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Kayla Farrish, Spectacle, BAAD!/Pepatián Dance Your Future, 2018.

837
inFilm/Video & New Media

Natalie Gee

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Natalie Gee (she, her, hers) was made in England, assembled in Australia, and directly imported to NYC. She’s a filmmaker and festival programmer based in Brooklyn. Her shorts have premiered at Oscar-qualifying festivals in the U.S. and overseas. Most recently, she wrote and directed Waves, a dance narrative starring Lily Baldwin. Her experimental short Queendom was featured on NoBudge and nominated for Best Experimental film at the Miami Short Film Festival. Gee shadowed Oscar-nominated director Steph Green on HBO’s The Deuce with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal. She’s a programmer for Santa Barbara, HollyShorts, and Aesthetica film festivals and has curated feminist film nights at the Brooklyn Museum. She’s previously been on the screening committee for the Telluride Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Hamptons International Film Festival.

 

Project Statement

Buried is a hybrid narrative and experimental film exploring the physical and the surreal experiences surrounding work burnout, grief, and rage. The lyrical story, to be shot on 16mm, follows a winemaker plagued by stress and sickness who is convinced her vineyard is being poisoned until a sinister presence reveals the truth around her chaotic and mysterious illness. With bold scores and physical soundscapes, Gee’s intimate approach to stylized terrains explore how difficult it is to channel self-compassion when we push ourselves to exhaustion.

Film/Video & New Media
A portrait of Natalie Gee, smiling at the camera.

Ash Goh Hua

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Ash Goh Hua (any pronouns) is a filmmaker and cultural worker from Singapore, based in New York. They create documentary and experimental-based work informed by the politics of abolition and autonomy. Often utilizing archives and anachronistic formats (Super8, VHS), Hua’s films show different imaginings of the possibilities of liberated futures. They have been supported by programs and fellowships from the Sundance Institute, Jacob Burns Flim Center Creative Culture, NeXt Doc, IF/Then, and NYFA. Their films have screened and won awards at film festivals internationally and have been distributed by PBS and Third World Newsreel. Hua is also a Common Notions collective member.

 

Project Statement

The Feeling of Being Close to You 能靠近你的感觉 documents an attempt at healing the trauma of touch between mother and child. Driven by a pure desire for intimacy, Hua talks openly with his mother for the first time about the intergenerational trauma and abuse within their lives. Using present-day phone conversations juxtaposed with archival VHS footage, this act of filmmaking becomes a vessel to reconnect with past selves and re-write once cyclical destinies, thus generating new possibilities of living and relating.

Film/Video & New Media
Ash Goh Hua, an Asian femme, wearing a olive green puffer jacket and gazing into the camera.

Photo by Kristie Chua.

Joua Lee Grande

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Joua Lee Grande (she, her, hers) is a Minneapolis-based filmmaker determined to shed light on underrepresented experiences and truths. She has produced various short documentaries and is currently in development for her first feature, Spirited. Grande is currently a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a MediaJustice Network Fellow. She was a 2019 Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow through Kartemquin Films and previously worked as a news editor at WCCO TV 4 News. Grande is a part of various film networks, including the Asian American Documentary Network and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. She spent the past four years shaping media education programs at the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network and has developed and taught media and arts programming at institutions across Minnesota.

 

Project Statement

Joua Lee Grande is working on Spirited, a feature-length documentary about her journey as an Americanized, agnostic Hmong American woman exploring her people’s spiritual practice after being told by various shamans that she is destined to become a shaman. A dive into the second generation’s experience trying to save this ancient practice while making it their own, the film explores various shaman’s experiences in modern-day America. It explores how this spiritual practice exists in multi-racial families, diverse communities, the first generation with out and proud LGBTQ+ community members, and women coming into their power in a patriarchal culture.

Film/Video & New Media
Joua Lee Grande, a Hmong-American woman wearing a blazer with Hmong designs sewn on the shoulders and arms smiling at the camera.

Travis Gutiérrez Senger

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Travis Gutiérrez Senger (he, him, his) is a Mexican-American director, writer, and producer. His debut feature, Desert Cathedral, starring Lee Tergesen and Chaske Spencer, was released in 2016. His documentary short, White Lines and the Fever, about legendary Puerto Rican deejay Junebug, won awards at the Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW in 2010. He is currently directing ASCO: Without Permission, a feature documentary about the avant-garde art collective ASCO, executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.

