Meet our Newest Nest Board Members: Leslie Belzberg and Marjan Safinia
Chicken & Egg Pictures proudly announces two new members to our Board of Directors: Leslie Belzberg and Marjan Safinia. Members of our Board of Directors serve an official role for Chicken & Egg Pictures, offering constructive feedback, guidance, and independent oversight of our work.
Leslie Belzberg
Leslie Belzberg (pictured left) currently oversees all television and theatrical productions for Gaumont USA as Senior Vice President, Production. Prior to Gaumont, Leslie was a consultant for Blumhouse Television and head of production at Miramax and Endemol-Shine North America.
Before moving into high-level executive roles at major studios, Belzberg was an independent producer, most well-known for her storied collaboration with director John Landis. Together, they co-created St. Clare Entertainment, a TV production company. She also produced many of his films including Coming to America, Three Amigos, Blues Brothers 2000, Beverly Hills Cop III, Susan’s Plan, The Stupids, Oscar, Spies Like Us, and Into the Night. Belzberg has also produced Academy Award winning films such as Crazy Heart, which earned Jeff Bridges a Best Actor win, and the documentary Genocide, also produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, now the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
Leslie earned an MBA from Fordham University in New York and a BA in English Literature and Contemporary Drama from York University in Toronto.
Marjan Safinia
Marjan Safinia (pictured right) is an Iranian documentary filmmaker whose films examine identity, community, and social justice. Her current project And She Could Be Next (in production) is about women of color running for political office to claim political power for a rising new American majority. Marjan’s feature documentary Seeds tells the story of ten brave teenagers from the world’s most troubled conflict zones living side-by-side for one life-changing summer. Her first film But You Speak Such Good English is a half hour documentary which explores the first-generation immigrant experience from an insider perspective.
Collectively, Marjan’s films have played at over 100 international film festivals and broadcast in North America, Europe, and across the Arab world. She has produced and directed work for Co-Founder of Google Sergey Brin, the Barack Obama administration, and Next Generation in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. Her work has been supported by the IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund and Sundance Institute. She is also a Sundance Catalyst Fellow.
Until 2018, Marjan was the longest-serving President of the Board of Directors of the International Documentary Association (IDA), also the only woman of color to hold the position since the IDA was founded in 1982. She also co-hosts The D-Word, the preeminent online community for documentary professionals. Marjan is a regular juror, programmer, speaker and connector of all things documentary.
The First Ever Chicken Run at the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half Marathon!
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to announce that we were named an Official Charity Partner of the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half by New York Road Runners (NYRR). The race will take place on Sunday, March 17, 2019.
In 2018, NYRR is celebrating 60 years of helping and inspiring people through running. NYRR has grown from a local running club to the world’s premier community running organization. At the most recent United Airlines NYC Half in 2018, over 2,900 runners and 140 Official Charity Partners raised approximately $5 million for charity.
“We are excited to be a part of this year’s Official Charity Partner program at this year’s United Airlines NYC Half, which helps Chicken & Egg Pictures continue our support for women nonfiction filmmakers,” said Executive Director Jenni Wolfson. “We look forward to having a dedicated team of runners take on the United Airlines NYC Half on behalf of our organization—training, preparing, and ultimately completing the 13.1-mile race and helping us push toward gender parity in the documentary filmmaking world.”
We can’t wait to turn this half marathon into a chicken run. See you at the race!
We’re Finalists for the 2017 Nonprofit Excellence Awards!
We are excited to announce that Chicken & Egg Pictures is a finalist in this year’s New York Community Trust Nonprofit Excellence Awards Program. Six nonprofit organizations from across the city have been chosen as finalists.
The other organizations are Brooklyn Community Services, Children’s Aid, Food Bank For New York City, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and Girl Be Heard.
“Strong nonprofits help our communities thrive every day. These six finalists serve as models and provide innovative and replicable practices for all nonprofits,” said Sharon Stapel, President and Executive Director of NPCC. Thanks, Sharon!
