Chicken & Egg are proud to announce the newest additions to the nest!

Chicken & Egg Pictures are very excited to announce their next round of grantees! Please browse over the films within their various different funding programs as listed below, and watch for their progress as we nurture them to take flight of the nest and soar!

DEVELOPMENT COHORT

Nicole Opper – The IPO Project
IPODERAC is a home for abandoned boys, but this is not a film about an orphanage. It’s a film about boys who become brothers by a set of circumstances unrelated to bloodlines. Two things set IPO apart from other homes set up for poor and disenfranchised youth. The first is quite moving: that once adopted and adapted into IPO, every boy becomes accountable for his brothers’ education, work ethic and emotional stability. The second is quite revolutionary: beyond being a place to live, IPO is home to a thriving gourmet cheese-making business. And it’s the boys who run the family business.
After thirty-two years of striving for self-sufficiency through cheese, IPO has almost achieved its dream. Now they must determine whether they will now expand their family beyond the sixty boys currently living on site, which could potentially disrupt the intimacy of their close-knit family, or if they will take their model of financial, emotional and environmental sustainability to other parts of Mexico where the problem of street children persists. I will document this transition while creating intimate portraits of several of the boys – a new arrival, a boy who is “aging out” and a boy somewhere in between.


Miriam Perez – Holler
Holler is a 60-minute documentary that will juxtapose how my family dealt with my mother’s AIDS diagnosis in the eighties and how African-American women are dealing with AIDS today. Are African-American women still too afraid to discuss AIDS? Is the community? What are we doing to protect ourselves? Are we educating each other about how the disease is spread? What messages about sex and AIDS are we conveying to our daughters. My mother is a lead character in this story. She was the grandmother of seven children. In 1985, my 45-year-old mother was diagnosed with AIDS. Her diagnosis came during a time when most Americans still associated AIDS with gay white males, prostitutes, and drug addicts. My mother did not fall under these categories.


Amyée Cruzalegui – Depart
Parting is never easy, but when families must separate for an undetermined amount of time it is especially difficult. When there are no other options, a member of the family must leave in search for better work opportunities.
Depart aims to explore the collateral damage caused by immigration as seen through the personal stories of a son, a mother and a husband, members of three families who must see their union break apart. Grandparents are forced to fill the void left by the parents and raise their children. Mothers can only witness their children growing up through photographs or videos. Marriages that were based on the foundations of love, support and devotion are weakened by the distance.
Separation, solitude and feelings of abandonment are some of the issues that our three characters – a son, a mother and a husband – must confront day by day. Their story is told within the narrative frame of the migrating act itself taking the viewer in a lengthy bus trip to a neighboring country.


Jessica Oreck - Spore: Secrets of a Primeval Forest (Working Title)
In our imagination, a dense wood is something slightly menacing – something dark, foreboding, even frightening. It is associated with losing one’s way, big bad wolves, witches, gnomes, and very often, mushrooms. But when a country is at war, the forest becomes a safe-haven, a place of hope. Spore wanders deep into the haunted forests of war-torn Eastern Europe to map that shift in perspective – the way the instinctively sinister is transformed into something precious. The film uses the cultural tradition of mushroom hunting as a passageway into the history of disparate cultures. Scattered with fairytales, personal memoirs and literary and philosophical histories, the film reveals the roles that woodlands – represented by the mysterious mushroom – play in the psychology and sociology of fear, imagination and survival.


Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson – Hungry in America
Hungry in America is both a pointed exposé of hunger’s root causes and a verité portrayal of the many faces of hunger in this country, including Cpl. Brian Temple and his wife, Colleen, who have been visiting El Paso’s Angel Ministries pantry for food to stretch his military pay; Shearine McGee, a struggling Philadelphia mother has documented her daily battle to feed her daughters as part of the “Witnesses to Hunger” program. We’ll follow the Witnesses women as they take their fight for an overhaul of the food safety-net all the way to Congress and the USDA. Hungry in America integrates these stories with archival footage and reaches the startling, but empowering conclusion: hunger in the U.S. is man-made and therefore solvable


Gabrielle Weiss – The Color of Land
John Boyd is the leader of an unassailably good cause; but he is a leader who almost always loses. Boyd is one of the few black farmers in the country who still owns his own land and makes a living from it. As founder of the National Black Farmers Association, he is heading into the second decade of a battle against the USDA accusing the agency of systematic discrimination, often causing them to lose their land and livelihoods. With two divorces and a few arrests behind him, his decade-long battle already has cost him dearly. Still, Boyd refuses to give up. As he gathers thousands of farmers for an historic new suit against the USDA, we follow him, sketching an intimate portrait of a leader who has already successfully proved he is right, and yet must continually struggle to convince others that justice has not yet been served. The film reflects on precisely what it means to lead, and offers a compelling meditation on the complex motivations and aspirations that propel us to defend social causes.


I BELIEVE IN YOU GRANTEES:

Hayley Downs and Julie Kahn – Swamp Cabbage
Swamp Cabbage is a dark and sweaty documentary about Hayley Downs, a half-Cracker stuck in Brooklyn who discovers that the bizarre backwoods-meets-suburbia Florida childhood she left behind is actually the key to her own survival. The film weaves Hayley’s 15-year, self-filmed story of love, addiction, illness, death and redemption with verité sequences of Florida Crackers as they gig, trap, hunt, fish and cook, affirming their sense of place by living in close partnership with the land despite the environmental and cultural devastation left in the wake out-of-control development and suburban sprawl. Hayley’s tragicomic journey through sunshine-state mythology, rural cooking and disappearing habitat is a new take on food, conservation, and community.