 

Project Statement

ASCO: Without Permission profiles the extraordinary an East Los Angeles based Chicano artist collective, active from 1972 to 1987. ASCO merged art and activism and challenged Latinx representation in the art world, politics, and Hollywood through their incendiary performance art, photography, video, and muralism. ASCO: Without Permission examines the importance of their subversive and wildly spirited work and how it serves as a framework for Latinx representation in today’s cultural landscape. Through formal invention and the creation of original works with the next generation of artists, along with ASCO’s incredible archive and interviews, the documentary provides a call to action while celebrating a group that was far ahead of its time.

Film/Video & New Media
Travis Gutiérrez Senger directing on set.

Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich (she, her, hers) is a filmmaker and artist who has presented projects in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami, Florida, and extensively in the five boroughs of New York City. Her work has screened at the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, and at the New Orleans Film Festival, Doclisboa, and Blackstar Film Festivals. She has been featured in Essence Magazine, Studio Museum’s Studio Magazine, ARC Magazine, BOMBLOG, Guernica Magazine, and Small Axe journal, among others. She was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and is the recipient of a 2020 San Francisco Film Society Rainin Grant, a 2019 Rema Hort Mann Award, a 2019 UNDO fellowship, a 2015 TFI ESPN Future Filmmaker Award and a 2014 Princess Grace Award.

 

Project Statement

Madame Negritude is the true story of Suzanne Roussi Césaire, the rebellious Martiniquan writer and wife of the Caribbean poet and politician Aimé Césaire. The Césaires were formative members of the group of writers, artists, and philosophers involved in the black power Négritude movement. The couple and their contemporaries led the rejection of colonialism and the rise of African and Caribbean independence movements. Negritude made an impact on how the black people viewed themselves. For fifty years, the impact of writer and activist Suzanne Césaire on influential works of art and political movements has been overshadowed by the political stardom of her husband. This film will break the silence about the important contributions of Suzanne Césaire’s life and work.

Film/Video & New Media
Headshot of Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich.

Tahiel Jimenez Medina

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video
$30,000

Tahiel Jimenez Medina (he, him his; they, them, theirs) is a Colombian first-generation immigrant director. He tells stories in dedication to migrant mamas. His films about immigrant and Colombian culture are catalysts for decolonization, remembering and healing ancestral wounds, infusing themes of survival, memory and dreams with hauntingly evocative imagery. Medina has presented his films at national and international film festivals—and in local parking lots—for his community to gather and dream of new worlds. His recent awards include Twin Cities Public Television’s 2020 Project, The Next Step Grant, the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and Saint Paul Neighborhood Network’s New Angle Fellowship.

 

Project Statement

My Mama Can’t Swim is a short narrative film about the fragile and inseparable spiritual bond between an immigrant mother and her son. The film moves between memories that scarred their relationship and a magical pond where they hold one another’s vulnerable hearts afloat.

Film/Video & New Media
Tahiel Jimenez Medina, 20-something Latino masculine presenting person smiles with a camera on their hands.

Photo by Tinker Yan.

Effy Kawira

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Kenyan native Effy Kawira (she, her, hers) began producing short films and music videos, leading her to directing and writing films. Her propulsive passion for storytelling is the driving force behind every project, and her versatility the key to adapting and collaborating with a diverse range of creatives. Kawira is dedicated to telling the stories of those who may feel voiceless and unheard. She seeks to execute content that mesmerizes the audience and aims propel the change for more representation of various communities in the media.

 

Project Statement

Apartment 208 follows the story of Isabelle Ibrahim: a young, bright-eyed, passionate yet guarded 23-year-old photographer on her search for a fresh start after a series of unfortunate mishaps in her life. She moves into an apartment of her own, marking a new beginning in her adulthood and her journey of self-love and independence. During a long day of moving, Isabelle has a fated encounter with her neighbor from the unit above, 26-year-old Ahmad, a kind and mild-mannered young military soldier. The two end up in a whirlwind of romance, and their relationship progresses rather quickly. However, it all comes to an abrupt end when Ahmad is murdered.

Film/Video & New Media
Effy Kawira, 27 year old Kenyan director and writer.

Photo by Bobby Rogers.

