Past
Grantees

John Mbanda (he, him, his) is a Rwandan-American filmmaker and an ex-refugee. Mbanda lives and works in Minneapolis, Portland, and Kigali, attempting to tell stories of the unheard in a documentary format. The 20-year-old is currently working on a full-length documentary that tells the story of a Rwandan refugee family assimilating to the west. The film follows the family’s journey, highlighting the challenges that come with assimilation.

Project Statement

Red Earth is a full-length, featured documentary that tells the story of a Rwandan refugee family that is relocating to the west through a lottery.

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.

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.

Atlas O. Phoenix (they/them/theirs) is a director, writer, producer, actor, and editor. “At this point in my filmmaking journey, as I embrace becoming trans-masculine, at 50, I want to create films that not only explore the darkness of the soul; I want to examine its flight to the light.

Queer filmmakers are an enormous inspiration to me because our stories are powerful and are about overcoming obscene social obstacles based on our sexual orientation and gender expression. For some, this includes a radical bias towards the color of our skin. If we are vigilant about rejecting tropes, cliches, and tokenism, queer cinema will continue to evolve into a powerful and inspiring force for good in the world.”

Project Statement

Beautiful Boi is an experimental, narrative documentary. This genre-bending film is about Phoenix’ transition at 50 and their mental health journey over 34 years. As Phoenix transitions, they have many questions that range from being seen by men as a potential threat to questioning their spirituality. Their experience with the surgeries and hormone replacement therapy are part of the journey, but not the whole journey. Phoenix shares their gender transition to create a legacy of this mental, physical, sexual, and spiritual journey. This legacy may be someone else’s survival guide.

Maribeth Romslo (she/her/hers) is a director, cinematographer, and producer who believes that well-told stories have the power to change the world. Her films have played at festivals from Toronto to Mumbai. Recent projects include an original documentary series (Handmade*Mostly) for Reese Witherspoon’s new media platform called Hello Sunshine; a conceptual dance film (Kitchen Dance) about the work of women; a historical fiction content series (Spark) to inspire girls interested in STEM; and a documentary about student free-speech in America (Raise Your Voice).

Project Statement

Growing Up In A Pandemic is a multimedia storytelling project that focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth. The project pairs audio stories told by youth with animation that supports and enhances the content of the stories.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kazua Melissa Vang (she/her/hers) is a Hmong American filmmaker, photographer, teaching artist, and producer based in Minnesota. Vang production-managed Nice, an independent pilot, and official selection for the Indie Episodic Category at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. She co-founded the Asian Pacific Island American Minnesota Film Collective (APIA MN Film Collective). Her first short film, Rhaub, was an official selection at the 2018 Qhia Dab Neeg Film Festival in Saint Paul, MN. Vang received the Forecast Public Art Early-Career Artist Project Grant and developed a short experimental film, Hmong Ephemera, as a writer/director. She is a producer for Hmong Organization, a comedic web series.

Project Statement

The Chaperone is a semi-autobiographical comedic short film that follows Ghia Na, a teen who must accompany her older sister Hlee Anne when they are out of the house. Ghia Na serves as the chaperone while Hlee Anne rendezvous with her boyfriend in the park. Set amidst the backdrop of the mid-90s and the strict rules that governed Hmong girls’ bodies, this film follows Ghia Na as she befriends other “younger sister” chaperones.

Taryn Ward (he, him, his) is a filmmaker and writer currently working and living in Brooklyn, New York. His often deadpan-centric narrative-based filmmaking tends to revolve around the quotidian and the idiosyncrasies of the everyday layabout. Ward’s films have been screened in the Fast Forward Film Festival, NewFilmmakers at Anthology Film Archives and Atlanta Film Festival.

Project Statement

Ward’s upcoming comedic film Broken Goods follows the story of an aloof man named Vincent who, in addition to struggling with a sugar addiction, becomes a full-time test subject for clinical drug and product test trials in lieu of working a steady nine to five. Despite the risk, there’s a small fortune to be made when donating one’s body to experimental research—and instead of working more hours at his retail position, Vincent finds this risk worth the reward. Driven mostly by its satirical tone and existential character study, Broken Goods also underscores the relationship between mind and self as well as one’s relationship to both state and labor.

