American Factory 美国工厂
SYNOPSIS
In 2014, a Chinese billionaire opened a Fuyao factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. For thousands of locals, the arrival of this multinational car-glass manufacturer meant regaining their jobs–and dignity–after the recession left them high and dry. American Factory takes us inside the facility to observe what happens when workers from profoundly different cultures collide.
At first, the culture clash is humorous. Transplanted Chinese workers attend trainings on dealing with their peculiarly casual and “chatty” American counterparts. However tensions escalate as poor safety standards and meager wages ignite serious doubts among the American rank and file. Low productivity and talk of unionization trigger a cascade of controls from Chinese management. Meanwhile, the specter of job loss due to automation looms ominously.
American Factory was supported through Julia Reichert’s 2016 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Julia Reichert (she/her) was an Oscar® and Emmy®-winning independent documentary filmmaker, and a four-time Academy Award® nominee. She lived in a small town in Ohio and has chosen to focus on class, gender, and race in the lives of Americans. Julia’s first film, Growing Up Female, was the first feature documentary of the modern Women’s Movement. It was selected in 2011 for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Her films Union Maids and Seeing Red were nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature, as was The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, a short which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and on HBO. Her film A Lion in the House (an ITVS co-production), about kids fighting cancer, premiered at Sundance Film Festival, screened nationally on PBS, and won a Primetime Emmy® for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking. Julia’s film American Factory 美国工厂,(a co-production with Participant), about the rebirth of a dead Midwestern factory, won the US Documentary Directing Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, the Best Documentary Spirit Award, the Best Documentary Gotham Award, the Outstanding Nonfiction Feature and Outstanding Direction awards at the Cinema Eye Honors, and the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. It was the first film released by Higher Ground Productions, the production company created by Michelle & Barack Obama, and is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Julia’s film 9to5: The Story of a Movement, an official selection of SXSW, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, AFI DOCS Film Festival, and DOC NYC, tells the story of secretaries rising up and organizing to fight for their rights. The film premiered on the PBS series Independent Lens, was nominated for a Peabody Award, and now streams on Netflix. Julia co-founded New Day Films, an independent film distribution co-op. She is the author of Doing It Yourself, the first book on self-distribution in independent film, and was an Advisory Board member of IFP. Julia co-wrote and directed the feature film, Emma and Elvis. Over the decades, she has mentored hundreds of emerging filmmakers. Julia taught for 28 years at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. In 2019, a retrospective of her work, Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film, organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and traveled to a dozen cities across the United States.
Steven Bognar (he/him) is an Academy Award® and Primetime Emmy® winning documentary filmmaker based in southwest Ohio. Bognar’s first 1996 film, Personal Belongings, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on the PBS series POV. His short films Picture Day (2000) and Gravel (2003) also premiered at Sundance and screened widely. Bognar’s film A Lion in the House (2006) premiered at Sundance, screened on the PBS series Independent Lens, was nominated for a Best Documentary Spirit Award, and won the Primetime Emmy® for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking. His film The Last Truck (2009) was nominated for an Academy Award® and screened on HBO. His film Sparkle (2012) won the Audience Award® for Best Short at SilverDocs and screened on PBS. Bognar’s film American Factory (2019) won the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Award, the Gotham Award, the Cinema Eye Honor, and the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. Bognar & Reichert’s latest film, 9to5 – The Story Of A Movement, (2020) was an official selection of the SXSW, AFI DOCS, IDFA, Full Frame, and DOC NYC film festivals in 2021. Bognar has taught documentary extensively, including guest lectures at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Universities.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
Julie Parker Benello (she/her) is the Founder of Secret Sauce Media, her latest venture to produce and invest in surprising and timeless film projects. Julie co-founded Chicken & Egg Pictures in 2005 with a shared belief that diverse women nonfiction storytellers have the power to catalyze change at home and around the globe. She produced Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s Academy Award®, Emmy®, Gotham and Independent Spirit winning feature documentary American Factory, streaming on Netflix in partnership with Higher Ground Productions and Participant Media. Most recently, she produced Sarah Jones’ directorial debut, Sell Buy Date, premiering at SXSW 2022 and Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk’s Netflix Originals documentary, Athlete A. Julie lives in San Francisco and serves on the Board of SFFILM and is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Documentary Branch.