Nadav Kurtz

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Nadav Kurtz (he, him, his) is an Israeli/Japanese/American filmmaker and editor born in Israel and raised in Europe and the United States. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, True/False Film Fest, Sheffield Doc Fest and more, and has been showcased by the Criterion Channel, POV, and the New York Times’ Op-Docs. His directorial debut, Paraíso, won Best Documentary Short at multiple international festivals and was short-listed for an Academy Award. His direction of 35 short accounts of immigration won him three Gold Pencil awards at The One Show. Kurtz was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and was a Points North Fellow at the 2021 Camden International Film Festival. He is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

 

Project Statement

When Omar was six years old, his father Sam produced Street Thief—a fictional feature film about a burglar. Only weeks before the film’s premiere, Sam was arrested for an armed robbery and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Now twenty-two, Omar struggles under the weight of his father’s long absence, while Sam, still incarcerated, hopes to reach Omar through a creative collaboration on a screenplay. Through Kurtz’s intimate relationship with Omar’s family—whom he met while editing Street Thief—this hybrid documentary draws on a wealth of personal archival, behind-the-scenes footage, and 16mm dailies from the film Sam produced before his arrest. It follows Omar’s coming of age as he seeks freedom from his past, reckoning and reconciling on the way to healing his relationship with his father.

 

Film/Video & New Media
Nadav Kurtz, an Asian/Jewish male filmmaker, smiling at camera.

Photo by Nolis Anderson.

Eunice Lau

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

As a descendant of immigrants displaced by conflict, Eunice Lau (she, her, hers) is drawn to stories about the journey of the immigrant and the profundity of hyphenated identities. It’s this inheritance that makes her cognizant of injustice and makes her storytelling personal. Her feature documentary Accept the Call, set in Minnesota’s Somali community, explores the impact of injustice and intergenerational trauma. It aired on PBS’ Independent Lens after screening at acclaimed film festivals. Her work has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Woodstock Film Festival, ITVS, Chicken & Egg Pictures, North Point Institute, and YouTube Impact Lab. A Masters of Fine Arts in film graduate from NYU, Lau was born and raised in Singapore and now lives in Queens on Lenape land.

 

Project Statement

Son of the Soil is a documentary film about the exigency of our ecocide told through the story of David Buckel, a lawyer-turned-environmentalist who set himself on fire in the name of climate change. Once celebrated for being a public defender of LGBTQ rights and for creating America’s largest hand-powered compost sites, David’s suicide captures the trauma and impact of climate change on our psyche. By documenting David’s journey as he struggled against the political expedient defunding of his cherished compost site, Lau’s documentary reveals how our profit-driven economy compels politicians to pay lip service to the climate movement. The film is also a love story to the world, capturing the zeal of his protégé Domingo Morales as he expands composting across public housing in NYC.

Film/Video & New Media
An Asian woman filmmaker smiling into the camera, resting her chin in her hand.

Photo by Wong Maye-E.

Sonia Malfa

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Sonia Malfa (pronoun flexible) is a filmmaker who incorporates her love of the surreal, culture, and nature with a passion for visual poetry and storytelling. Malfa’s short experimental documentary Simone: A Survivor’s Story won a Clio Award, Webby Award (Jury), and was shortlisted at the 1.4 Awards, One Show Awards and Kinsale Shark Awards. It also screened at the Atlanta Film Festival. Her narrative short, Close Your Eyes, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Malfa has been awarded the NYSCA Individual Artist grant and was selected for the DGA/AICP Commercial Director’s Diversity Program. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in American Studies (Gender and Race Relations).

 

Project Statement

Following the death of her father, a young poet seizes the opportunity to escape her controlling mother by embarking on a magical, cross-country journey. It’s Always Sunny is a queer coming-of-age road trip drama of a young, Black woman’s empowering journey of self-discovery. The film creates a distinct cinematic style that blends poetry and narrative drama exploring storytelling beyond genre molds. Co-written by Sonia Malfa and Trae Harris, the film will be Malfa’s feature directorial debut with Trae Harris performing the lead character, Sunflower.

Film/Video & New Media
Sonia Malfa, a Puerto Rican-American who grew up in Buffalo and loves the magic of snow.

Photo by Delphine Diallo.

Dean Colin Marcial

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Dean Colin Marcial (he, him, his) is an international filmmaker working in New York and Manila. His award-winning films have been screened at Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, Sitges Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, and Slamdance. Several of his shorts are Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week selections and featured on VICE, CNN, and Filmmaker Magazine. He co-founded Calavera USA in 2010. This Brooklyn-based production company’s credits include All That I Am (SXSW Special Jury Prize 2013, distributed by Gunpowder & Sky), Fishtail (Tribeca Film Festival 2014, distributed by Netflix), and Yearbook (Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize 2014 and 25+ awards, 125+ festivals). In 2017, he was a recipient of the Tribeca All Access Grant and Tribeca All Access Alumni Grant and shortlisted for the Russo Brothers Fellowship.

