The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited seven C&E-supported filmmakers to their esteemed Documentary branch. We’re delighted to uplift this wonderful acknowledgment of their talent and significant impact on the filmmaking community. 

Jeanie Finlay, Rachel Lears, Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Mila Aung-Thwin, Keith Wilson, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, and Hemal Trivedi will become voting members able to participate in the Oscar nomination process and nominate new filmmakers to join the branch. 

At Chicken & Egg Pictures, our mission is to shape a more equitable and just world with the catalytic power of documentary films by providing funding, mentorship and industry access to a global community of women and gender-expansive filmmakers. 

As a result, let’s take a closer look at the diversity of the Oscars’ newest members. Of the entire 2024 class across all 17 branches, 44% identify as women, 41% belong to underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 56% represent 56 countries and territories outside the United States. According to IndieWire, 20% of the voting members will now be international. The Documentary branch is one of the most diverse of the 17 Academy branches, representing 52 countries. We applaud AMPAS’s ongoing evolution to better reflect and represent the world we live in. 

We can’t wait to see how our supported filmmakers, and indeed the whole class of 2024, will wield this extraordinary privilege and honor. Knowing their commitment to stories and perspectives that make our world a better place, we can bet it will be powerful. 

Chicken & Egg Pictures founders Judith Helfand, Julie Parker Benello, Wendy Ettinger,  and CEO Jenni Wolfson are also AMPAS members.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is celebrating the holiday season by featuring a dozen of our supported women nonfiction filmmakers.

Sonia Kennebeck is an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist with more than 15 years of directing and producing experience. She has directed eight television documentaries and more than 50 investigative reports. Foreign Policy recognized Kennebeck as one of “100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2016,” and Filmmaker Magazine selected her as one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”

National Bird, her first feature documentary, follows the dramatic journey of three whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial current affairs issues of our time: the secret US drone war.  National Bird premiered at Berlinale, was selected for Tribeca Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and IDFA, and was nominated for the News and Documentary Emmy® Award for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary. 

Her second feature, Enemies of the State, is a participant of the 2018 Accelerator Lab.

Enemies of the State is the story of an average American family who become entangled in a bizarre web of espionage and corporate secrets when their hacker son is targeted by the US government.

Post by Morgan Lee Hulquist.