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.

Five Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films to screen at DOC NYC

The 2016 edition of the DOC NYC Film Festival features five films directed by Chicken & Egg Pictures grantees. Running November 10-17, 2016 in Manhattan, the DOC NYC Film Festival is America’s largest documentary film festival.

You can check out the full lineup of films, shorts, panels, and showcases here.

Cameraperson
Directed by Kirsten Johnson
Drawing on footage she’s shot over the course of 25 years, documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson searches to reconcile her part in the thorny questions of permission, power, creative ambition, and human obligation that come with filming the lives of others. Tickets and showtimes available here.

Cameraperson, directed by Kirsten Johnson.
Cameraperson, directed by Kirsten Johnson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Care
Directed by Deirdre Fishel
Care exposes the deep flaws in the U.S. eldercare system by following the intimate and dramatic stories of three overworked and underpaid home health aides and one family struggling to find and pay for quality care. The film sounds the alarm about an exploited workforce, an aging population, and an impending crisis of care. Tickets and showtimes available here.

Care, directed by Deirdre Fishel
Care, directed by Deirdre Fishel

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pearl
Directed by Jessica Dimmock & Christopher LaMarca
The Pearl witnesses the loss and extraordinary risk of four middle-aged and senior war vets, steel foremen, and fathers and grandfathers coming out for the first time as transgender women in the hyper-masculine culture of the Pacific Northwest. Each year, their lives intersect at the annual Esprit Conference for T-girls, a weeklong event enlivening a community broken by isolation and loss. Tickets and showtimes available here.

The Pearl, directed by Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca
The Pearl, directed by Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trapped
Directed by Dawn Porter
At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by the age of 45. Four in 10 unwanted pregnancies are terminated by abortion. What would happen if access to care for these cases completely disappeared? Following the progress of two reproductive health clinics in the South, Trapped captures their struggle as they continue to provide care in an increasingly hostile legal and political climate. Tickets and showtimes here.

Visitor’s Day
Directed by Nico Opper
Sixteen-year-old Juan Carlos ran away from home to escape abusive parents. After years of battling alcohol addiction and homelessness, he found his way from Mexico City to the rural town of Atlixco, where he joined dozens of other runaway boys living in a group home named Ipoderac. This film follows Juan Carlos during the most transformative year of his life, as he prepares to travel back to Mexico City to confront his father one last time. Tickets and showtimes available here.

Visitor's Day, directed by Nicole Opper
Visitor’s Day, directed by Nico Opper

The Nest is hot on the trail of Hot Docs

A whopping nine Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films have been selected to screen at the upcoming Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.

The festival, which will run April 28-May 8, 2016, is the largest documentary film festival in North America. This year’s lineup is comprised of over 200 films from around the world.

Tickets are on sale now; the full lineup can be found here.

The Apology
Directed by Tiffany Hsiung
This is a film about memory, told through the current relationships three women have with the people closest to them and how these relationships indelibly shape the last years of their lives. The three women – Gil Won-Ok in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Lola Adela in the Philippines – are all former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women forced into military sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

The Apology, directed by Tiffany Hsiung
The Apology, directed by Tiffany Hsiung

Cameraperson
Directed by Kirsten Johnson
Drawing on footage she’s shot over the course of 25 years, documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson searches to reconcile her part in the thorny questions of permission, power, creative ambition, and human obligation that come with filming the lives of others.

LoveTrue
Directed by Alma Ha’rel
Does our view of love change as we grow older? How do we make decisions about our love lives? Is there such a thing as true love? Are there invisible partners in relationships? Past ghosts of ourselves? The film’s reenactments of significant past experiences and glimpses at possible futures, created with non-actors playing the characters’ older and younger selves, encourage the couples to confront the realities of their hopes and memories, and the effect they have on their love lives.