Deacon Warner (he, him, his) is a documentary filmmaker and youth media instructor. In 2020 he joined the COMPAS roster of teaching artists. Warner has made numerous short documentaries, including Bee-Sharp Honeybee, 56, and Peaceful Warriors: on the road with Vets for Peace. The Co-op Wars, his first feature film, premiered in May 2021. In addition to his independent film work and teaching, Warner was the Youth Programs Director at FilmNorth for twelve years, developing the media program to include in-school residencies, summer camps, and after-school programming. Before working at FilmNorth, he was a social studies teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Project Statement

Rethinking Security is a documentary film about a community creating a nonviolent model for safety. With the guidance and expertise of Nonviolent Peaceforce (N.P.), community groups and social justice organizations in the Twin Cities are actively creating a force of community members trained in nonviolent strategies to provide community protection. This effort was set off by the protests and conflicts following George Floyd’s murder amidst a global pandemic. N.P. and local partners in the Twin Cities are developing trained volunteers and a communication system allowing rapid responses when violent situations emerge. This film will use verité style footage, following the efforts of the lead organizers, along with news reportage as context for events. Rethinking Security offers a look at a possible future where mutual protection and nonviolence replace our current model of armed protection.

Shen Xin (she, her, hers; they, them, theirs) creates moving image installations and performances that empower alternative histories, relations and potentials between individuals and nation-states. They seek to create affirmative spaces of belonging that embrace polyphonic narratives and identities. Shen Xin’s most recent solo presentations include Swiss Institute, New York (forthcoming 2022) and Brine Lake (A New Body) (Walker Art Center, 2021). Their recent group exhibitions include Language is a River (Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne, 2021), Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning (Gwangju Biennale, 2021), Sigg Prize (M+ Museum, Hong Kong, 2019), and Songs for Sabotage (New Museum Triennial, New York, 2018). They received the BALTIC Artists’ Award (2017) and the Rijksakademie residency in Amsterdam (2018-19).

Project Statement

A relational film, Solar Wheels of the Steppes (working title), presents a science fiction narrative of wild horses in North America/Turtle Island and Xinjiang, China. The horses’ relationships with technologies, ecosystems, humans, and land reveal sustainable interrelationships between culture and ecology across geography.

Dan Yang (he, him, his) is a filmmaker, teacher, and community activist. He believes that films have an active influence on the social-cultural issues that surround our everyday lives. He is a proud 2016 graduate of Columbia College in Chicago, where he studied directing. Yang has produced short films such as Rice Street and Spirits Dawn. He hopes to continue creating films that challenge social norms, speaking to issues such as cultural dysphoria and identity issues. Yang is a member of InProgress, where he mentors students on video production. He is a recipient of the Cultural Stars Grant as well as the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Project Statement

Currently, Yang is working on an untitled film based on the unfortunate and true events of Fong Lee and his encounter with officer Jason Anderson on July 22nd, 2006. It begins like any ordinary day within a Hmong household, Fong the middle child in a family of 6, is a reserved and quiet teen. Like any other day, Fong and his friends bike to the local elementary school where he is approached by Officer Anderson. This encounter leads to a foot chase and the eventual shooting of Fong Lee.

Rhiana Yazzie (she, her, hers) is a director, filmmaker, and the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre. Her first feature film, A Winter Love (writer/director/producer/actor), will premiere at festivals in 2021/22. Yazzie is a 2021 Lanford Wilson and 2020 Steinberg Award-winning playwright. She was a 2018 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and was recognized with a 2017 Sally Ordway Award for Vision. A Navajo Nation citizen, her work has been presented from Alaska to Mexico, including Carnegie Hall’s collaboration with American Indian Community House and The Eagle Project. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Masters of Professional Writing, where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Madeleine Albright, Paula Vogel, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray.

Project Statement

Grant funds will begin the production process of Yazzie’s second feature film, Wounspe Wankatya: A College Education. Co-adapted from a play of the same name by Alex Hesbrook Ramier, it is the story of two Lakota women, Tiffany and Tashina, the only two from their reservation high school to make it into college. Tiffany is a math and physics genius who sabotages her gifts by partying too much, while Tashina is indigi-genius at being true to her Lakota traditions when she isn’t suffering from depression. To get an education, they embark on the creation of a sacred dress that will bring the enlightenment they need to get through school.

