We are sending special congratulations to the 2022 Critical Issues Fund grantee Razing Liberty Square on their World Premiere. See below for more details.

• 2021 (Egg)celerator Lab Grantee Against the Tide | Canadian Premiere | dir. Sarvnik Kaur | prod. Koval Bhatia

• 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab Finalist – Eat Bitter | Canadian Premiere | dirs. Ningyi Sun, Pascale Appora-Gnekindy | prod. Mathieu Faure

• 2021 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Tatiana Huezo’s – The Echo | North American Premiere | dir. & prod. Tatiana Huezo | prod. Dalia Reyes

• 2020 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory | Canadian Premiere | dir. & prod. Maite Alberdi | prods. Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Rocío Jadue

• 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab Grantee Milisuthando | Canadian Premiere | dir. Milisuthando Bongela | prod. Marion Isaacs

• 2020 Chicken & Egg Award Grantee Mila Turajlić’s Non-Aligned: Scenes From the Labudović Reels | North American Premiere | dir. & prod. Mila Turajlić | prod. Carine Chichkowsky

• 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab Grantee Polaris | Canadian Premiere | dir. Ainara Vera  | prods. Clara Vuillermoz, Emile Hertling Peronard

• 2020 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Tonje Hessen Schei’s Praying for Armageddon | North American Premiere | dir. Tonje Hessen Schei | co-dir. Michael Rowley | prods Torstein Parelius, Ingrid G. Aune Falch, Christian Aune Falch

• 2022 Critical Issues Fund grantee Razing Liberty Square | World Premiere | dir. & prod. Katja Esson | prods. Ann Bennett, Corinna Sager, Ronald Baez

• 2021 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Jialing Zhang’s Total Trust | North American Premiere | dir. & prod. Jialing Zhang | prods. Knut Jager, Michael Grotenhoff, Saskia Kress

Special Presentations in the Big Ideas Section

The 2023 Special Presentations program features high-profile subjects, award-winning films and filmmakers, and masterful perspectives on current events and pressing issues. There are 24 films set to screen in this program. Two Nest-supported films are being featured in the Big Ideas section.

Is there Anybody Out There?

dir. Ella Glendining

prod. Janine Marmot

2021 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Is There Anybody Out There? is having its Canadian premiere.

Get your tickets here.

It’s Only Life After All

dir. & prod. Alexandria Bombach

prods. Kathlyn Horan, Jess Devaney, Anya Rous

Hot Docs Forum

The Hot Docs Forum, one of the festivals’ flagship industry events, is where filmmakers are able to pitch to international decision makers. This year, they’ve chosen 19 Forum projects representing 16 countries and 23 filmmakers, 12 of whom are women and 11 of whom are BIPOC.

Intercepted

dir. Oksana Karpovych 

prods. Giacomo Nudi, Rocío Barba Fuentes, Pauline Tran Van Lieu, Lucie Rego, Darya Bassel

Intercepted is a 2022 Critical Issues Fund grantee.

From the AlumNest

• We Will Not Fade Away
  dir. Alisa Kovalenko
  prods. Valery Kalmykov, Oleksiy Kobelev

• Confessions of a Good Samaritan
  dir. Penny Lane
  prod. Gabriel Sedgwick 

Meet our Team at Hot Docs

Representing Chicken & Egg Pictures, our Program Director Kiyoko McCrae will be in attendance at Hot Docs. While in Toronto shell be attending the Hot Docs Forum, Deal Maker meetings, and attending the Work in Progress program.

Post written by Spring Intern Tess Caldwell

Alis

dirs. & prods. Clare Weiskopf, Nicolas van Hemelryck 

prods. Alexandra Galvis, Radu Stancu

Alis is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist and is part of the Best of Fests section.  

Get your tickets with this link.

BEBA

dir. & prod. Rebeca Huntt

prod. Sofia Geld

BEBA is a Project: Hatched 2022 grantee and is part of the Best of Fests section.

Get your tickets with this link.

Blue Id

dirs. & prods. Burcu Melekoglu, Vuslat Karan

Blue Id is a Nest-supported film and is having its World Premiere in the Luminous section. 

Get your tickets with this link.

Dear Mother, I Meant to Write about Death

dir. & prod. Siyi Chen

Dear Mother, I Meant to Write about Death is a 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee. 

Get your tickets with this link.

The Hamlet Syndrome

dirs. Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolowski 

prod. Magdalena Kaminska

The Hamlet Syndrome was supported through Elwira Niewira’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award and is part of the Best of Fests section. 

Get your tickets with this link.

Midwives

dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing

prods. Bob Moore, Ulla Lehmann, Mila Aung-Thwin

Midwives is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Best of Fests section. 

Get your tickets with this link.

