Chicken & Egg Pictures at Getting Real 2024

Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to be part of the sixth edition of Getting Real, a biennial for documentary practitioners and focused on the business and art of nonfiction storytelling. The event takes place from Monday, April 15 through Friday, April 19 in Los Angeles. 

Fourteen supported filmmakers, as well as our Program Director Kiyoko McCrae and Board Members Félix Endara, Marjan Safinia, and Alex Simon, will participate in a four day event designed to provide a space for the field to hold constructive conversations, build lasting relationships, and tackle the ethical, creative, sustainability, production, and distribution challenges facing our growing community. Please take a look at the details below.

Still with 14 black and white headshots supported filmmakers participating at Getting Real.
Supported filmmakers participating at Getting Real. For details please see below.
From left to right: Program Director Kiyoko McCrae, Board Members Alex Simon, Marjan Safinia, and Félix Endara.

Playing with Reality: Staging Documentary

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 10:30 AM PDT

Panelists: Alison O’Daniel, Cecilia Aldorando, Theo Montoya
Moderator: Ela Bittencourt 

Surviving the Aftermath: Protecting Creative Expression

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 10:45 AM PDT

Panelists: Assia Boundaoui, Farihah Zaman, Anam Abbas 
Moderator: Aizzah Fatima 

Open Breakout Session: From Concept to Catalyst (with A-Doc and BGDM)

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 2:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Grace Lee, Farihah Zaman, Leo Chiang, Iyabo Boyd 
Moderators: Sonya Childress, Sahar Driver

Risky Business: Accessing Difficult Places

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 3:45 PM PDT

Moderators: Jennifer Petrucelli, Stephanie Jenkins, and Rachel Antell
Respondents: Dawn Porter, Jon-Sesrie Goff, and more to be announced

The Hot Seat

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 3:45 PM PDT

Panelist: Program Director Kiyoko McCrae, Mads K. Mikkelsen, Bryn Mooser, and Luis Ortiz
Moderator: Abby Sun

Delegation: Is There Independence Out There? (BFI Doc Society)

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:00 AM PDT

BFI Doc Society, in partnership with FWD-Doc, is hosting a virtual Delegation of six UK filmmakers, producers, and editors who identify as disabled, D/deaf, and/or neurodivergent. In this virtual discussion on the spirit of independence, filmmakers Ella Glendining, Lindsey Dryden, and other filmmakers will elaborate on what voice, audience, and success mean to them as disabled filmmakers, and how reframing “access” beyond accessibility can create and sustain space for radical new voices in the documentary industry. 

Disaster Preparation: Building Your Support System

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:15 AM PDT

Panelists: Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, Emily Mkrtichian, and Gema Allen Juarez
Moderator: Zara Meerza

Open Breakout Session: Trans Filmmaker Meetup

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 11:45 AM PDT

Moderator: Board Member Félix Endara
Panelists: Chelsea Moore, Moi Santos, seyi adebanjo, Cary Cronenwett

Workshop: Brands 101

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 11:45 AM PDT

Moderator: Board Member Alex Simon 
Facilitator: Brian Newman

Here’s What Really Happened: Your Fat Friend

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 2:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Jeanie Finlay, Suzanne Alizart 
Moderator: Keisha Knight

Worth Our Weight In Gold: Identifying Value in Your Production

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 2:15 PM PDT

Panelists: Tabs Breese, Chris Perez, Lexy Altman, and Asmae El Moudir
Moderator: Zeynep Güzel (Berlinale Talents Doc Station)

We Don’t Need to Reinvent the Wheel: Connecting to Audiences

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 4:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Elizabeth Woodward, Pulkit Datta, Lucas Rosant, Paula Ossandón
Moderator: Winnie Wang

Keynote: Kirsten Johnson

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 5:30 PM PDT

Kirsten Johnson is a 2017 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient

Collective Performance: Our Declaration of Independence

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 7:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Board Member Marjan Safinia, Maxine Franklin, Michelle Plascencia 

Game Show: What’s the Deal?

Thursday, April 18, 2024 11:15 AM PDT

Panelists: Daresha Kyi, Keith Wilson, Gary Kam, and Vinay Shukla
Moderator: Chase Whiteside (América)


Meet Our Team

Along with our Program Director Kiyoko McCrae, CEO Jenni Wolfson, COO Sarah Anderson, and Senior Program Manager Elaisha Stokes will be attending Getting Real. They will be attending panels and supporting our filmmakers. If you see them, please don’t hesitate to say hello! 


