Nest-supported Films

Once Upon a Time in Uganda

dir. Cathryne Czubek, co-dir. Hugo Perez

prods. Gigi Dement, Cathryne Czubek, Matt Porwoll, Hugo Perez, Kyaligamba Ark Martin

US Premiere 
Friday, Nov. 12
Tickets here
Against all odds, former bricklayer and teacher Isaac Nabwana has turned his small home in the slums of Uganda’s capital city into the Wakaliwood action movie studio. After 10 years and 40+ films, Wakaliwood has become an overnight international media sensation, inspiring others around the world to follow in his footsteps. When New York film nerd Alan Hofmanis shows up on his doorstep one day, everything is bound to change.

Storm Lake

dirs. Beth Levison & Jerry Risius

prod. Beth Levison

NYC Premiere
Friday, Nov. 12 
Sunday, Nov. 14 
Tickets here 
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Art Cullen and his family fight to unite and inform their rural Iowan farming community through their biweekly newspaper, The Storm Lake Times—even as the paper hangs on by a thread. Twice a week, they work as civic watchdogs to protect their hometown and the legacy of credible journalism, at large—come hell or pandemic.

Writing With Fire

dirs. & prods. Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh

NYC Premiere
Thursday, Nov. 11 
Tickets here 
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.

United States Vs. Reality Winner

dir & prod. Sonia Kennebeck 
prod. Ines Hofmann Kanna

NYC Premiere
Saturday, Nov. 13 
Tickets here
Reality Winner (her actual birth name) is a U.S. Air Force veteran who became a whistleblower in her 20s by leaking classified documents about Russian cyber-warfare attacks on the 2016 U.S. elections. Award-winning filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck (National Bird; Enemies of the State), supported by executive producer Wim Wenders, digs into her case, exploring mistakes made by journalists at The Intercept that led the FBI to discover Winner’s identity.*

Boycott

dir & prod. Julia Bacha
prod. Suhad Babaa, Daniel J. Chalfen

NYC Premiere
Monday, Nov. 14 
Tickets here  
Boycotts have long been a tool used by Americans rallying for social and political change, from civil rights leaders to anti-apartheid activists. But in recent years, 33 U.S. states have introduced anti-boycott legislation or executive orders designed to penalize individuals and companies who choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. Boycott looks at the cases of a news publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona and a speech therapist in Texas whose careers are threatened by the harsh measures of these new laws. A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center, the film is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.

AlumNest Films

Listening to Kenny G, directed by 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Penny Lane, prod. Gabriel Sedgwick, will open the festival on Wednesday, Nov. 10. A Decent Home, directed and produced by AlumNest filmmaker Sara Terry, producer Alysa Nahmias, will screen on Tuesday, Nov. 16. Exposure, directed and produced by AlumNest filmmaker Holly Morris, producers Eleanor Wilson, Michael Kovnat, Jill Mazursky, will have its NYC premiere on Saturday, Nov. 13. The film Black and Missing, directed by 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles, producers Samantha Knowles, Nimco Sheikhaden, will premiere on Wednesday, Nov. 17.   

*Language courtesy of DOC NYC.  

Post by Communications Intern Mariana Sanson

Our Nest-supported filmmaking community is soaring into DOC NYC Film Festival, which runs virtually from Wednesday, November 11 to Thursday, November 19. Ten supported films across many of our core programs— (Egg)celerator Lab films by emerging filmmakers, projects by advanced-career Chicken & Egg Awardees, and films from our inaugural Project: Hatched completion program—are official selections. Plus A Cops and Robbers Story, directed by directed by Ilinca Calugareanu, will make its world premiere at the New York festival! Learn more about the ten projects below, and get your tickets for DOC NYC here. 

Nest-supported Films

AlumNest Films

AlumNest filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung’s short film Sing Me A Lullaby will make its US premiere; Call Center Blues, directed by Chicken & Egg Award Recipient Geeta Gandbhir will screen in the Shorts program; Dick Johnson is Dead (Kirsten Johnson), A Thousand Cuts (Ramona Diaz), and The Fight (Elyse Steinberg, Eli Despres, Josh Kriegman) are on the DOC NYC Short List for feature films; and our Co-Founder & Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand’s film Love & Stuff is an official selection under the Masters program (co-produced with our Co-Founder Julie Parker Benello).

