Nest-supported Films at the Milwaukee Film Festival

Nest-supported filmmakers are taking flight at the Milwaukee Film Festival, which is celebrating ten years of bringing their community together through film.

On Her Shoulders, directed by Alexandria Bombach (2018 SXSW LUNA/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)

Screened Tuesday, October 23 at 7:00 PM. Will screen again Friday, October 26 at 3:00 PM at the Avalon Theater. Tickets here.

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.

The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui (2016 Accelerator Lab grantee)

Wednesday, October 24 at 6:00 PM at the Times Cinema. Thursday, October 25 at 8:45 PM at the Jan Serr Studio Cinema. Tuesday, October 30 at 9:00 PM at Fox Bay Cinema Grill. Tickets here.

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.

Blowin Up’, directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal

Saturday, October 27 at 3:45 at the Jan Serr Studio Cinema. Tickets here.

Blowin’ Up looks at sex work, prostitution, and human trafficking through the lens of New York State’s criminal justice system. The film captures the growing pains of our nation’s first human trafficking intervention court in Queens, New York, and how we define trafficking and prostitution from many different perspectives: the criminal justice system, the social welfare system, and, most importantly, the women and girls who are at the center of it all.

United Skates , directed by Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown (2016 Diversity Fellows Initiative Grantee)

Screening Friday, October 26 at 1:00 PM at the Jan Serr Studio Cinema and Tuesday, October 30 at 4:00 PM at the Times Cinema. Tickets here.

When America’s last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture–-one that has remained undiscovered by the mainstream for generations, yet has given rise to some of the world’s greatest musical talent.

The Unafraid*, directed by Heather Courtney and Anayansi Prado (2017 Chicken & Egg Pictures mentee)

Screened Tuesday, October 23 at 12:30 PM and will screen Tuesday, October 30 at 6:45 PM at the Times Cinema. Tickets here.

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.

*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support The Unafraid but supported director Anayansi Prado’s film, Children in No Man’s Land.

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