Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust

dir. & prod. Ann Kaneko

prod. Jin Yoo-Kim

POV premiere: Monday, July 18, 2022 

Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust was a Project: Hatched 2021 grantee.

An Act of Worship

dir. Nausheen Dadabhoy

prods. Heba Elorbany, Kristi Jacobson, Sofian Khan

POV premiere: Monday, October 17, 2022 

An Act of Worship participated in the 2018 Diversity Fellows Initiative and was a 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.

Midwives

dir. & prod. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing

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

POV premiere: Monday, November 21, 2022

Midwives is a 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee and won a Special Jury Award for Excellence in Vérité Filmmaking at Sundance 2022.

From the AlumNest

• The Mole Agent
  dir. & prod. Maite Alberdi
  prod. Marcela Santibanez
  Available through July
• President
  dir. Camilla Nielsson
  prods. Signe Byrge Sørensen, Joslyn Barnes
  POV premiere: Monday, August 8, 2022
  
  
• Delikado
  Writer and Executive Producer 2018 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Laura Nix, dir. Karl Malakunas, prods. Michael Collins, Marty Syjuco, Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala
  POV premiere: Monday, September 26, 2022

An egg-stra special shout out to our Co-Founder & Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand, whose film Love & Stuff, produced by our Co-Founder & Board President Julie Parker Benello and AlumNest filmmaker Hilla Medalia, will have its POV premiere on Monday, September 5, 2022.

Check out the full line-up with this link.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Tuesday, December 21 their shortlist for documentary features and documentary short subject. At Chicken & Egg Pictures we are sending massive congratulations to the 3 Nest-supported films on the list: Ascension, Simple As Water, and Writing With Fire, as well as to the 5 films from the AlumNest.

We are egg-cited to see these films on these lists and look forward to the Nominations list, which will be announced on Tuesday, February 8. Nominations voting begins on Thursday, January 27 and concludes on Tuesday, February 1.

The 94th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, March 27 and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide. Take a look at the shortlisted films below and checkout the full list with this link.

Ascension

Directed by Jessica Kingdon

Produced by Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy, and Nathan Truesdell

Simple As Water

Directed by Megan Mylan

Produced by Robin Hessman & Megan Mylan

Writing With Fire

Directed and produced by Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh

From the AlumNest

Documentary Feature

President 
dir. Camilla Nielsson 
prods. Joslyn Barnes, Signe Byrge Sørensen 

In the Same Breath 
dir. Nanfu Wang 
prods. Jialing Zhang, Carolyn Hepburn, Sara Rodriguez, Julie Goldman, and Christopher Clements  

Documentary Short Subject

Águilas
dir. & prod. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
co-dir. & prod. Maite Zubiaurre 

Terror Contagion
dir. & prod. Laura Poitras 
prods. Anonymous, Yoni Golijov  

International Feature Film 

Prayers for the Stolen
dir. Tatiana Huezo 
prods. Nicolás Celis, Jim Stark

Users, directed by Natalia Almada

Natalia Almada received the “Directing Award: U.S. Documentary” for Users.

Natalia Almada worked on Users during her 2018 Chicken & Egg Award year and the project participated in NEXT GEN EGG. Check out the film’s Sundance page here.

Writing With Fire, directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh

Writing With Fire received the “Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary” and “World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Impact for Change.”

Writing With Fire participated in our 2018 (Egg)elerator Lab and NEXT GEN EGG. Check out the film’s Sundance page here.

A special congratulations to AlumNest filmmaker Camilla Nielsson (Democrats) on her “World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Vérité Filmmaking” for President!

Users, directed by Natalia Almada

“A mother wonders, will my children love their perfect machines more than they love me, their imperfect mother? She switches on a smart-crib lulling her crying baby to sleep. This perfect mother is everywhere. She watches over us, takes care of us. We listen to her. We trust her.”
Natalia Almada worked on Users during her 2018 Chicken & Egg Award year and the project participated in NEXT GEN EGG. Check out the film’s Sundance page here.

Writing With Fire, directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh

In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, be it on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues or within the confines of their homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.
Writing With Fire participated in our 2018 (Egg)elerator Lab and NEXT GEN EGG. Check out the film’s Sundance page here.

The Changing Same — Lead Artists: Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster, and Yasmin Elayat

“This immersive, episodic experience uses time travel and magical realism to pilgrimage through the evolution of racial violence in the U.S., making vital connections between the past and present. Episode 1 introduces the time travel portal—the Cracker House—and begins with a police altercation in a quiet suburb of modern-day New Jersey. The police altercation leads to mass incarceration and a slave warehouse, while hurtling toward a glimpse of a radiant post-racial utopia.”
The Changing Same received a 2017 Impact and Innovation Grant, a past Chicken & Egg Pictures program. You need a Desktop-tethered VR Headset to participate; learn more about the project here.

AlumNest Filmmakers

Our AlumNest is the 325+ women and gender nonconforming filmmakers we have supported in our sixteen years as an organization. Check out these projects by supported filmmakers at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival:

Bring Your Own Brigade, directed by Lucy Walker (The Lion’s Mouth Opens)

“Prison X – Chapter 1 : The Devil and The Sun” — Lead Artists: Violeta Ayala (Cocaine Prison), Alap Parikh, Maria Corvera Vargas, Roly Elias

Try Harder! directed by Debbie Lum (Seeking Asian Female)

President, directed by Camilla Nielsson (Democrats)

In The Same Breath, directed by Nanfu Wang (2018 Chicken & Egg Award, One Child Nation)

The festival, presented by the San Francisco Film Society, is the longest-running film festival in North America.

Longinotto will accept the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award on Saturday, May 2 and will participate in an onstage conversation following a screening of Dreamcatcher. Dreamcatcher tells the story of Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute, who helps women and girls break the cycle of sexual abuse and exploitation. The film had its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where Longinotto was recognized with the World Cinema Documentary Directing Prize.

The film premiered on Showtime on March 27, 2015.

Democrats will have its first of three screenings on Monday, May 4 at the Pacific Film Archive Theater. The film recently had its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, winning the prize for Best Documentary Feature. Democrats follows two politicians from rival parties as they are assigned to a bipartisan committee tasked with transitioning Zimbabwe from an authoritarian government to a democratic one.

Democrats provides an inside look into the creation of Zimbabwe’s new constitution and the often turbulent road from dictatorship to democracy. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party believes that Zimbabeweans are ready for a democratic system with peaceful un-rigged elections and a constitution written with input from the people. Meanwhile, Robert Mugabe of the ZANU-PF party has been serving as Zimbabwe’s president continuously since 1987.

Nielsson follows representatives from each party, Paul Mangwana from ZANU-PF and Douglas Mwonzora of MDC, as they travel the country holding meetings in cities and villages for citizens to offer their ideas for the country’s constitution. Tensions grow when both parties sit down to draft one constitution they can both agree to sign.