARO Aragón and collaborated at the audiovisual laboratory at CIESAS – CONACyT.
ABOUT THE CO-PRODUCER
Claudia Ruiz Capdevielle (she/her) holds an MA in Documentary Film from UNAM. She co-edited Now that we are together and supported its production throughout the arduous process to make the film a reality. Currently, she is also working on the impact campaign for this project. Claudia is a co-founder of the production company Bandada Films and director of the documentary Concert for the stubborn, which has been selected in various film festivals around the world. In addition to directing, she has also worked as producer and screenwriter on several film, video, and TV projects.
ABOUT THE IMPACT PRODUCERS
Merle Iliná (she/her) and Michelle Plascencia (she/her) are co-founders of Impacta Cine, an impact production collective based in Mexico which has produced campaigns for a variety of Mexican documentaries focused on human rights, gender, and migration. They organized Good Pitch México in 2020 and 2022.