Fourteen supported filmmakers, as well as our Program Director Kiyoko McCrae and Board Members Félix Endara, Marjan Safinia, and Alex Simon, will participate in a four day event designed to provide a space for the field to hold constructive conversations, build lasting relationships, and tackle the ethical, creative, sustainability, production, and distribution challenges facing our growing community. Please take a look at the details below.

Playing with Reality: Staging Documentary

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 10:30 AM PDT

Panelists: Alison O’Daniel, Cecilia Aldorando, Theo Montoya
Moderator: Ela Bittencourt 

Surviving the Aftermath: Protecting Creative Expression

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 10:45 AM PDT

Panelists: Assia Boundaoui, Farihah Zaman, Anam Abbas 
Moderator: Aizzah Fatima 

Open Breakout Session: From Concept to Catalyst (with A-Doc and BGDM)

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 2:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Grace Lee, Farihah Zaman, Leo Chiang, Iyabo Boyd 
Moderators: Sonya Childress, Sahar Driver

Risky Business: Accessing Difficult Places

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 3:45 PM PDT

Moderators: Jennifer Petrucelli, Stephanie Jenkins, and Rachel Antell
Respondents: Dawn Porter, Jon-Sesrie Goff, and more to be announced

The Hot Seat

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 3:45 PM PDT

Panelist: Program Director Kiyoko McCrae, Mads K. Mikkelsen, Bryn Mooser, and Luis Ortiz
Moderator: Abby Sun

Delegation: Is There Independence Out There? (BFI Doc Society)

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:00 AM PDT

BFI Doc Society, in partnership with FWD-Doc, is hosting a virtual Delegation of six UK filmmakers, producers, and editors who identify as disabled, D/deaf, and/or neurodivergent. In this virtual discussion on the spirit of independence, filmmakers Ella Glendining, Lindsey Dryden, and other filmmakers will elaborate on what voice, audience, and success mean to them as disabled filmmakers, and how reframing “access” beyond accessibility can create and sustain space for radical new voices in the documentary industry. 

Disaster Preparation: Building Your Support System

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:15 AM PDT

Panelists: Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, Emily Mkrtichian, and Gema Allen Juarez
Moderator: Zara Meerza

Open Breakout Session: Trans Filmmaker Meetup

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 11:45 AM PDT

Moderator: Board Member Félix Endara
Panelists: Chelsea Moore, Moi Santos, seyi adebanjo, Cary Cronenwett

Workshop: Brands 101

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 11:45 AM PDT

Moderator: Board Member Alex Simon 
Facilitator: Brian Newman

Here’s What Really Happened: Your Fat Friend

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 2:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Jeanie Finlay, Suzanne Alizart 
Moderator: Keisha Knight

Worth Our Weight In Gold: Identifying Value in Your Production

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 2:15 PM PDT

Panelists: Tabs Breese, Chris Perez, Lexy Altman, and Asmae El Moudir
Moderator: Zeynep Güzel (Berlinale Talents Doc Station)

We Don’t Need to Reinvent the Wheel: Connecting to Audiences

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 4:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Elizabeth Woodward, Pulkit Datta, Lucas Rosant, Paula Ossandón
Moderator: Winnie Wang

Keynote: Kirsten Johnson

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 5:30 PM PDT

Kirsten Johnson is a 2017 Chicken & Egg Award Recipient

Collective Performance: Our Declaration of Independence

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 7:00 PM PDT

Panelists: Board Member Marjan Safinia, Maxine Franklin, Michelle Plascencia 

Game Show: What’s the Deal?

Thursday, April 18, 2024 11:15 AM PDT

Panelists: Daresha Kyi, Keith Wilson, Gary Kam, and Vinay Shukla
Moderator: Chase Whiteside (América)

Meet Our Team

Along with our Program Director Kiyoko McCrae, CEO Jenni Wolfson, COO Sarah Anderson, and Senior Program Manager Elaisha Stokes will be attending Getting Real. They will be attending panels and supporting our filmmakers. If you see them, please don’t hesitate to say hello! 

