Three Chicken & Egg-supported Films at RIDM!
We are proud to see three Chicken & Egg-supported films and two Alumni films in the lineup for this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). Alumni filmmaker Sky Hopinka is also being featured in a retrospective entitled “Redefining Potential Territories.” The festival takes place between Wednesday, November 15 to Sunday, November 26 in Montreal, Canada. Our Associate Director of Program Sabine Fayoux Cantillo is attending the festival to participate in the Expert Roundtable, take one on one meetings, and watch many films!
Onlookers
dir. & prod. Kimi Takesue
co-prod. Richard Beenan
Onlookers will be participating in the “Panorama- Horizons” section and was supported through Kimi Takesue’s 2018 Chicken & Egg Award.
Get your tickets here.
El eco / The Echo
dir. & prod. Tatiana Huezo
prod. Dalia Reyes
El eco / The Echo will be participating in the “Panorama – Essentials” section and was supported through Tatiana Huezo’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
Get your tickets here.
Hummingbirds
dirs. & prods. Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía “Beba” Contreras
co-dirs. & prods. Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falco
prods. Leslie Benavides, Rivkah Beth Medow
Hummingbirds is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist participating in the “Panorama – Horizons” section.
Get your tickets here.
Sky Hopinka Retrospective
Sky Hopinka, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, has cultivated a diverse artistic practice spanning music, poetry, filmmaking, and visual art over the past decade. Sky was a 2018 Art of Nonfiction fellow (a past C&E program) and has continued to make works laden with profound poetic and political significance. The retrospective, including 11 of Sky’s films and co-presented by VISIONS, offers a compelling glimpse into the rich tapestry of his artistic exploration. Explore the program here.
From the AlumNest
- Four Holes
dir. & prod. Daniela Muñoz Barroso
prod. Boris Prieto
- Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
dirs. & prods. Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster
Meet our team at RIDM
Our Associate Director of Program, Sabine Fayoux Cantillo, will be in attendance at the festival. She is participating in a networking event called the Expert Roundtable, held in the Forum RIDM.This activity consists of several 30-minute sessions with groups of 5 professionals, during which she can provide detailed insights into Chicken & Egg Pictures’ activities and discuss our project selection process. She will also be taking one-on-one meetings with filmmakers and watching as many films as possible!
Post written by Communications Intern Tess Caldwell
January 2023 Nest News: Festival Premieres, Oscars Shortlist, and a New Strategic Plan
We kick off this year at Chicken & Egg Pictures with an exciting series of events and wins from Nest-supported filmmakers– and a renewed commitment to advancing the careers of women and nonbinary documentary filmmakers.
Nine Nest-supported films are premiering at Sundance Film Festival and Slamdance, including:
Against the Tide
Available in person and online
Premiering on Friday, January 20
11:30 AM MST | Egyptian Theatre
It’s Only Life After All
Available in person
Premiering on Thursday, January 19
5:00 PM MST | The Ray Theatre
Is There Anybody Out There?
Available in person and online
Premiering on Sunday, January 22
3:00 PM MST | Prospector Square Theatre
Joonam
Available in person and online
Premiering on Saturday, January 21
11:30 AM MST | Egyptian Theatre
Milisuthando
Available in person and online
Premiering on Saturday, January 21
12:00 PM MST | Prospector Square Theatre
Plan C
Available in person
Premiering on Monday, January 23
2:30 PM MST | The Ray Theatre
The Eternal Memory
Available in person and online
Premiering on Saturday, January 21
6:10 PM MST | Prospector Square Theatre
The Tuba Thieves
Available in person and online
Premiering on Sunday, January 22
12:00 PM MST | Prospector Square Theatre
Onlookers
World Premiere at 2023 Slamdance Film Festival
Available in person and online
Slamdance in-person screenings:
Saturday, January 21
3:15 PM MST | Treasure Mountain Inn- Crescent Room
Monday, January 23
11:00 AM MST | Treasure Mountain Inn- Ballroom
Get your tickets here.
Slamdance online screenings:
From Monday, January 23 to Sunday, January 29
Get your tickets here.
Filmmakers having their world premieres at these respective festivals represent our industry-leading programs and initiatives including the Chicken & Egg Award, (Egg)celerator Lab, and the 2022 Critical Issues Fund.
Two Nest-supported films were included on the 95th Academy Awards® shortlist for documentary features and documentary short films: Hidden Letters and The Janes. The Oscars® nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 24.
This year marks the start of our new three-year Strategic Plan, which refreshes our mission, vision, and values. Over the next three years, we will:
- Disburse $5.3M to 140 filmmakers, expand our industry-leading programs including (Egg)celerator Lab, Chicken & Egg Award, and Project: Hatched,
- Introduce a new research and development fund and producers fund
- Work towards opening our eligibility to all transgender individuals
- Offer additional AlumNest workshops and spaces for filmmakers to connect with industry leaders and funders.
Stay tuned for more news by subscribing to our newsletter.
Kimi Takesue: Dozen Days of Filmmakers — Day 6
Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen of our supported women nonfiction filmmakers.
Kimi Takesue is an award-winning filmmaker and recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships in Film. Takesue’s ten films have screened at over two hundred festivals/museums internationally including the Sundance Film Festival, the Locarno Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, SXSW, and the Museum of Modern Art and have aired on PBS, IFC, Comcast, and SundanceTV.
Takesue’s critically acclaimed Ugandan feature-length documentary Where Are You Taking Me? was commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam and premiered at the festival, followed by screenings at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and the LA Film Festival. The film was theatrically released by Icarus Films, was a Critics’ Pick by Time Out New York and LA Weekly and was described by The New York Times as, “Fascinating…an unusual, visually rich visit to the nation.”
Her recent feature documentary 95 and 6 to Go was nominated for the prestigious 2017 Doc Alliance Selection Award and screened at over twenty-five international festivals including CPH:DOX, DOK Leipzig, Doclisboa, FIDMarseille and DOC NYC.
In 95 and 6 To Go, Kimi Takesue captures the cadence of daily life for Grandpa Tom, a retired postal worker born to Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i in the 1910’s. Amidst the solitude of his home routines – coupon clipping, rigging an improvised barbecue, lighting firecrackers on the New Year – we glimpse an unexpectedly rich inner life. As his granddaughter queries his history of love and loss, a stalled film project becomes a collaborative inquiry into mortality and how one constructs a personal narrative with memories that span almost a century.
Shot over six years in Honolulu, this intimate meditation on absence and family expands the vernacular of the “home movie” to consider how history is accumulated in the everyday and how sparks of humor and creativity can animate an ordinary life.
Kimi Takesue is a 2018 Chicken & Egg Pictures Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient.
Post by Morgan Lee Hulquist.
Announcing the five recipients of the third annual Breakthrough Filmmaker Award
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to announce the third cohort of our Breakthrough Filmmaker Award!
The five selected filmmakers are Natalia Almada (Todo lo demás, 2016), Ramona Diaz (Motherland, 2017), Laura Nix (Inventing Tomorrow, 2018), Kimi Takesue (95 and 6 to Go, 2016), and Nanfu Wang (I Am Another You, 2017).
“Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipients have often described their Breakthrough year as life altering,” said Lucila Moctezuma, Program Director of Chicken & Egg Pictures. “Unlike any other award, it’s not just a recognition of past accomplishments, but an investment in the future, both for the filmmakers’ careers and for the film industry at large, which must do more to honor women’s leadership and voices.”
For additional information on Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Breakthrough Filmmaker Award, please visit our Programs page.