Jeff Reichert (he/him) is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker who lives in Brooklyn. His films as a director include the feature documentaries Gerrymandering (Tribeca Film Festival 2010), Remote Area Medical (Full Frame 2013), This Time Next Year (Tribeca Film Festival 2014), and the fiction-documentary hybrid Feast of the Epiphany (BAMcinemaFest 2018), and the shorts Kombit (Sundance 2014), Nobody Loves Me (Camden 2017), American Carnage (Field of Vision 2017) and To Be Queen (Tribeca Film Festival 2019). He also produced Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s American Factory (Sundance Film Festival 2019). His work has been awarded the Film Independent Spirit Award, Gotham Award, and Cinema Eye Honor (all for Best Documentary). He is a Peabody Award Nominee. He is also the co–founder and editor of the online film journal Reverse Shot (est. 2003), now a publication of the Museum of the Moving Image, and has written for Film Comment, Filmmaker, Huffington Post, and Indiewire.
The Hamlet Syndrome
SYNOPSIS
The war in Ukraine has profoundly affected the young generation since 2014. A few months prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, five young women and men participated in a unique stage production that likened their war experiences to Hamlet’s dilemma.
For each of them, the stage is a platform on which they can pour out their grievances and troubles through Hamlet’s question, “to be or not to be,” reflecting a dilemma that applies to their own lives.
The Hamlet Syndrome evolves as a documentary portraying a vibrant young generation trying to put their lives back in order while being compelled in the complex process to digest their trauma-inducing experiences.
The Hamlet Syndrome was supported through Elwira Niewiera’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Elwira Niewiera (she/her) is a Polish-German director and screenwriter based in Berlin. In her artistic work, she focuses primarily on social and cultural transformations in Eastern Europe.
She is a recipient of fellowships from Robert Bosch Stiftung, DEFA-Foundation in Berlin, and Nipkow Programm. Her feature documentary Domino Effect (2014) was shown worldwide at more than 50 festivals, including Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and MoMa Doc Fortnight, and won many awards, including the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig and Golden Horn at the Krakow Film Festival. The film received a nomination for the Polish Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Her last documentary before beginning production on The Hamlet Syndrome, The Prince and the Dybbuk, premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary on Cinema. In 2019, the film won the Polish Academy Award for Best Documentary. Elwira recently received the Young German Cinema Award by DEFA Foundation in Berlin. She is a member of the European Film Academy.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
Piotr Rosolowski (he/him) is a Polish director, screenwriter, and cinematographer based in Berlin. After graduating from Katowice Film School, he was awarded an Academy of Media Arts scholarship in Cologne. Rosolowski is the co-author of the documentary Rabbit à la Berlin, and most recently co-directed Academy Award®-nominated short documentary film, Domino Effect, with Elwira Niewiera. Their documentary film, The Prince and the Dybbuk won the Golden Lion Award for Best Documentary on Cinema at the 74th Venice Film Festival. Piotr also works as a director of photography, and has shot many award-winning feature and short films; among them are Academy Award®-nominated On the line and The wall of Shadows which won the annual prize of the Polish Society of Cinematographers.
Magdalena Kamińska (she/her) runs a production company called Balapolis, and has produced multiple feature films, documentaries, and TV series. In 2015, Kamińska was a finalist in the Biennale College Cinema Awards for producing Baby Bump with director Kuba Czekaj. In 2017, she participated in the EAVE Producers Workshop, before going on to produce Adrian Panek’s Werewolf, which was EFA shortlisted in 2019. Kamińska recently co-produced Hunter’s Son by Ricky Rijneke, White Courage by Marcin Koszałka, and a TV Series Strange Angels.