 

Project Statement

The Green Guerrillas chronicles the rise and fall of an impassioned eco-terrorist group over an explosive decade in the Philippines. When they were young, they were reckless—and when they grow up, they face off.  Jess, Eddie, and Emilia were best friends, a love triangle, and the leaders of an environmental action group who called themselves The Green Guerrillas. They staged protests and demonstrations by day--and by night, they organized tree-spiking, tree-sitting, and sabotage. At the heart of the film are visionaries whose ideals collide. Their emotions and history run deep. Three people, who long to be together, but keep themselves unrequited. In Tagalog this is called “hugot”—a deeply-felt aching inside your bones and body, a wistful longing for something that may never be.

Film/Video & New Media
A self portrait of Dean Colin Marcial, a thirty-something Filipino filmmaker. Not pictured, his cat Jojo on his lap.

Kate Marks

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Writer/director Kate Marks (she, her, hers) comes from a long line of tricksters. Her tricky films Pearl Was Here (65 million YouTube views), Manic (NYTVF Best Drama), Miracle Maker (Queens World Best Short), 7 Day Gig, and Homebody have screened at Tribeca Film Festival, Slamdance, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, PBS, HBO Go, and more. Past fellowships include the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Academy Nicholl Award, Film Independent Screenwriting Lab and Project Involve, and the HBO ACCESS Directing Fellowship. After graduating from Brown University, Marks spent nine years writing and directing plays in NYC. She then went on to get her Master of Fine Arts in film directing at CalArts. Additionally, she is a mom, a teacher, and a stilt-walker. www.katemarks.net

 

Project Statement

The Cow of Queens is an adventure/comedy/coming-of-age mash-up about a father (played by Rob Morgan) and his daughter who embark on one last adventure to save a cow that has broken loose from a local slaughterhouse: running free on the streets of Queens. Chasing an impossible dream like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, they contend with the Butcher who wants his damn cow back and the dad’s cancer, which promises to separate this inseparable duo. Inspired by personal experience (with cancer, not cows), The Cow of Queens is a story about love and the ways we rally for each other when shit hits the fan. It’s about characters having fun in the midst of terrible pain. It’s about finding comedy in the middle of drama. It’s about celebrating the best of humanity in the worst of times.

Film/Video & New Media
Kate Marks, a forty-something caucasian woman filmmaker staring into a monitor on set.

Hedia Maron

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Hedia Maron’s (pronoun flexible) films highlight the absurdity of life and give voice to weirdos and outcasts. Maron is interested in uncovering deeper truths through humor, unexpected imagery, and an emotional investigation into subjects, which often include family and friends. Maron’s films have screened at Sundance Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Documenta, SXSW, Outfest, Tribeca Film Festival, New Museum, Anthology Film Archives, The Jewish Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Tensta konstahll, and Queens Museum.

 

Project Statement

Before Us is a feature-length documentary that reflects on 1960s counterculture, adoption in North America, and changing family structures. The film takes an unconventional approach to the adoption narrative, uncovering the ramifications of Maron’s family secrets and placing them within the context of a counterculture that devalues women and children. Before Us has finished principal photography and Maron is working on contextualizing her family’s story within the larger cultural moment through voice-over and archival footage.

Film/Video & New Media
Black and white headshot of Hedia Maron smiling at the camera.

Photo by Lauryn Siegel.

Kristian Mercado Figueroa

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Kristian Mercado Figueroa (he, him, his) is a Puerto Rican filmmaker from Spanish Harlem. His psychedelic reggaeton short film, Nuevo Rico, won the Animation Jury Award at SXSW 2021, and in 2019 his short film/music video Pa’lante won a Jury Award at SXSW. In 2020 his screenplay Hawkbells won Slamdance’s Screenwriting Award. He has been the recipient of awards and grants from Cinereach (2020) and others. In 2020, Kris received official selection at SXSW 2020 for the Grammy-nominated Colors by Black Pumas and “Miami Nights Comedy Special” for Hannibal Buress. His work can be seen on Netflix, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and more. He’s currently working with HBO and A24. Mercado’s distinct voice addresses issues of identity, family, and systemic oppression across race and class.