Life + Life

dir & prod. Contessa Gayles

prods. Richie Reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe

An incarcerated musician struggles for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary-musical odyssey composed behind bars.

Life + Life is a 2022 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee.

Storming

dir. Katrina Sorrentino

prod. Tiffany Fisher-Love

A family hangs in limbo, caring for their comatose son. Hope and denial blur as seasons circle in this meditation on love and letting go. 

Storming was a participant of the 2019 Nest Knight Fellowship.

From the AlumNest

• #NunsToo
  dir. Lorena Luciano, prod. Filippo Piscopo 
  
  
• Give it a Shot
  dir. & prod. Vaishali Sinha, prod. Hemang Chheda
  
  
• In Plain Sight
  prod. Farihah Zaman, dir. PJ Raval 
  
  
• Life After
  prods. Jessica Devaney, Colleen Cassingham, dir. Reid Davenport
  
  
• Meanwhile
  dir. & prod. Catherine Gund, prod. Erika Dilday
  
  
• Prisoner X
  dirs. Hilla Medalia, Amos Roberts, prod.Hilla Medalia & Gal Greenspan
  
  
• Thoughts & Prayers
  dir. & prod. Jessica Dimmock, Zackary Canepari  
  
  
• To Use a Mountain
  Executive produced by 2022 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Brett Story, Maida Lynn, dir. Casey Carter, prod. Colleen Cassingham

The Gotham Week Conference

• The Politics of Filmmaking in the US
  Wednesday, September 21 at 2:30 pm ET
  With Project: Hatched 2022 finalist The Janes’ directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes.
  Cost: $25

Meet Our Team

Our Executive Director Jenni Wolfson and Program Coordinator Iva Dimitrova will be taking meetings at The Gotham Week.

Check out the full list of projects participating with this link.

We are egg-tremely proud to see six Nest-supported filmmakers among Firelight Media Spark Fund’s 36 recipients. This one-time opportunity offers a $50,000 stipend to established, independent documentary filmmakers who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) and whose work on humanities-themed projects was disrupted by the COVID-19 public health emergency.  
Congratulations to all the recipients!

2016 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Assia Boundaoui (The Feeling of Being Watched)

2020 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee Débora Souza Silva (For our Children)

Nest-supported filmmaker Farihah Zaman (Remote Area Medical)

2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Grace Lee (American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs)

2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Michèle Stephenson

Nest-supported filmmaker Vaishali Sinha (Made in India)

We are sending an extra special congratulations to our Senior Creative Consultant Yvonne Welbon, who was also selected as one of the recipients.

Check out the full list of recipients and learn more about them with this link.

The DOC NYC Film Festival recently released their inaugural 40 Under 40 List, sponsored by Topic Studios, honoring documentary talents under the age of 40. Of the 40 artists selected, over half are women. Congratulations to all on this honor!

Assia Boundaoui, director of The Feeling of Being Watched (2016 Accelerator Lab and recipient of The Whickers Chicken & Egg Pictures Award)

Lyric R. Cabral, director of (T)ERROR and The Rashomon Effect (2017 Accelerator Lab)

Nausheen Dadabhoy, director of An Act of Worship (2018 Diversity Fellows Initiative)

Jessica Devaney, co-director of Love the Sinner (2016 Impact and Innovation Initiative), and producer of the Nest-supported films Always in Season, The Feeling of Being Watched, Roll Red Roll,  and Speed Sisters.

Sabaah Folayan, director of Whose Streets? (2016 Accelerator Lab). Whose Streets? premiered on PBS on July 30.

Lana Wilson, director of The Departure and After Tiller

Farihah Zaman, co-director of Remote Area Medical

And congratulations to our other Nest friends!

• Erin Casper, editor of Roll Red Roll (dir. Nancy Schwartzman)
• Mariam Dwedar, camera operator for On Her Shoulders (dir. Alexandria Bombach, 2018 SXSW LUNA/Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)
• Danielle Vega, co-producer of Cameraperson (dir. Kirsten Johnson, 2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award)

Check out more DOC NYC news from the Nest.

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