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.

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.

Funding Day

Thursday, Nov. 11

The Nuts and Bolts of Equity Investing
Featuring Chicken & Egg Pictures Board member Susan Margolin

Building Budget and Community on Kickstarter
Featuring Nest friend and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd

Producing Day

Friday, Nov. 12

Impact Producing: Case Studies
Featuring Storm Lake director and producer Beth Levison (Project: Hatched 2021) and Impact Producers Alice Quinlan and Hoda Hawa. 

Cinematography Day

Saturday. Nov. 13

Introducing the Documentary Cinematographers Alliance 
Featuring An Act of Worship director Nausheen Dadabhoy (2019 (Egg)celerator Lab) and Made in Boise cinematographer Jenni Morello. 

Editing Day

Sunday, Nov. 14

Ade Launches Guidelines and BIPOC Editors Initiative
Moderated by 2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient Geeta Gandbhir

Case Study: The Rescue
Featuring Co-Founder Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand 

Finding and Shaping Your Main Character
Moderated by Co-Founder Senior Creative Consultant Judith Helfand

Doc Series Day

Tuesday, Nov. 16

Power Dynamics in Documentary and Journalism
Featuring 2017 Chicken and Egg Award recipient Dawn Porter 

Proximity, Access, and Journalistic Distance
Featuring Enemies of the State director Sonnia Kennebeck (2018 (Egg)celerator Lab).

Audience Engagement and Distribution Day

Wednesday. Nov. 17

How to Build Your Audience from Scratch
Featuring And So I Stayed directors Natalie Pattillo and Daniel Nelson (Project: Hatched 2021)

Success? 
Featuring Nest friend and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd.

Legal for Docs Day

Thursday, Nov. 18

New Trends in Ethics and Documentaries
Featuring the attorneys Nicole Page and Michelle Lamardo our partner Reavis Page Jump LLP Featuring Nest-supported filmmaker and Pray Away (2019 (Egg)celerator Lab) producer Jessica Devaney. 

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. 

This year, Chicken & Egg Pictures is proud to present our third annual (Egg)celerator Lab pitch, in which filmmaking teams from all ten 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees give quick pitches to a live audience of documentary industry folks and receive feedback from international decision makers and buyers.

This year’s pitch session is moderated by award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Co-Founder and Senior Creative Consultant, and will include a panel of:

• José Rodriguez of Tribeca Film Institute,
• Alexandra Hannibal of CNN Films,
• Jo Lapping of BBC Storyville,
• Jess Gormley of The Guardian, and
• Christine Kecher of A&E Networks.

The 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees are:

• An Act of Worship, directed by Nausheen Dadabhoy (US/PAKISTAN)
• #Mickey, directed by Betzabé García (MEXICO)
• Between Fire and Water, directed by Viviana Gómez Echeverry (COLOMBIA)
• We Are Inside, directed by Farah Kassem (LEBANON)
• Untitled PRC Project, directed by Jessica Kingdon (US)
• Mama Bears, directed by Daresha Kyi (US)
• Silent Beauty, directed by Jasmin López (MEXICO/US)
• Pray Away, directed by Kristine Stolakis (US)
• Cutting Through Rocks, co-directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammad Reza Eyni (IRAN/US)

Anyone with a Sheffield Doc/Fest pass is welcome to sit in on the sessions, learn about the incredible film projects these emerging filmmakers are working on, and hear feedback from panelists. The Chicken & Egg Pictures (Egg)celerator Lab Pitch will take place Sunday, June 9 at 11:00 AM at ITV Town Hall Reception Room B. More information here.

And if you’re at Sheffield Doc/Fest, don’t miss screenings of these Nest-supported films:

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.

One Child Nation is in the running for the The Tim Hetherington Award, supported by Dogwoof. Tickets and screening times are available here.

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.

Tickets and screening times are available here.

Hail Satan?, directed by Penny Lane (2017 Chicken & Egg Award recipient)
With humor and searing insight, director Penny Lane debunks misrepresentations about the Satanic Temple. Drawing on extensive access to the organization’s participants, this unflinching examination reveals the controversial religious movement’s aim to shine a light on the hypocrisy around America’s separation of church and state.*

Tickets and screening times are available here.

And a special shoutout to these members of our AlumNest of previously-supported filmmakers:  Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears (former Nest grantee for The Hand That Feeds) and The Great Hack, directed by  Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim (former Nest grantee for The Square).

In addition to co-founding the Nest, Judith has directed several award-winning films including the The Uprising of ’34 (co-directed with esteemed veteran George Stoney), her groundbreaking personal film A Healthy Baby Girl, its Sundance award-winning sequel Blue Vinyl, followed by Everything’s Cool (both co-directed with Daniel B. Gold). She has taught the art of documentary film at New York University, New School, and was the Filmmaker-in-Residence at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies in 2007 and 2009. As much an educator and field-builder as she is a filmmaker, Judith co-founded Working Films and sits on the boards of Great Small Works and The Lower East Side Girls Club.