LoveTrue, directed by Alma Ha'rel
LoveTrue, directed by Alma Ha’rel

The Pearl
Directed by Jessica Dimmock & Christopher LaMarca
The Pearl witnesses the loss and extraordinary risk of four middle-aged and senior war vets, steel foremen, and fathers and grandfathers coming out for the first time as transgender women in the hyper-masculine culture of the Pacific Northwest. Each year, their lives intersect at the annual Esprit Conference for T-girls, a weeklong event enlivening a community broken by isolation and loss.

Sonita
Directed by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
18-year-old Sonita is an undocumented Afghan illegal immigrant living in the suburbs of Tehran. She fights to live the way she wants: As a rapper in spite of all her obstacles she confronts in Iran and her conservative family. In harsh contrast to her goal is the plan of her family – strongly advanced by her mother – to make her a bride and sell her to a new family for the price of $9,000.

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
Directed by Deborah S. Esquenazi
Southwest of Salem excavates the nightmarish persecution of Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh, and Anna Vasquez — four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of allegedly gang raping two little girls. This bizarre case is the first to be adjudicated under momentous new legislation: for the first time in U.S. history, wrongfully convicted innocents can challenge convictions based on debunked scientific evidence. The film also unravels the sinister interplay of mythology, homophobia, and prosecutorial fervor which led to this modern day witch hunt.

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four, directed by Deborah S. Esquenazi.
Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four, directed by Deborah S. Esquenazi.

Trapped
Directed by Dawn Porter
At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by the age of 45. Four in 10 unwanted pregnancies are terminated by abortion. What would happen if access to care for these cases completely disappeared? Following the progress of two Southern reproductive health clinics, Trapped captures their struggle as they continue to provide care in the face of an increasingly hostile legal and political climate. Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Social Impact Filmmaking at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

What Tomorrow Brings
Directed by Beth Murphy
What Tomorrow Brings is a coming-of-age story in which Afghan girls studying at the Zabuli School struggle against tradition and time. They discover that their school is the one place they can turn to understand the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading. At a time when the political and security situation is rapidly changing, the film weaves the interconnected stories of students, teachers, parents, and school founder Razia Jan.

What Tomorrow Brings, directed by Beth Murphy.
What Tomorrow Brings, directed by Beth Murphy.

When Two Worlds Collide
Directed by Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel
An indigenous leader forced into exile and facing 20 years in prison for resisting the environmental ruin of Amazonian lands by big business. Refusing to surrender he continues his quest, shedding light on conflicting visions shaping the fate of the Amazon and the climate future of our world.

Headed to True/False? Don’t miss the Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films screening at this year’s fest

Four Chicken & Egg Pictures grantees will be screening their films at this year’s edition of the True/False Film Festival, held annually in Columbia, MO.

Be sure to check out Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson), The Pearl (Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca), Sonita (Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghammi), and the latest from Ramona Diaz.

The full lineup is available here.

Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
Drawing on footage she’s shot over the course of 25 years, documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson searches to reconcile her part in the thorny questions of permission, power, creative ambition, and human obligation that come with filming the lives of others.

The Pearl (Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca)
The Pearl witnesses the loss and extraordinary risk of four middle-aged and senior war vets, steel foremen, and fathers and grandfathers coming out for the first time as transgender women in the hyper-masculine culture of the Pacific Northwest. Each year, their lives intersect at the annual Esprit Conference for T-girls, a weeklong event enlivening a community broken by isolation and loss.

Sonita (Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghammi)
18-year-old Sonita is an undocumented Afghan illegal immigrant living in the suburbs of Tehran. She fights to live the way she wants: As a rapper in spite of all her obstacles she confronts in Iran and her conservative family. In harsh contrast to her goal is the plan of her family – strongly advanced by her mother – to make her a bride and sell her to a new family for the price of $9,000.

Motherland (Bayang Ina Mo) (Ramona Diaz)
One of the world’s poorest and most populous countries, The Philippines, struggles with reproductive health policy — both in the legislature, where laws are debated, and in a hospital with the busiest maternity ward on the planet.