Penny Lane: Dozen Days of Filmmakers – Day 7

Penny Lane 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker AwardChicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen of our supported women nonfiction filmmakers.

Penny Lane is an award-winning nonfiction filmmaker who was named one of Filmmaker Magazine‘s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”. Penny has been making innovative nonfiction films for over a decade, including three features – The Pain of Others, NUTS! and Our Nixon – and about a dozen short films. Her most recent feature documentary, The Pain of Others, a YouTube compilation film about Morgellons, screened at BAMcinemaFest and Sheffield Doc/Fest and was featured in The New Yorker.

In September, she was honored at Open City Documentary Film Festival in London as part of their “Penny Lane: Observing Observation Itself” program, which included screenings of two of Penny’s feature films and eight of her shorts.

She received her MFA in Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and her BA in American Culture and Media Studies at Vassar College. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Colgate University, where she lives in a very old house and shows movies in her barn.

Her new feature documentary, Hail Satan?, is “a look at the intersection of religion and activism, tracing the rise of The Satanic Temple: only six years old and already one of the most controversial religious movements in American history”. It was acquired by Magnolia Pictures and will have its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Penny Lane is a Chicken & Egg Pictures 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient. And yes, Penny Lane is her real name.

 

Post by Morgan Lee Hulquist.

Penny Lane at the Open City Documentary Film Festival

Penny Lane 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker AwardThe eighth edition of the Open City Documentary Festival is kicking off this Tuesday, September 4, taking place over six days in venues across Central London. As part of their “Penny Lane: Observing Observation Itself” program, the festival will be running two feature films and eight short films by 2017 Chicken & Egg Pictures Breakthrough Award Recipient Penny Lane, including:

The Pain of Others

Morgellons disease is a medical mystery. Although doctors have no explanation for the condition, thousands of sufferers claim to experience a persistent crawling sensation under their skin, thin fibres growing out of their body and a host of other symptoms. Penny Lane dives head first into the online community of Morgellons patients re-working candid home-videos uploaded to YouTube by three women who are afflicted with the disease. Friday, September 7 at 6:10 PM. *

Our Nixon

Throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. Saturday, September 8 at 1:00 PM. *

The Short Films of Penny Lane

This screening offers a rare opportunity to see Lane’s short form work; distinctive, entertaining and provocative in equal measure. The event will include an extended Q&A with Penny covering her work and creative practice. Sunday, September 9 at 1:00 PM. *

Congratulations Penny!

And a special congratulations to Chicken & Egg Pictures Board Member Alexandra Shiva on her UK Premiere of This Is Home at the Open City Documentary Film Festival, in partnership with the London Migration Film Festival. Saturday, September 8 at 6:00 PM.

 

*Synopses from the Open City website.

 

Post by 2018 Communications Intern Morgan Lee Hulquist.