The winning organizations, who will receive cash prizes as well as scholarships to Columbia Business School programs, will be announced during the Best Practices Workshop & Awards Presentation on Friday, December 1, 2017. We can’t wait!
Learn more about the award and the other finalists here.
We’re Semifinalists for the 2017 Nonprofit Excellence Awards!
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to announce that we are semifinalists for this year’s New York Community Trust Nonprofit Excellence Awards Program. Ten nonprofit groups from across the city have been chosen as semifinalists and will be competing for up to $60,000 in cash prizes and scholarships to Columbia Business School programs.
“As an organization that thrives on learning, innovation and high standards of management, making it to the semi-final round of the Nonprofit Excellence Awards means so much to us. We are committed to building leadership across all staff and are looking forward to gaining valuable feedback on our management practices from going through this rigorous awards application process. We believe that it will better equip us to fulfill our mission of supporting women nonfiction filmmakers and advancing gender equity in the film industry,” said Jenni Wolfson, Executive Director, Chicken & Egg Pictures.
The winning organizations will be announced during the Best Practices Workshop & Awards Presentation on Friday, December 1, 2017.
Learn more about the prestigious award and the other semifinalists here.
Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmakers at Human Rights Watch Film Festival June 9-18, NYC
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is rolling into New York City again this June, and we can’t wait to see our filmmakers in action there! Each screening is followed by a discussion.
Go to the HRW Film Festival website for more information and the full lineup:
MUHI – Generally Temporary
Directed by Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman
For the past seven years, Muhi, a young boy from Gaza, has been trapped in an Israeli hospital. Rushed there in his infancy with a life-threatening immune disorder, he and his doting grandfather, Abu Naim, wound up caught in an immigration limbo that made it impossible for them to leave. With Muhi’s citizenship unclear, and Abu Naim denied a work permit or visa, the pair reside solely within the constraints of the hospital walls. Caught between two states in perpetual war, Muhi is being cared for by the very same people whose government forbids his family to visit, and for him or his grandfather to travel back. Made by two filmmakers from Jerusalem, this documentary lays out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in human terms, documenting the impact these paradoxical circumstances have on individual lives.
Directed by Tiffany Hsiung
Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines were amongst thousands of girls and young women who were sexually exploited by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, many through kidnapping, coercion and sexual slavery. Some 70 years after their imprisonment, and after decades living in silence and shame about their past, the wounds are still fresh for these three former ‘comfort women’. Despite multiple formal apologies from the Japanese government issued since the early 1990’s, there has been little justice; the courageous resolve of these women moves them to fight and seize their last chance to share first-hand accounts of the truth with their families and the world, and to ensure that this horrific chapter of history is neither repeated nor forgotten.
June 11, 2017, 8:30 PM / Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater
Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung and Sarah Taylor, Advocate, Women’s Rights division, Human Rights Watch
Complicit
Directed by Heather White and Lynn Zhang*
Shot below the radar, Complicit follows the journey of Chinese factory migrant worker-turned-activist Yi Yeting, who takes his fight against the global electronic industry from his hospital bed to the international stage. While battling his own work-induced leukemia, Yi Yeting teaches himself labour law in order to prepare a legal challenge against his former employers. But the struggle to defend the lives of millions of Chinese people from becoming terminally ill due to working conditions necessitates confrontation with some of the world’s largest brands including Apple and Samsung. Unfortunately, neither powerful businesses nor the government are willing to have such scandals exposed.
Chicken & Egg Pictures Films and Filmmakers in 2017 POV Lineup!
Check out Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films and filmmakers featured in the 2017 POV lineup:
Dalya’s Other Country
Directed by Julia Meltzer
Dalya’s Other Country tells the nuanced story of members of a family displaced by the Syrian conflict who are remaking themselves after the parents separate. Effervescent teen Dalya goes to Catholic high school and her mother, Rudayna, enrolls in college as they both walk the line between their Muslim values and the new world in which they find themselves. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).