*Language courtesy of DOC NYC. 

The (Egg)celerator Lab (formerly the Accelerator Lab) is focused on identifying and supporting nonfiction directors working on their first or second feature-length documentary. This program brings together ten projects, with a special focus on self-identifying women and gender nonconforming directors.

In this year-long intensive mentorship program, these ten projects receive:

• $35,000 in grant funding for the production of their feature-length film;
• monthly mentorship with members of Chicken & Egg Pictures’ senior creative team;
• three creative retreats focused on career sustainability and creative development;
• industry and funder connections; and
• peer support from the (Egg)celerator Lab cohort.

The deadline to apply for the 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab is June 25, 2019 at 3:00 pm EDT.

Films from previous (Egg)celerator Labs have gone on to major international film festivals and TV broadcast debuts, where they have won numerous awards and critical praise; they have taken creative risks; helped foster important conversations about the issues they address; while the first- and second-time directors behind them have grown as leaders, enhanced their creative practices, and worked toward building a sustainable career in the film industry.  

Read about select films from the last four (Egg)celerator Lab cohorts below:

From the 2016 (Egg)elerator Lab: Tre Maison Dasan, directed by Denali Tiller, is a story that explores parental incarceration through the eyes of three boys—Tre, Maison, and Dasan. Following their interweaving trajectories through boyhood marked by the criminal justice system, and told directly through the child’s perspective, the film unveils the challenges of growing up and what it means to become a man in America.

Tre Maison Dasan premiered at SFFILM in 2018; had its broadcast premiere on Independent Lens PBS last April, where it also was available for streaming; and the film’s impact campaign and engagement strategy #NationalVisitingDays worked to “strengthen bonds of family, and prompt a national reflection about the the rippling effects of mass incarceration in America.”

From the 2017 (Egg)celerator Lab: One Child Nation, co-directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, follows a filmmaker as she uncovers the untold history of China’s one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.

One Child Nation premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and was acquired by Amazon for global rights.

From the 2018 (Egg)celerator Lab: Always in Season, directed by Jacqueline Olive, follows the mother of Lennon Lacy, a 17-year-old who was found hanging from a swing set in rural North Carolina in 2014, as her search for justice and reconciliation begins and the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present.

Always in Season premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award for Moral Urgency; Indie Grits, where it received Top Grit; RiverRun International Film Festival, where it received the Human Rights Award; as well as others. Filmmaker Magazine called the film “haunting, difficult and necessary, a depiction of an America that we think of as relegated to the past but that continues to encroach on the present.” 

From the 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab: Silent Beauty, directed by Jasmin López, is a personal documentary that follows the director as she works to heal from child sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her grandfather, Gilberto, a Baptist minister, almost thirty years ago. In the process of sharing her own trauma with her large family, she learns that generations of children in her family were victims of the same abuse. 

Silent Beauty is currently in production. During the 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab program year, Jasmin is also one of four recipients of the Jacqui Jones Memorial Scholarship by Black Public Media, and she recently participated in Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) Networks, where the project received a grant from TFI and DocsMX. 

More about the film projects from the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 program years on our blog.

The deadline to apply to the 2020 (Egg)celerator Lab open call is Tuesday, June 25 at 3:00 pm EDT.  Apply now! And sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on the (Egg)celerator Lab Open Call timeline and other news from the Nest.

And we have some egg-cellent news! Four documentaries by Nest-supported filmmakers will be screening at the festival, happening from Thursday, February 28 to Sunday, March 3.

American Factory, directed by Julia Reichert (2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Steve Bognar

Dizzying, hilarious and devastating, this tale of two factories makes for a landmark story of workplace anxiety. Directors Reichert and Bognar have spent a decade documenting the plight of Ohio’s factory workers, and their dedication pays off when they are given astonishing access to Fuyao, a Chinese auto glass manufacturer, as it revives a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton.

• Friday, Mar. 1 / 2:30PM / Jesse Auditorium
• Friday, Mar. 1 / 9:15PM / The Globe
• Saturday, Mar. 2 / 6:30PM / Missouri Theatre
• Sunday, Mar. 3 / 6:00PM / The Picturehouse

One Child Nation, (2017 (Egg)celerator Lab grantee), directed by Nanfu Wang (also a 2018 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Jialing Zhang

How much control does a person have over their own life? In China, state control begins before a child is even born.