Recovery Boys
SYNOPSIS
In the heart of America’s opioid epidemic, four men attempt to reinvent their lives and mend broken relationships after years of drug abuse. Recovery Boys, directed by Academy Award® nominee Elaine McMillion Sheldon, is an intimate look at the strength, brotherhood, and courage required to overcome addictionThe film exposes the internal struggles of recovery and the effort to break the cycle of generational addiction and trauma. The young men let go of painful pasts to live in the present and create a new community through farming-based rehabilitation. After rehab, they face life’s challenges sober but struggle to find their place and purpose in an often unforgiving society. In today’s world where the opioid crisis dominates headlines, Recovery Boys gives a deeply personal look into the unseen lives of those working toward transformation.
Recovery Boys was supported through Elaine McMillion Sheldon‘s 2016 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Elaine McMillion Sheldon (she/her) is an Academy Award®-nominated and Peabody-winning documentary filmmaker. She has been nominated for six Emmy® awards, and is a 2021 Creative Capital Awardee, a 2021 Livingston Award Finalist, and a 2020 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Kristi Jacobson (she/her) is an Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker based in New York and founder of Catalyst FIlms. Hers films capture nuanced, intimate, and provocative portrayals of individuals and communities. They have premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, been released in theaters worldwide, and screened on platforms including Netflix, HBO, ESPN, PBS, ABC, CBS, and Discovery.
Total Trust
SYNOPSIS
The Chinese government’s vision of an all-seeing society is becoming a reality. The documentary Total Trust follows an official, two human rights lawyers’ families, and a journalist to reveal how a person is gradually integrated into China’s state surveillance system. It depicts what it is like to live under constant surveillance, and the resulting trauma. Through intimate vérité scenes and rich archival footage, the film aims to explore the changes in social behavior and suppression of human rights when technology is in the hands of unchecked power. It also highlights people who risk their lives to stand up against it.
Total Trust was supported through Jialing Zhang’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Jialing Zhang (she/her) is an independent Chinese filmmaker based in Massachusetts, US. She produced In the Same Breath (Sundance Film Festival, 2021), co-directed and produced One Child Nation (Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, 2019) and Complicit (Human Rights Watch Film Festival, 2017). In 2019, Jialing was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, a Producers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures, a Gotham Independent Film Award, and a Peabody Award. Most recently, she won a Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize (US) and a Catholic Media Prize (Germany).
Before becoming a filmmaker, Jialing worked in journalism in Beijing for six years. She holds a master’s degree from NYU’s School of Journalism. Her films have been grounded in thorough investigation and compassionate storytelling with a focus on human rights. Jialing looks forward to further exploring the potential of the medium, which she believes can inform our understanding of the human condition and lead to social change.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Knut Jäger (he/him) works as a producer at the German production company, Filmtank GmbH. As a producer, Knut is mainly responsible for the company’s international cinema and TV documentaries, fiction, and virtual reality projects. Before joining Filmtank in 2019, he worked for six years at Heimathafen Film & Media GmbH as a managing director and producer with a focus on international fiction and documentary films. From 2010-2012, he managed the Film Production Company Jäger & Becker Film. Knut holds two MA degrees, respectively in Film & TV production from Hamburg Media School and in Sociology and Visual Communications from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg.
Praying for Armageddon
SYNOPSIS
A political thriller from the inside of the Apocalyptic movement of fundamental US Evangelicals. As they interpret biblical scripture as fact, we see how they believe it is their responsibility to act out God’s plan for Armageddon in Israel–ushering the Second Coming of Christ.
Praying for the Armageddon investigates the fusion of religion and politics in the US, where the Religious Right not only threatens democracy but deeply influences foreign policy and support to Israel.
Praying for the Armageddon features people from the grassroots to megachurch empires in the US and those who live with the consequences of Evangelical right-wing projects in Jerusalem.