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, directed by Judith A. Helfand

Sunday, November 11 at 1:30 p.m. at SVA Theater

Wednesday, November 14 at 2:45 p.m. at IFC Center

In July 1995, Chicago was hit by a record heat wave that claimed the lives of 739 residents, primarily among the elderly, African Americans and those living in poverty. Using this tragedy as a jumping-off point, but referencing other extreme weather catastrophes like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, Cooked provocatively reframes the politics of disaster to encompass extreme inequity, arguing that economically disadvantaged communities should be preventatively treated as disasters taking place in slow motion.*

* Synopsis courtesy of DOC NYC

Congratulations, Judith, and see you at DOC NYC!

The Academy  announced a record-setting 928 invited members, 49 percent of whom are women and 38 percent people of color.  Nine branches, including the Producers, Film Editors, and Documentary branches invited more women than men.  At Chicken & Egg Pictures, we applaud the Academy’s efforts to double the number of women and diverse members, a goal announced in 2016 and hoped to be completed by 2020.

This announcement marked a huge step in diversifying one of the most prestigious institutions in the field, bringing the overall Academy membership to 31% women. We couldn’t be more thrilled. You might have even caught  Wendy talk about it on live TV, on BBC News when the announcement was made public.  Julie and Wendy will join fellow Co-Founder (and Senior Creative Consultant) Judith Helfand, with all three Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founders now members of the Academy!

This year, Chicken & Egg-supported filmmakers invited to the Academy include Yance Ford (Oscar®-nominee Strong Island), Catherine Gund (Born to Fly), Sari Gilman (Kings Point, editor on Trapped), Lana Wilson (The Departure and After Tiller), Laura Nix (2018 Breakthrough Award Recipient), and Nanfu Wang (2018 Breakthrough Award Recipient, 2017 Accelerator Lab Grantee for Born In China).

New members also include Paco de Onís, editor of Nest-supported Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, as well as Toby Shimin, editor of Nest-supported 32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide. Congratulations to all!

Post by 2018 Communications Intern Morgan Lee Hulquist. 

Join us for our first ever LIVE CHICK-PITCH at the 2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Our focus: to showcase, celebrate, and introduce you to the work, vision, and promise of 10 compelling projects helmed by emerging women directors from around the globe—each one a member of our 2017 CHICKEN & EGG PICTURES Accelerator Lab, hailing from Bangladesh, China, Somalia, Mexico, Poland, and across the US.

The Live Pitch will take place on Sunday, June 11, 12:00 – 14:00 pm at the Sheffield ITV Town Hall Reception Room B.

Moderated by award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Co-Founder and Senior Creative Consultant.

THE PROJECTS

• Born in China by Nanfu Wang & Lynn Zhang (China)
• The Guardian of Memory by Marcela Arteaga (Mexico)
• Kids Can Spit by Chelsi Bullard (US)
• Lights, Camera, Uganda by Cathryne Czubek & Hugo Perez (US)
• People I Know by Zofia Pregowska (Poland)
• Rajada Dalka/Nation’s Hope by Hana Mire (Somalia)
• The Rashomon Effect by Lyric R. Cabral (US)
• Surf Girls of Cox’s Bazar by Elizabeth D. Costa (Bangladesh)
• The Surrender of Waymond Hall by Jane Greenberg, (US)
• Unaccompanied Children by Alexandra Codina (US)

Find out more about the 2017 Accelerator Lab.

If you would like to attend let us know by emailing Sabine Fayoux, Program Coordinator, at sabine@chickeneggpics.org.

If you can’t join us at the Live Pitch please consider meeting with the filmmakers individually or in small group meetings during the festival. To coordinate a meeting, please contact our European representative and Sheffield Doc/Fest liaison Tereza Šimíková at simikova.tereza@gmail.com.
The Chicken & Egg Pictures Accelerator Lab is a year-long program that brings together 10 nonfiction projects directed by women from around the world who are making their first or second film. The program provides them with a major grant of $35,000 USD and intensive mentorship that strives to balance creative storytelling and core producing skills with practical models for building sustainability, community, and relationships in the nonfiction marketplace. The 2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest marks the program’s second of three retreats, this one built around utilizing and leveraging all that the Sheffield Doc/Fest’s Meet Market and Industry Convenings have to offer.

The 40 for 40 highlights forty women who reflect and represent “Margaret Mead’s legacy of boldness, humanity, and innovation.” The full list of women chosen for this recognition is available here.