• Friday, Mar. 1 / 4:30PM / Forrest Theater
• Saturday, Mar. 2 / 3:15PM / The Picturehouse
• Saturday, Mar. 2 / 7:00PM / Jesse Auditorium
• Sunday, Mar. 3 / 9:30AM / Missouri Theatre

The Changing Same, directed by Impact & Innovation Initiative grantees Michèle Stephenson (also a 2016 Chicken & Egg Award recipient) and Joe Brewster

In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where one native resident runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is supporting the immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience based on their short film. In Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project,  the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America.

Screens before The Commons:

• Thursday, Feb. 28 / 7:30PM / Showtime Theater
• Friday, Mar. 1 / 1:45PM / Forrest Theater
• Sunday, Mar. 3 / 12:00PM / Showtime Theater
• Sunday, Mar. 3 / 4:00PM / Jesse Auditorium

Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears (former Nest grantee for The Hand That Feeds)

What’s more important: charismatic political candidates or the behind-the-scenes machine that works to elect them? Knock Down the House gives us both, breathlessly following a new breed of politician alongside a tireless collective of activists enraged by the state of American governance.

• Thursday, Feb. 28 / 7:00PM / Missouri Theatre
• Friday, Mar. 1 / 1:30PM / Showtime Theater
• Friday, Mar. 1 / 10:00PM / Jesse Auditorium
• Saturday, Mar. 2 / 9:30AM / Showtime Theater

And if you’re not in Columbia, Missouri this weekend, we have some egg-cellent news regarding these women directed documentaries. Netflix has acquired American Factory and Knock Down the House, and Amazon acquired One Child Nation; the three films will be available to stream soon.

Showcasing over 200 films and hosting over 200 thousand people each year, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America’s largest documentary film festival. Chicken & Egg Pictures is excited to announce that ten Nest-supported films will be gracing this year’s line-up!

The 2018 Hot Docs festival will run April 26-May 6 in Toronto. You can view the schedule here and purchase festival passes and packages here.

Blowin’ Up, directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal
Roll Red Roll, directed by Nancy Schwartzman
Recovery Boys, directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon (2017 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award Recipient)
The Devil We Know, directed by Stephanie Soechtig and Jeremy Seifert (co-director)
The Feeling of Being Watched, directed by Assia Boundaoui (2015-16 Accelerator Lab)
A Thousand Girls Like Me, directed by Sahra Mani (2016 Diversity Fellow Initiative)
United Skates, directed by Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown (2016 Diversity Fellow Initiative)
Tree, directed by Milica Zec and Winslow Turner Porter
Warrior Women, directed by Christina King and Elizabeth Castle (2017 Diversity Fellows Initiative)
On Her Shoulders directed by Alexandria Bombach (2018 SXSW LUNA / Chicken & Egg Pictures Award recipient)

***

In addition to the Nest-supported films that will be screening at the 2018 Hot Docs Festival, keep an eye out for the following films by directors whose work Chicken & Egg Pictures has supported and recognized in the past.

Grit directed by Cynthia Wade (Freeheld, 2007 and 2008) and Sasha Friedlander (Mudflow, 2013)
Inventing Tomorrow directed by Laura Nix (2018 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award recipient)
Skywards directed by Eva Weber (Black Out, 2007)

And a special shout out to Barbara Kopple (2011 Chicken & Egg Pictures Celebration Award) who has a few films playing at Hot Docs!

Chicken & Egg Pictures wants to wish these Nest-supported films and filmmakers luck with their participation in the Hot Docs Forum on May 1st and 2nd of the festival.

Born In China directed by Nanfu Wang and Lynn Zhang
The Rashomon Effect directed by Lyric Cabral
Nobody Loves Me, directed by Farihah Zaman and Jeff Reichert, co-directores of the Nest-supported documentary Remote Area Medical.

Congratulations everyone!

Post by 2018 Spring Programs Intern Dinayuri Rodriguez.