Praying for the Armageddon was supported through Tonje Hessen Schei’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Tonje Hessen Schei (she/her) is an award-winning independent filmmaker. She is the director of iHuman, a political thriller from the inside of the AI revolution. iHuman premiered at IDFA 2019, with sold-out theaters and a panel with Edward Snowden. Tonje directed Drone, a documentary on the secret CIA drone warfare. Drone was awarded the Most Valuable Documentary of the Year at Cinema for Peace in Berlin. Drone also received Norway’s national film awards, the Amanda and Gullruten awards for best documentary. She has been featured in international media, including television broadcasts, radio, and newspapers such as the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, VICE, Wired, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and many more. Tonje directed and produced Play Again and Independent Intervention, which both won several international awards. The films have been screened on all continents in over 100 countries, and are used by schools and universities globally. In Norway, Tonje worked for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), and she was the Festival Director of Human Rights Human Wrongs Film Festival (2011). Tonje is a TEDx speaker and presented Gaming for War in 2016. Tonje is a director at Oslo Pictures in Norway.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
Christian Aune Falch (he/him) has been producing documentaries for the domestic and international market since 2003. His previous films have been screened at numerous festivals around the world, have won several awards and have been sold to more than 20 different territories. Among his previous titles are the feature films The Exorcist in the 21st Century, Blackhearts, The King and the Crook, Two Raging Grannies and Street of Dreams. His latest film Golden Dawn Girls premiered in the main competition at IDFA 2017 and has been selected for festivals such as Visions du Réel, HotDocs and many more. The film won the main award for the best documentary at HUMAN International Film Festival in Oslo and has been sold worldwide. Falch has also co-produced several feature documentaries with countries like Finland, France, Germany, Australia and Iran. Falch graduated from EuroDoc in 2013 and dok.incubator in 2017. In March 2018, Falch received the Norwegian University of Science and Technology`s Film Award for “his work in the field of international documentary production”. He has been a tutor and speaker at different documentary forums around the world.
Torstein Parelius (he/him) is a documentary producer and outreach producer for UpNorth Film. He attended the Young Nordic Producers Club at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, was a tutor at East Doc Platform in Prague in 2019, and has pitched films at CPH:DOX, Kosmorama, MOW, and more. His latest projects include iHuman (co-producer & outreach producer / 2019 / dir. Tonje Hessen Schei), School Of Seduction (co-producer / Danish Documentary 2019 / dir. Alina Rudnitskaya), Wars Don’t End (producer / 2018 / dir. Dheeraj Akolkar), Golden Dawn Girls (outreach producer / 2017 / dir. Håvard Bustnes), Patriotic Highway (co-producer / Auto Images 2019 / dir. Caroline Troedsson), Boys Who Like Girls (co-producer / Napafilms 2018 / dir. Inka Achté), Blackhearts (outreach producer & assistant producer / 2016 / dir. Fredrik Horn Akselsen) and Braving The Waves (co-producer / Mindocs 2016 / dir. Mina Keshavarz) as well as several upcoming projects as producer, co-producer and outreach producer. Parelius also has a background as a professional musician from different band constellations throughout the last 20 years, as a recording artist, songwriter, lyricist, and live performer.
Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes From the Labudović Reels
SYNOPSIS
In an unexplored vault in Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia, lies a collection of films known as “the Labudović Reels”. On them are images of African and Asian liberation movements and revolutionary leaders that defined the era of the 1960s. How is it that the archive of these revolutions lies on another continent, forgotten in a film archive? The answer to this question takes us into the story behind the images, on an intimate voyage with the man who filmed them. As the cameraman of Yugoslav president Tito, Stevan Labudović captured an era of politics, personality, and promise, filming the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement. Sent on missions by the President to film liberation wars, he would play a key role in the information battles that defined the era of decolonization. This film diptych examines the legacy of these extraordinary archives, seeking to project their political vision forward.
Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes From the Labudović Reels was supported through Mila Turajlić’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Mila Turajlic (she/her) is a documentary filmmaker and archive scholar born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her films have been screened at various film festivals including Toronto and Tribeca, and have been released theatrically in France, Germany, the UK, the US, Uruguay, and across the former Yugoslavia.
Her film The Other Side of Everything (2017) was HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia. It won 32 awards including the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary and the Rendez-vous de l’histoire Grand Prix for Best Historical Documentary, and was nominated for the European Parliament LUX Prize. Mila’s debut feature documentary Cinema Komunisto (2011) played at over 100 festivals and won 16 awards including the Gold Hugo for Best Documentary and the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage.
In her work with archives, Mila researches the intersection of personal and national memories, always seeking to reactivate forgotten histories, through forms ranging from lecture performances and video art to analytical essays. In 2018, she was commissioned by MoMA to create a series of archive-based video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture. A graduate of the London School of Economics, Mila teaches documentary and archive use at SciencesPo and INASup in Paris. She is one of the founders of DokSerbia and was a producer of the Magnificent 7 Festival since its creation in 2005.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Carine Chichkowsky (she/her) holds a double Master’s Degree in Business and Administration from Laval University in Quebec and from the Grenoble Business School, and a Master’s Degree in Documentary Cinema from Paris 7 University. After a career in sales and marketing in Canada, she decided to follow her passion and work with cinema and documentary films. She was a production manager for several companies producing short movies and documentaries for ten years. In 2010, she founded Survivance along with Guillaume Morel, an independent production and distribution company. With a dozen produced films which premiered at the Berlinale, Locarno Film Festival, Rotterdam, and key documentary festivals (Nyon, FID, Festival du Reel, CPH Dox, etc.), Survivance was also the recipient of funding from CNC, EURIMAGES, Doha Film Institute, and the Hubert Bals Fund.
The Inquisitor
SYNOPSIS
Barbara Jordan fought for her place in history, and her allegiance to the American experiment steered her along the way. Through rich archive, personal recordings, and current-day interviews, The Inquisitor examines key moments in Jordan’s career, including her pivotal roles in the 1964 Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court case, the 1973 Watergate commission hearings, the extension and revision of the Voting Rights Act in 1975, and the nomination hearings of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. This isn’t a straight-forward biography, but rather a meditation on her legacy that also draws connections to contemporary politics and culture.
The Inquisitor is supported through Angela Tucker’s 2023 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Angela Tucker (she/her) is an Emmy® and Webby Award-winning filmmaker working in scripted and unscripted film and television, highlighting underrepresented communities in unconventional ways. Her recent work includes NYT Critic’s Pick Belly of the Beast (dir. Erika Cohn) and A New Orleans Noel, a Lifetime holiday film starring Patti LaBelle. Her documentaries in production are The Inquisitor, about political icon Barbara Jordan, and Steam (working title), about ancient and alternative health treatments spanning the globe.
2023 Chicken & Egg Award Recipients
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to introduce the eighth cohort of our Chicken & Egg Award. This program, which has grown from a cohort of six to eight, awards women and non-binary documentary filmmakers who are at advanced-career 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.
“The reality is that, even in 2023, it’s still incredibly difficult for women and non-binary people to make careers as independent storytellers. The numbers tell the tale: two-thirds of documentaries are helmed by men,” said CEO of Chicken & Egg Pictures, Jenni Wolfson. “This chasm in representation means that men have an outsized role in telling the stories of who we are, and what’s important. Chicken & Egg Pictures is thrilled to play a role in righting this wrong, and to recognize the talent and contributions of these incredible filmmakers,” Wolfson continued.
The 2023 Chicken & Egg Award recipients are Angela Tucker, Ilinca Calugareanu, Jeanie Finlay, Lisa Jackson, Nico Opper, Rea Tajiri, Sabaah Folayan, and Sonia Kennebeck. This cohort will receive $75,000 (a $25,000 increase in funding from previous years)–a $50,000 unrestricted career grant and a $25,000 project grant.