PBS Premiere: June 26, 2017
Motherland
Directed by Ramona Diaz
Motherland is an absorbingly intimate, vérité look at the busiest maternity hospital on the planet, in one of the world’s most populous countries: the Philippines. Women share their stories with other mothers, their families, doctors and social workers. In a hospital that is literally bursting with life, we witness the miracle and wonder of the human condition. Winner, 2017 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Commanding Vision.
PBS Premiere: October 16, 2017
Cameraperson
Directed by Kirsten Johnson (2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient)
A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home: these scenes and others are woven into a tapestry of footage captured over the twenty-five-year career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. A work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world. Official Selection, 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
PBS Premiere: October 23, 2017
Check your local listings for the schedule in your time zone.
2017 Diversity Fellows Announced!
Congrats to our newest group of filmmakers coming into the Nest!
Warrior Women
Co-directed by Christina D. King & Elizabeth Castle (US)
The women of the American Indian Movement fight from a vulnerable place only matriarchs can understand—it is a battle for their children and the culture they hope to preserve for them. Warrior Women chronicles the struggle of Madonna Thunder Hawk and Marcy Gilbert, a Lakota mother and daughter whose fight for indigenous rights started in the 1970s and continues today at Standing Rock.
Through archival footage, verité, and video art, we experience Thunder Hawk’s dedication to Red Power and come to understand that activism is necessary for the very survival and success of Native culture and values for the next generation.
How to Have an American Baby
Directed by Leslie Tai (US)
How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage that travels behind closed doors into the booming shadow economy that caters to affluent Chinese tourists who travel to the US on birthing vacations—in order to give birth and obtain US citizenship for their babies. Tracing the underground supply chain from Beijing and Shanghai to Los Angeles, the film weaves together vignettes and deeply private moments. In bedrooms, delivery rooms, and family meetings, the story of a hidden global economy emerges—depicting the fortunes and tragedies that befall the ordinary people caught in the web of its influence.
Untitled Race & Criminal Justice Project
Directed by Ursula Liang (US)
A nuanced look at how two communities of color navigate an uneven criminal justice system, anchored by one polarizing New York City case.
It Rains
Directed by Carolina Corral (MEXICO)
Since Oliver was killed, he communicates with his mother María through the rain. He let her know the attorney’s office buried him, along with 117 other corpses, in a hidden mass grave. This sparks a new life mission for María: to hold the government accountable for exhuming them all and returning the bodies back to the families who have been looking for them for years.
The Other Half of the African Sky
Directed by Tapiwa Chipfupa (ZIMBABWE)
The Other Half Of The African Sky follows filmmaker Tapiwa Chipfupa’s attempts to reconcile her estrangement from her family, triggered by a disagreement over her marriage. Through encounters with other women from all walks of life facing their own predicaments, Tapiwa explores how women hold up their half of the sky under a very constrictive and constantly contradictory environment in this very personal, brutally honest, and intriguing document of the disparities and the vast contradictions that women face in contemporary Zimbabwe. The film gives voice to the hopes, fears, and dreams of Zimbabwe’s women while simultaneously revealing a country in flux.
For more information, visit the Diversity Fellows Initiative webpage.
Chicken & Egg Pictures Partners with Magnet Media to Explore Emerging Platforms in Storytelling
New approaches to storytelling continue to expand as new technology emerges and accessibility to platforms improves. While the basic act of crafting compelling stories remains unchanged, transmedia and emerging storytelling platform challenge the ways storytellers produce these stories and change the ways audiences can experience them.