 

Project Statement

Mataron A Pedro (They Killed Pedro) is a narrative film about a Puerto Rican man attending Harvard and leading labor strikes against a white Chief of Police and white Governor in the early 1930s. The compelling moments in this story range from an epic sugar cane workers strike in the backdrop of a burning plantation field to a husband and father putting his life on the line to defend his people. The film explores the question: “For whom has democracy been crafted in America?” It explores the themes of class struggles, family, colonialism, and the justice system.

Film/Video & New Media
Kristian Mercado at SXSW.

Photo by Matt Carey.

Yasmin Mistry

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Yasmin Mistry (she, her, hers) is an Emmy-nominated animator and filmmaker. Her work has been displayed worldwide, including showings at the United Nations and White House as well as at SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival, DOC NYC, and more. She is the recipient of grants from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Puffin Foundation, Riverside Sharing Fund, and Harnisch Foundation and was a two-time finalist for funding from the ITVS Diversity Development Fund. Films from her documentary shorts series about foster care have been featured in over 140 film festivals and nominated for more than 80 awards. In 2018, Mistry received the CASA Hero Award for her advocacy work, giving youth in the child welfare system an opportunity to be heard.

 

Project Statement

Together (working title) is a film about a Vietnamese-American woman’s efforts to reconcile her tumultuous childhood by exploring her family history. This journey leads to the discovery of two sisters, a legacy of childhood abuse, and a forced confrontation with the haunting question: “How do you heal when you don’t know the truth?” Blending personal interviews, verité footage, and animation, this feature-length documentary explores family separation and trauma while questioning the destructive notion that seeking help is a sign of weakness instead of a path to empowerment. These sisters’ stories weave a dynamic narrative, demanding changes to the ingrained social hierarchies which perpetuate intra-familial violence.

Film/Video & New Media
Headshot of Yasmin Mistry smiling at the camera

Rafael Samanez

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Rafael Samanez (he, him, his) was born in Brazil to Peruvian parents. He resides in Queens, NY. His previous work as a community organizer inspires his films which delve into the intersections of gender, race, migration, and class. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the City College of New York in 2019 and received a 2018 Princess Grace Award/Honoraria. Rafael was a John Grist Documentary/BAFTA New York Scholar and a top finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in 2020. His film Out of the Shadows won Best Documentary in the 2019 Cityvisions Film and Video Showcase. It appeared in nine film festivals, including the Urbanworld Film Festival and the New York Latino Film Festival. Alongside filmmaking, Samanez teaches media production at the City College of New York.

 

Project Statement

My Existence is Resistance is a verité-style docuseries covering the life and work of three influential transgender women of color who break down barriers in New York City. Amidst a global pandemic, they lead their communities in the fight for equal housing, healthcare, jobs, political representation, and lives free of violence. Having learned early how to survive the trials life threw at them with quick wit, creativity, and boundless resiliency, these heroines are poised to carve a new path for trans people. We follow their journeys closely as they make bold moves to lead their lives in their truths, harness internal strength during hard times and overcome setbacks on their paths to greatness.

Film/Video & New Media
Rafael, a Latino man in his early 40's, looking through the camera lens on a tripod in front of the US/MX border. A bird is seen flying over the barb-wired border fence.

Photo by Leilani Clark.

Suneil Sanzgiri

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Suneil Sanzgiri (he, him, his) is an artist, researcher, and filmmaker whose work spans experimental video and film, essays, and installations and contends with questions of identity, heritage, culture, and diaspora related to structural violence. He graduated from MIT with a Masters of Science in Art, Culture and Technology in 2017. Sanzgiri’s films have screened extensively around the world, including the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Sheffield Doc Fest, IndieLisboa International Film Festival, Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival of Navarra, The Viennale International Film Festival Vienna, LA Film Forum, e-Flux, 25 FPS Festival, and won awards at BlackStar Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, VideoEx Festival, and Images Festival. Sanzgiri has participated in residencies and fellowships, including SOMA, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, and was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2021 “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”

 

Project Statement

Two Refusals (working title) is a personal journey through ancestry, anti-colonialism, and harbingers of dissent across India and Africa, inspired from the myths of an unlikely source—Portugal’s oldest work of epic poetry Os Lusíadas, or The Lusiads—repositioning key elemental and mythological figures to ask the question, “How can one refuse an empire?” The film weaves together personal reflections of Sanzgiri’s family history as freedom fighters against the occupying Portuguese forces in Goa with stories of liberation and resistance across the Goan diaspora. This film focuses on the bonds of solidarity that developed across India and Africa against the Portuguese Empire.