For the second time, two finalists–Farida Pacha and Salomé Jashi–will receive a $15,000 Chicken & Egg Award Finalist Development Grant for their projects to recognize their great achievements in documentary filmmaking.
In recognition of a challenging landscape faced by women and non-binary filmmakers, Chicken & Egg Pictures has expanded the definition of advanced-career directors to encompass a broader set of backgrounds and experiences, and in this way, account for the impact of institutional barriers and structures on the development of one’s career. This year’s grantees are filmmakers with established careers in the documentary industry including both commissioned and independent work. By expanding support in this way, the organization hopes to widen the field for women and non-binary artists who may not have had access to the resources needed to tell their stories.
“This year, we are excited that we are able to provide more women and non-binary filmmakers with even more support, resources, and mentorship as they continue to tell important stories on wide-ranging issues. With an increase in our grant funding, these artists will have the opportunity to utilize the bulk of their awards on whatever best suits their needs as they move their careers and projects forward,” said Wolfson.
Please click on the Recipients’ names for more information on each filmmaker and give these visionary directors a warm welcome to the Nest!
2023
- Angela TuckerMore info >
Angela Tucker
- Ilinca CalugareanuMore info >
Ilinca Calugareanu
- Jeanie FinlayMore info >
Jeanie Finlay
- Lisa JacksonMore info >
Lisa Jackson
- Nico OpperMore info >
Nico Opper
- Rea TajiriMore info >
Rea Tajiri
- Sabaah FolayanMore info >
Sabaah Folayan
- Sonia KennebeckMore info >
Sonia Kennebeck
Chicken & Egg Award Finalist Development Grant Recipients
- Farida PachaMore info >
Farida Pacha
- Salomé JashiMore info >
Salomé Jashi
2023 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient
SABAAH FOLAYAN: 2023 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Through screenwriting, filmmaking, and public speaking, Sabaah Folayan (she/they) levels an optimistic yet unflinching gaze on the urgent questions of our time.
Sabaah made her directorial debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, with the feature-length documentary Whose Streets? Nominated for a Peabody Award, Critic’s Choice Award, Gotham Award, and NAACP Award, the film chronicles the experiences of activists living in Ferguson, Missouri when Michael Brown Jr. was killed. Whose Streets? was distributed theatrically by Magnolia Pictures, broadcast for television by POV, and is now streaming on Netflix.
In 2021, Sabaah wrote the series finale of HBO’s Betty, a critically acclaimed comedy series about a crew of young female skateboarders in New York City. Her second feature documentary LOOK AT ME: XXXTENTACION premiered at SXSW 2022 and is now streaming on Hulu.
Sabaah was born in Los Angeles, raised in Hawaii, and educated in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University as a pre-medical student. The desire to work at a larger scale evolved into a unique storytelling practice that is informed by principles of behavioral science and social justice. Sabaah specializes in blending care, nuance, and depth with entertainment and popular culture.
2023 Chicken & Egg Award Finalist Development Grant Recipient
FARIDA PACHA: 2023 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD FINALIST DEVELOPMENT GRANT RECIPIENT
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Farida Pacha (she/her) studied Anthropology and Sociology in Mumbai before obtaining her MFA in filmmaking at Southern Illinois University. Her debut feature documentary, My Name is Salt (2013), has won 35 international awards including the main prizes at film festivals in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Madrid, and Mumbai, as well as the prestigious German Camera Prize. Her latest documentary Watch Over Me (2021) received the Grand Jury Documentary Award at the Movies that Matter Festival at The Hague and was nominated for The Robert and Frances Flaherty Award at the Yamagata International Film Festival.
In 2018, she received the IDFA Bertha Fund Europe and the Jan Vrijman Fund in 2008 and 2010.