Chicken & Egg Pictures partnered with Magnet Media to co-host the “VIP Roundtable: Social Video, Interactive Video & Emerging Platforms” event in order to achieve greater understanding of the influence the audience has on the storyteller in this digital era. On a Thursday night on April 13th, media makers and shakers, marketers, and filmmakers convened for an evening of dialogue, engagement, and reflection about what the future of storytelling holds for content creators and distributors. Panelists included experts from Twitch, Cheddar, Refinery29, Google Fiber, and RAPT Media, and provided insights and steered conversations on innovative storytelling: from the growth of live streaming and its impact on how we consume daily news, to leveraging the power of interactive video in the business sector to strengthen brand engagement with consumers.
As part of our Alumni Resource and Support Network, Chicken & Egg Pictures partnered with Magnet Media to provide our filmmakers with the opportunity to connect with other creatives and media professionals, learn new forms of storytelling, and discover potential opportunities as storytellers in the field. “The event demonstrated Magnet Media and Megan Cunningham’s commitment to creating a more inclusive industry through networking, tailored education, and unique access,” said Yvonne Welbon, Chicken & Egg Pictures Senior Creative Consultant.
We may not know what new emerging platforms will take form in the coming months or years (technology is rapidly evolving!), but we know one thing is for certain: the future of storytelling is immersive.
Post by Netsanet Negussie, Spring 2017 Chicken & Egg Pictures Program Intern
Chicken & Egg Pictures-Supported Filmmakers Win at Peabody Awards
Three Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported filmmakers accepted Peabody Awards this year. A big congratulations to:
Deborah S. Esquenazi for Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
Dawn Porter (2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient) for Trapped
Nanfu Wang (2017 Accelerator Lab grantee) for Hooligan Sparrow*
Read more about these films and the other recipients in their company on the Peabody website.
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not fund the film Hooligan Sparrow, but supports director Nanfu Wang as a 2017 Accelerator Lab grantee. Nanfu has also received the LUNA Chicken & Egg Pictures Award at 2017 SXSW Film Festival (read more here).
Three Chicken & Egg Pictures-Supported Films at the 2017 SF International Film Festival
Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to support three films being featured at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival: MUHI – Generally Temporary, directed by Rina Castelnuvo-Hillerma and Tamir Elterman (in competition for the Golden Gate Award for Documentary Feature); Motherland, directed by Ramona Diaz; and Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folyan and co-directed by Damon Davis. Congratulations Rina, Tamir, Ramona, Sabaah, and Damon and good luck to MUHI – Generally Temporary!
For more information about the SF International Film Festival, or the full festival lineup, visit the SFFS website.
MUHI – Generally Temporary
Directed by Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander
and Tamir Elterman
MUHI – Generally Temporary tells the story of Muhammad (Muhi), a Palestinian child from Gaza and the son of a Hamas activist wanted by Israel. As a newborn, Muhi is transferred to Israel for treatment of a life-threatening condition. Months turn into years and Muhi, now six, has lived his whole life in the Israeli hospital, confined for security reasons to its premises with his grandfather. The film explores Muhi’s contradictory world in which he is treated, raised, and saved by his people’s enemy, while his parents remain in Gaza.
Screenings:
April 9, 12:30 p.m. (SFMOMA) / April 12, 6:30 p.m. (BAMPFA) / April 13, 1:00 p.m. (YBCA Screening Room)
To buy tickets, visit the SFFS MUHI – Generally Temporary webpage.
Motherland
Directed by 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 in debate, and in a hospital with the busiest maternity ward on the planet.
Screenings:
April 6, 6:00 p.m. (YBCA Screening Room) / April 8, 7:30 p.m. (Roxie Theater)
To buy tickets, visit the SFFS Motherland webpage.
Whose Streets?
Directed by Sabaah Folayan
and co-directed by Damon Davis
A firsthand look at how the murder of one teenage boy became the last straw for a community under siege, Whose Streets? is a story of love, loss, conflict, and ambition. Set in Ferguson, MO, the film follows the journey of everyday people whose lives are intertwined with a burgeoning national movement for black liberation.
Screening:
April 14, 8:00 p.m. (PROXY)
To register for the free screening, visit the SFFS Whose Streets? webpage.