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

dir. & prod. Mila Turajlić

prod. Carine Chichkowsky

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels was supported through Mila Turajlić’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award and is having its World Premiere in the International Competition.

Get your tickets with this link.

The Golden Thread

dir. & prod. Nishtha Jain

prods. Irena Taskovski, Irena Taskovski

The Golden Thread was supported through Nishtha Jain’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award and is having its World Premiere in the Masters section. 

Get your tickets with this link.

Polaris

dir. Ainara Vera

prod. Clara Vuillermoz

Polaris is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Best of Fests section.

Get your tickets with this link.

From the AlumNest

Nest-supported and Academy Award®-winning director Laura Poitras was named Guest of Honor at IDFA. She will be honored in the Retrospective and the Top 10 programs. The retrospective includes all seven films directed by Poitras from 2003 to today, and the Top 10 program includes Laura’s curation of ten films key to the human condition.

• Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels
  dir. & prod. Mila Turajlić
  prod. Carine Chichkowsky
  

• Merkel
  dir. & prod. Eva Weber
  prods. Lizzie Gillett, Sonja Henrici, Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær
  
  
• Non-Aligned Newsreels: Fragments #2 – New Voices from the Summit
  dirs. Mila Turajlić, Maja Medić  
  
  
• Gumbo Coalition
  dir. & prod. Barbara Kopple
  prods. Ray Nowosielski, Williams Cole, David Cassidy

IDFA Forum

The IDFA Forum gathers some of the strongest documentary projects currently being developed and produced globally, and presents them in a five-day program of public presentations and one-on-one meetings. 

Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to co-host the IDFA Forum Lunch.

Check out the list of Nest-supported projects below:

The Tuba Thieves

dir. Alison O’Daniel

Between 2011 and 2013, tubas were stolen from high schools across Southern California. The Tuba Thieves begins with one of the heists, but it is not a mystery about the thefts. Nyke, a Deaf drummer and Geovanny, a hearing marching band student, play fictionalized versions of their lives within a Los Angeles soundscape: helicopters hover, highway tunnels absorb radio signals, and working-class neighborhoods are overwhelmed by the cacophony of highways and airplane flight paths. Finally, three historical ‘silent’ concerts are re-enacted. By the end of the film, as the last tubas are stolen, portraits of Nyke and Geovanny emerge from all the noise.

The Tuba Thieves is a 2021 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.
Learn more about the film with this link.

The Eternal Memory

dir. & prod. Maite Alberdi

The Eternal Memory was supported through Maite Alberdi’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award.
Learn more about the film with this link.

The Phantom Pain of Rojava

dir. Maryam Ebrahimi

prod. Stina Gardell

The Phantom Pain of Rojava was supported through Maryam Ebrahimi’s 2021 Chicken & Egg Award.
Learn more about the film with this link.

Meet our Team at IDFA

Senior Creative Consultant Yvonne Welbon and International Program Consultant Tereza Simikova will coordinate the Chicken & Egg Award retreat, organize meetings with filmmakers, and attend the IDFA Forum Lunch.

Please take a look at the films below:

All of Our Heartbeats Are Connected Through Exploding Stars

dir. Jennifer Rainsford

prods. Mirjam Gelhorn, David Herdies, Michael Krotkiewski

The 2011 Japan tsunami triggers this staggering essay about loss that connects human and environmental trauma using astonishing juxtapositions. Humans breathe out and the oceans breathe in, so that we are constantly breathing together and becoming our planet. If we admit that our human experiences of pain and the Earth’s are just different versions of the same destruction, will recovery come, be it in ripples or waves?*

All of Our Heartbeats Are Connected Through Exploding Stars is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Cinematic Vision Competition.

Get your tickets + more info with this link.  

*Text courtesy of Cineuropa.

Polaris

dir. Ainara Vera

prod. Clara Vuillermoz

After overcoming her painful childhood in France, 36-year-old Hayat has managed to become an expert skipper in the Arctic. Her biggest passion is to navigate in between icebergs and spot whales. While she experiences this pureness, her 28-year-old sister Leila tries to integrate into society after coming out of jail in France. Their life went by independently until a year ago when Leila fell pregnant. Polaris explores the inner battle that we all have to undertake to find a balance between the light and the darkness and how the beauty of nature can help us. 

Polaris is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and is part of the Harrel Competition. 

Get your tickets + more info with this link.

From the AlumNest

• Descendant  
  dir. & prod. Margaret Brown
  prods. Kyle Martin, Essie Chambers
  This film is part of the Best of Fest section. 
  
  
• Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power
  dirs. Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Pollard
  prods. Jessica Devaney, Anya Rous, Dema Paxton Fofang
  This film is part of the Best of Fest section.

Meet Our Team at CIFF

Program Manager Sabine Fayoux Cantillo and Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova will attend the festival. They will be taking meetings and watching lots of films!

Check out the full line-up with this link.