Nest-supported Films in The Gotham Week Project Market

Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to see two Nest-supported and eight AlumNest films in The Gotham Week Project Market. This year’s lineup includes 60 documentary features that will be presented in-person at Brooklyn Navy Yard, and virtually. The Gotham Week will take place from Saturday, September 17 through Friday, September 23.

The Gotham Week Project Market hosts one-on-one industry meetings dedicated to elevating the work of independent artists and facilitating relationships with distributors, financiers, production companies, festival programmers, sales/talent agents, and other potential collaborators.

Take a look at the Nest-supported projects below:

Life + Life

dir & prod. Contessa Gayles

prods. Richie Reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe

Close up of a pair of feet jumping in a bed
Still from Life + Life

An incarcerated musician struggles for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary-musical odyssey composed behind bars.

Life + Life is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.


Storming

dir. Katrina Sorrentino

prod. Tiffany Fisher-Love

Still from Storming

A family hangs in limbo, caring for their comatose son. Hope and denial blur as seasons circle in this meditation on love and letting go. 

Storming
was a participant of the 2019 Nest Knight Fellowship.


From the AlumNest


The Gotham Week Conference


Meet Our Team

Headshots of Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova and Executive Director Jenni Wolfson. Two women smiling at the camera.
Left to right: Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova and Executive Director Jenni Wolfson

Our Executive Director Jenni Wolfson and Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova will be taking meetings at The Gotham Week.


Check out the full list of projects participating with this link.

Six Nest-supported filmmakers receive The Spark Fund!

We are egg-tremely proud to see six Nest-supported filmmakers among Firelight Media Spark Fund’s 36 recipients. This one-time opportunity offers a $50,000 stipend to established, independent documentary filmmakers who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) and whose work on humanities-themed projects was disrupted by the COVID-19 public health emergency.  
Congratulations to all the recipients!

Assia Boundaoui The Feeling of Being Watched 2016 Accelerator Lab2016 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Assia Boundaoui (The Feeling of Being Watched)

A headshot of a woman looking at the camera with curly medium length hair, wearing a blazer and a necklace2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Débora Souza Silva (Black Mothers)

Portrait of a woman with short medium hair, slightly tilting down their head and looking up at the cameraNest-supported filmmaker Farihah Zaman (Remote Area Medical)

Portrait of a woman with medium length hair, wearing a scarf and looking2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Grace Lee (American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs)

Headshot of a woman with short curly hair, looking at the camera and with a blurry background2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Michèle Stephenson

Made in India Vaishali SinhaNest-supported filmmaker Vaishali Sinha (Made in India)


Headshot of a woman tilting her head to her left and widely smiling. She wears dreadlocks, an open shirt with a shirt underneath and a necklace.We are sending an extra special congratulations to our Senior Creative Consultant Yvonne Welbon, who was also selected as one of the recipients.


Check out the full list of recipients and learn more about them with this link.

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!

Check out more DOC NYC news from the Nest.

Chicken & Egg Pictures at DOC NYC 2017!

The 2017 DOC NYC Film Festival features three films that Chicken & Egg Pictures has supported directly. Running November 9-16, 2017 in Manhattan, the DOC NYC Film Festival is America’s largest documentary film festival.

Check out the full lineup of films, shorts, panels, and showcases here!

Lovesick (World Premiere)
Directed by Priya Desai and Ann Kim

In India, a culture obsessed with marriage but where AIDS is an unspeakable disease, can you find love and companionship if you’re HIV+? Ancient tradition and the new reality of HIV collide. Lovesick is the modern love story that results. Tickets and showtimes available here.

From Lovesick by Priya Desai and Ann Kim.

32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide (NYC Premiere)
Directed by Hope Litoff

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. Tickets and showtimes available here.

From 32 PIlls: My Sister’s Suicide by Hope Litoff.

Strong Island
Directed by Yance Ford

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. Tickets and showtimes available here.

From Strong Island by Yance Ford.

A big congratulations, also, to these Nest-supported filmmakers whose films are also screening at DOC NYC:

Katherine Fairfax Wright, Behind the Curtain: Todrick Hall
Mohammed Naqvi, Insha’allah Democracy 
Geeta Gandbhir, Armed With Faith
Julia Bacha, Naila and the Uprising
Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman, Nobody Loves Me
Lucy Walker, Oh, What a Beautiful City (A City Symphony)
Laura Poitras, Risk