Film/Video & New Media
Suneil Sanzgiri, a light-skinned Indian American male, staring into the camera on a brightly lit street corner at night.

Photo by Arin Sang-urai.

Nova Scott James

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Nova Scott-James (she, her, hers) is a filmmaker, artist, and creative coach from Harlem, NYC. Her childhood experiences of being flooded with the sounds and culture of jazz have impacted her creative aesthetic greatly as her work honors improvisation, altered states of consciousness, ritual, and collaboration. Scott-James is also a reiki practitioner and dedicated intuitive worker—she uses these abilities to serve people as a director and creative coach by guiding them in honoring their creative genius.

 

Project Statement

Wild Darlings Sing The Blues (And it’s a Song of Freedom) is a feature-length documentary following the Wild Darlings, a queer healing arts collective of black women and non-binary activists, as they embark on an epic road trip from New York to a former slave plantation in Virginia. The Darlings are tasked with harnessing their “healer within” to bless the plantation land, honor their ancestors and explore their experiences of racial and gender-based violence. They create a performance art homage to The Blues.

Film/Video & New Media
Nova Scott James, outside in a field with trees in the background, looking at the camera.

Illya Szilak and Cyril Tsiboulski

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Illya Szilak (she, her, hers) is a writer, artist, director, and creative producer. Shaped by her experiences as a physician, her richly collaborative, multidisciplinary art practice explores mortality, embodiment, identity and belief in an increasingly virtual world. Her longtime artistic partner is Cyril Tsiboulski (he, him, his). Their first virtual reality piece, Queerskins: a love story (2018), received a Peabody Futures of Media Award for transmedia. Their second, Queerskins: ARK, which features live dance performance was developed at The Venice Biennale College V.R. Lab. Their most recent work, In My Own Skin (2021), premiered at CPH:DOX festival. It combines handmade textiles, photography, wearable avatars, and virtual architecture. Szilak continues to work as a doctor, currently caring for inmates at Rikers Island, NYC.

 

Project Statement

Fly Angel Soul is a short experimental narrative film shot within virtual reality. It tells the story of Sebastian, a young gay physician estranged from his rural Catholic Missouri family, who, having moved to Mali to heal the sick, is diagnosed with AIDS. Inspired by a quote from Meister Eckhart “(let us) rejoice in the everlasting truth in which the highest angel and the soul and the fly are equal,” Fly Angel Soul is shot in real-time, from the unique points of view of three networked virtual cameras adopting the “roles” of the eponymous characters. The “human” p.o.v. will be that of a live cinematographer moving through the virtual set. Thus, in Fly Angel Soul, “liveness” resides in the “embodied” cameras even more so than in the actors in the story. Finding commonality with video games and live performance, Fly Angel Soul explores the potential for virtual production techniques to expand 2-D cinematic language.

Film/Video & New Media
Illya Szilak and Cyril Tsiboulski on the volumetric capture stage at Intel Studios during the shoot of Queerskins: ARK VR (2020).

Jingjing Tian

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Jingjing Tian (she, her, hers) is a Chinese American filmmaker based in NYC. Born in Northeast China, she immigrated to Texas at the age of nine, where she learned to speak with a twang, wore a belt buckle, and discovered her Asian American identity. Tian explores these identities and the themes of autonomy and oppression in her work and her life. Writing and directing are therapy for her. A Sundance Uprise Grantee, she is working on her first feature film, Kid C. Her short films have been screened at Nitehawk Cinema with MoMA, Cleveland International Film Festival, Bentonville Film Festival, Seattle Asian American Film Festival, and Museum of the Chinese in America. Her work has been profiled in Paper Magazine, AM New York, BuzzFeed, High Country News, South China Morning Post, and more.

 

Project Statement

A character and emotionally driven film, Kid C is a narrative feature that follows Lee during her first year as a Chinese immigrant in a small town in Texas during the late 1990s. Cracking under the pressures of volatile parents, Lee, a rambunctious 10-year-old, attempts to reclaim a sense of childhood with her best friend John, an African American boy. But when she accidentally reveals a secret that he shares, their friendship is threatened and life begins to collapse. Drawing from field research and personal experiences, Kid C explores a child’s agency in the face of parental abuse and intergenerational trauma.

Film/Video & New Media
Jingjing Tian, a Chinese American filmmaker based in NYC, behind the camera.