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.
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.
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.
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
Congratulations to our Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017 Winners!
The Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017 just wrapped and we are proud to announce the Chicken & Egg-supported filmmakers who were awarded at Sheffield Doc/Fest this year: Yance Ford for Strong Island, Jennifer Brea for Unrest and Unrest (VR)*, and Violeta Ayala for The Fight*.
Strong Island
Directed by Yance Ford
Tim Hetherington Award, presented by Dogwoof and the Tim Hetherington Trust.
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.
Called a “brave, revealing film” and a “stylish and wrenching rumination on familial grief” by the New York Times, Strong Island was one of six films considered for the Tim Hetherington award which recognizes films and filmmakers for reflecting journalist Tim Hetherington’s legacy. It is streaming now on Netflix.
Congratulations Yance!
Unrest and Unrest (VR)
Directed by Jennifer Brea
Illuminate Award supported by Welcome; Alternate Realities VR Award.
Unrest tells the story of Jennifer by Jennifer, a Harvard Ph.D. student, who was signing a check at a restaurant when she found she could not write her own name. Months before her wedding, she became progressively more ill, losing the ability even to sit in a wheelchair. When doctors insisted that her condition was psychosomatic, she picked up her camera to document her own story and the stories of four other patients struggling with the world’s most prevalent orphaned disease.
Unrest (VR) is the virtual reality project based on the Chicken & Egg-supported documentary. Tiffany Pritchard from Filmmaker Magazine writes, “Unrest (VR) is a 10-minute immersive experience that takes place from a bed, where I lay down and, with an Oculus Rift, experienced what it’s like to be confined to a room with the debilitating illness ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). Through a nod of my head, I was navigated through insightful experiences that provided scientific inner workings of our brains.”
Congratulations to Jennifer for her two wins!
The Fight
Directed by Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw
Doc/Dispatch Prize supported by Deutsche Welle.
The Fight is a short documentary, produced by The Guardian, which tells the story of disabled people in Bolivia fighting for their rights by journeying across the Andes to La Paz, where they are met with violence by police.
Violeta’s Nest-supported film, Cocaine Prison, documents the inside of one of Bolivia’s most notorious prisons, telling the story of a cocaine worker fighting for freedom, a drug mule who dreams of being a drug boss, and his younger sister, to reveal the country’s relationship with cocaine. Cocaine Prison bridges the ever-widening gap between the North and the South and brings a new perspective to the War on Drugs as it is waged in the Andes.
Congratulations Violeta!
*Chicken & Egg Pictures did not support Unrest (VR) or The Fight directly, but did support both Jennifer and Violeta in their feature-length films. Jennifer Brea received a grant for Unreal, and Violeta Ayala received a grant for Cocaine Prison.
Post by Morgan Hulquist, Summer 2017 Chicken & Egg Pictures Communications Intern
The Nest at Sheffield Doc/Fest, June 9-14, 2017
Congratulations to all Nest-supported filmmakers at Sheffield Doc/Fest this year! Our programs team will be there with the 2017 Accelerator Lab cohort for first- and second-time filmmakers so if you’re around, come say hello.
Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported films and filmmakers at 2017 Sheffield:
- World Premiere: Armed With Faith, directed by Asad Faruqi and Geeta Gandbhir*
- UK Premiere: Do Donkeys Act?, directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin*
- World Premiere: Even When I Fall, directed by Kate McLarnon and Sky Neal
- World Premiere: Insha’Allah Democracy, directed by Mohammed Naqvi*
- UK Premiere: Motherland, directed by Ramona S. Diaz
- UK Premiere: Strong Island, directed by Yance Ford
- European Premiere: The Departure, directed by Lana Wilson
- UK Premiere: Unrest, directed by Jennifer Brea
- European Premiere: Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folayan and co-directed by Damon Davis
*Chicken & Egg pictures did not support Armed With Faith, Do Donkeys Act?, and Insha’Allah Democracy, but did support Geeta Gandhbir for A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers, Love the Sinner, and A Conversation with Police on Race (NY Times Op-Doc); Ashley Sabin for Girl Model; and Mohammed Maqvi’s film Among the Believers. And, as a 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient, Geeta has received support from Chicken & Egg Pictures in the forms of a $50,000 unrestricted grant, individualized mentorship, and creative and professional workshops.
Go to the Sheffield Doc/Fest website for more information and the full lineup.
In New York instead? Check out Nest-supported films and filmmakers at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (June 9-18).
Sundance 2017 Wins for Chicken & Egg Pictures
This weekend marked the beginning of the Year of the Fire Rooster and things are definitely heating up here at the Nest.
At the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, four Chicken & Egg Pictures-supported documentary films and one VR project made their world premieres and walked away with three awards.
The message of these films couldn’t be more crucial in these times, whether they examine failings of the American justice system, the stigma associated with a misunderstood illness, document one of the most critical moments in modern US racial history, expose the dire implications of a lack of a reproductive healthcare policy, or promote environmentalism through an inventive mix of empathy and technology.
Check out these links to get to know a bit about our Sundance filmmakers and their projects:
WATCH: Sundance’s Meet the Artist for Jennifer Brea, director of Unrest (Sundance winner: U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing)
WATCH: The New York Times Op-Docs short by Ramona Diaz, based on her film Motherland (Sundance winner: World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Commanding Vision)
READ: A beautiful synopsis from the New Yorker‘s Culture Desk of Yance Ford’s Strong Island (Sundance winner: U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Storytelling)
READ: The Guardian‘s five-star review of Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folayan and co-directed by Damon Davis
READ: The Indiewire interview with Tree (VR) co-creator, Milica Zec
Congratulations also to Joslyn Barnes, Chicken & Egg Pictures Eggspert who received The Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producer Award for Strong Island.
Here’s to amplifying fiery women’s voices in this Year of the Fire Rooster!!
Five Chicken & Egg Pictures grantees set for World Premieres at Sundance 2017
We’re beaming with pride for our grantees who will be presenting the world premieres of their projects at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival this January. Congratulations to Jennifer Brea, Ramona Diaz, Yance Ford, Sabaah Jordan with Damon Davis, and Milica Zec with Winslow Porter!
Unrest (Jennifer Brea)
Jennifer, a Harvard Ph.D. student, was signing a check at a restaurant when she found she could not write her own name. Months before her wedding, she became progressively more ill, losing the ability even to sit in a wheelchair. When doctors insisted that her condition was psychosomatic, she picked up her camera to document her own story and the stories of four other patients struggling with the world’s most prevalent orphaned disease.
Strong Island (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.
Whose Streets? (Sabaah Jordan and Damon Davis)
A firsthand look at how the murder of a 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.
Motherland (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.
Tree (Milica Zec and Winslow Porter)
A virtual experience that transforms you into a rainforest tree. With your arms as branches and body as the trunk, you experience the tree’s growth from a seedling into its fullest form and witness its fate firsthand.
This year’s Sundance Film Festival is January 19–29, 2017. For the full program and schedule for the upcoming festival, visit the Sundance website.