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

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

Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to support three films being featured at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival: MUHI – Generally Temporary, directed by Rina Castelnuvo-Hillerma and Tamir Elterman (in competition for the Golden Gate Award for Documentary Feature); Motherland, directed by Ramona Diaz; and Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folyan and co-directed by Damon Davis. Congratulations Rina, Tamir, Ramona, Sabaah, and Damon and good luck to MUHI – Generally Temporary!

For more information about the SF International Film Festival, or the full festival lineup, visit the SFFS website.

MUHI – Generally Temporary
Directed by Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander
and Tamir Elterman

MUHI – Generally Temporary tells the story of Muhammad (Muhi), a Palestinian child from Gaza and the son of a Hamas activist wanted by Israel. As a newborn, Muhi is transferred to Israel for treatment of a life-threatening condition. Months turn into years and Muhi, now six, has lived his whole life in the Israeli hospital, confined for security reasons to its premises with his grandfather. The film explores Muhi’s contradictory world in which he is treated, raised, and saved by his people’s enemy, while his parents remain in Gaza.

Screenings: 

April 9, 12:30 p.m. (SFMOMA) / April 12, 6:30 p.m. (BAMPFA) / April 13, 1:00 p.m. (YBCA Screening Room)

To buy tickets, visit the SFFS MUHI – Generally Temporary webpage.

Motherland
Directed by 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.

Screenings:

April 6, 6:00 p.m. (YBCA Screening Room) / April 8, 7:30 p.m. (Roxie Theater)

To buy tickets, visit the SFFS Motherland webpage.

Whose Streets?
Directed by Sabaah Folayan
and co-directed by Damon Davis

A firsthand look at how the murder of one 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.

Screening:

April 14, 8:00 p.m. (PROXY)

To register for the free screening, visit the SFFS Whose Streets? webpage.

We’re so proud of our Accelerator Lab grantee Nanfu Wang and her film, I Am Another You, for winning the LUNA Chicken & Egg Pictures Award at SXSW Film Festival this year!

For more information about the film, and the award, check out some of these articles:

“Show Her The Money: Why Financing Really Matters for Women Directors” by Ally Fleming, SXSW blog

“‘I Am Another You’ Uncovers an American Dreamer From the Inside Out” by Eric Kohn, Indiewire

“SXSW Film Review: ‘I Am Another You’” by Owen Gleiberman, Variety

The festival, which bridges the gap between audience and filmmaker, takes place this year from June 10-15, 2016, and will screen over 150 films.

Cameraperson
Directed by Kirsten Johnson
Cameraperson turns the camera inwards, exposing the most powerful moments for cinematographer and filmmaker Kirsten Johnson. By plucking footage from her expansive work of over 25 years, Kirsten Johnson reminds us of the nature of life, where stories intermingle, cross-pollinate, and provide a new lens through which to view the world.

Care
Directed by Deirdre Fishel
As lifespans are increasing, the question of providing the quality care needed to our ever-aging population presses down upon us with increasing force. Deirdre Fishel gives insight into the lives of both the caregivers and those taken under their wing. The story, which focuses on home health aides in their struggle to provide for themselves as they devote their lives to helping others, is paralleled by that of the families that can no longer afford to bring in the help our older generation needs.

Solitary
Directed by Kristi Jacobson
Solitary provides a gripping look into life in prison, for both inmates and officers. It is a film about entrapment with the self, an effort to inform society of life in loneliness. Solitary provides a voice for the 80,000 people currently in solitary confinement in the US while letting them know they are not alone.

Sonita
Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
Sonita is the story of an 18-year-old Afghan woman following her dream to be a rapper while society surrounding her tries to silence her. She stands up against forced marriages, including her own, in which she was to be sold off for $9,000 in order to allow her family to purchase a wife for their son. This film’s personal nature imbues it with universal meaning.

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
Deborah S. Esquenazi
The events that transpired in Salem in 1692 seemed a far cry from anything that could happen today, yet when four women are convicted of raping two little girls in 1994, we encounter a modern day Salem. Southwest of Salem brings hints that our judicial system might be more of a prejudicial one.

When Two Worlds Collide 
Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel
The struggle of indigenous people to maintain their surrounding land when in conflict with the interests of the big companies reminds us that our battle to preserve our environment rather than establishing locations for the production of monetary gains is ever present.Honored with a Special Jury Prize for Best First Feature at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Two Worlds Collide captivatingly reminds us of the state of the one world we are slowly losing.