Jay Afrisando is a music composer and sound artist who employs sound and other media to share awareness of human-nature-technology relationships. His work Gunung Siggalang is in Alex Lubet’s 2020 album Three Strings and The Truth: New Music for Mountain Dulcimer. In 2019, his multisensory work The (Real) Laptop Music :)) was presented at Aural Diversity Conference and he presented a full-sphere installation Gendhing Cosmic at Linux Audio Conference.

Afrisando’s interactive installation Exploring the Music of Your Office was presented by the American Composers Forum (ACF) in the 2019 Landmark to Lowertown series. He received an Award for Excellence in 2019 from the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia for the United States, a 2016 Minnesota Emerging Composers Award from ACF and an Innovative Art Grant from Kelola Foundation (Yayasan Kelola) to create a participatory performance Mode[a]rn. His piece Water Siter was awarded the 2nd Prize Winner at Prix Annelie de Man 2015. He received a OneBeat 2015 residency in the US and an International Fellowship in Study of Korean Music in 2014.

Fellowship Statement

I use sound and other media to share awareness on complex issues that emerge as a result of our diverse perceptions and the technology we create, including issues on hearing and listening, disability and accessibility, the politics of technology and science, as well as culture and environment.

Through my artistic works, I aspire to capture and convey these intricate phenomena using various approaches, including but not limited to, audio and audiovisual works, 2D and 3D works, participatory work, improvisation, fixed media, and everything in between. Through my work, I want to invite my audiences to closely examine our relationships to other living entities, nature, and technology.

Kashimana is a mother, musician, vocalist, composer, producer and teaching artist with a rich soulful blues voice. The name Kashimana means “that’s their heart” and you can hear Kashimana’s heart beating in the compelling sound of their music, which combines Soul, R&B, Folk, Afro-funk and more. Kashimana’s Love from the Sun CD of original songs draws from her Nigerian heritage and her experiences growing up in Nigeria and Kenya and living in the United States. In 2019, she was the In Common Composer in Residence in Willmar, MN, a Cedar Commissioned Artist, and a Northern Spark Festival Artist (as well as in 2018).

Fellowship Statement

The need to create change and to use my voice to ignite this change drives my work. I use my voice to see other universes and possibilities. With my voice, I hear the joy, the pain, where I come from and where I am going; with my voice, I heal, soothe, and create; with my voice, I am able to connect, harmonize, magnify, communicate, and transmogrify. This is why I use my voice to write, compose, sing and share.

Currently I’m experimenting with loops to create drones, chants, hums, and dissonant harmonies in an effort to create a visceral tingling effect. I use improvisational lyric writing to engage crowd participation towards collaborative creation. I’m also exploring ways of visually representing the vibrations that result from voices to create a more immersive experience.

Some works in progress include Phantom Cries (the musical), A Sprig of That, composed for a MNiature with MN Opera and a song on The Art of the Revolution album by Black artists in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Ephrat Asherie is a NYC based b-girl, performer, choreographer and director, and a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance. Asherie has received numerous awards to support her work including Dance Magazine’s Inaugural Harkness Promise Award, a Jacob’s Pillow Fellowship at the Tilles Center, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and a National Dance Project award. The live performance chapter of her new project UnderScored is being commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum and will premiere in 2021. She is honored to have been mentored by Richard Santiago (aka Break Easy) and to have worked and collaborated with Dorrance Dance, Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, Gus Solomons Jr., and Buddha Stretch. Asherie is a co-founding member of the all-female house dance collective MAWU and is forever grateful to NYC’s underground dance community for inspiring her to pursue a life as an artist.

Fellowship Statement

My work is rooted in the complex rhythmic, physical, cultural, and spiritual lineages of New York City's underground dance community, a community I have been fortunate to be a part of for almost two decades. The performers I collaborate with are all part of the underground scene and we share, not only common movement languages (including breaking, hip hop, house, and vogue) but also an interest in exploring unconventional ways of remixing dances in various contexts, including creating for the stage. Implicit in working in these Latinx and African American vernacular forms is an ongoing conversation around the systemic racism that plagues this country, the struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community, joy as a form of resistance and resilience, and the commodification of culture as a means to make communities of color invisible. The underground dance scene and NYC’s complex labyrinth of cultural collisions inspired my hybrid approach to movement, which is integral to my work.