Maria Teresa Rodriguez – ¿Donde Estan?
¿Dónde Están? is a feature length documentary about three children, now adults, who were separated from their families during brutal operations carried out by the US-trained Salvadoran army during the civil war (1980-1992). Through the stories of Jamie Harvey, Margarita Zamora and Miguel Morales, the documentary reveals the unresolved issues of that legacy as the protagonists struggle to find their families and reclaim their lost identities. An amnesty law declared on all war crimes effectively sealed archives and silenced witnesses, impeding our characters’ searches. Through the journeys of Jamie, Miguel and Margarita, in an El Salvador with soaring unemployment, violence and migration to the US, ¿Dónde Están? asks the larger question: How does a society heal itself from the scars of a civil war?


Tanaz Eshaghian – The World In A Room
More than a million immigrants per year are arriving in the United States, a rate higher than at any time since the dawn of the 20th century. Ellis Preparatory Academy, a small high school in the South Bronx, was established in 2008 as part of New York City’s attempt to integrate this influx of newcomers into American society. “The World in a Room” follows three students at Ellis: Sanusi, from Guinea, Mohammed, from Yemen, and Willsy, from the Dominican Republic. When boys and girls raised in different cultures around the globe find themselves together in a single classroom, how do their encounters shape their identities as Americans? And what does it reveal to Americans about themselves?


Ilana Trachtman – Mariachi High
MARIACHI HIGH turns the lens on Mexican American teenagehood by capturing a year in the life of 4 student musicians in “Mariachi Los Torres,” a high school mariachi band in the tiny border town of Falfurrias, Texas – a flash point for the complex issues facing the fastest-growing ethnic group on the country. Focusing on students like JORDAN, KAYLA, ARNIE, and HENRY, and music director Joe Solis, a mariachi veteran of failing health but an astounding record for creating mariachi champions, viewers will watch rehearsals, competitions, romances, family dynamics, decisions and graduation, ultimately being entertained and moved by the way these students become more engaged in school life and find their voices through new connection to their cultural heritage. High school has never sounded so good.


Budrus – Julia Bacha
Ayed Morrar is an unlikely hero and an unlikelier community organizer. Upon hearing that Israel was planning to build the Separation Barrier through his small agricultural village, Ayed, to everyone’s surprise, became the leader of the first unarmed movement that successfully protected and even expanded Palestinian territory – a feat never before accomplished through violent or nonviolent means.
Ayed united Fatah, Hamas, international supporters and hundreds of Israelis. Together, they waged a 10-month lunch-counter-sit-in-style struggle to save his village from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier, with women from the community, including his 15-year-old daughter, serving on the front lines. In the process, he unleashed a little-known but incredibly inspiring movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today.

Jennifer Redfearn – Sun Come Up
Sun Come Up follows Ursula Rakova, a soft-spoken yet passionate woman, and a group of young families from the Carteret Islands as they search for a new homeland. The Carteret Islanders are among the world’s first climate refugees. Ursula is racing to find land for her people on nearby Bougainville before the next high tide season devastates the islands. But the move will not be easy. Bougainville is recovering from a violent civil war. Leaving behind a peaceful existence on a remote atoll, the islanders must adapt to a society suffering the aftershock of warfare. Sun Come Up tells the story of a people losing their land to climate change, a crisis of cultural identity, and two communities learning to live as one.


Lisa Collins - Oscars Comeback
About 150 miles to the nearest mall, in a dwindling, all-white, farm-town, a collision of two unlikely worlds sparks at a mom&pop event meant to save the day. Welcome to Gregory, S.D., home of the annual Oscar Micheaux Film & Book Festival, dedicated to their black ‘native son’ — controversial, film pioneer and grandfather of independent cinema. We document those 5 sweltering August days and the tensions leading up to them (across 4 years), through Festival organizers, Richard and Alis — two ambitious outsiders determined to shake things up on the Prairie! Additional colorful main players include a: rancher, benefactor, and “ghetto-boogiologist” — all extensions of Oscar. Our modern-day Race Movie captures the struggle to achieve the American Dream across our country’s tricky racial divide.


Christie Herring – The Campaign
THE CAMPAIGN follows a divisive election in a state split about gay marriage and a community divided over the best way to fight for its rights. With exclusive access to the San Francisco headquarters, observational footage and action interviews combine for an inside view of the “No on 8” Campaign. Characters are first-time activists and LGBT rights veterans, their stories exploring the intersections of religion, race and homosexuality.

Proposition 8 shocked activists across the nation who expected an easy win in what many consider the nation’s most progressive state. Although the film tells the heartbreaking story of a lost battle, hope is inspired through the passionate work of the characters and the re-energizing of the movement, culminating in the October 2009 March on Washington.

LIBERTY GRANTS:
Jennifer Arnold and Patti Lee – A Small Act
Hilde Back didn’t think twice when she donated money to sponsor a young impoverished Kenyan student. She certainly never expected to hear from him, but many years later, she does. Chris Mburu has been thinking of his Swedish “angel” Hilde since he was a boy. The small contribution she made paid off—Chris went all the way to Harvard. Now, he’s a respected UN lawyer, dedicating his life to battling genocide. Chris decides to start his own foundation to sponsor needy kids in his village. But, he’s stunned when only two students qualify for his beloved Hilde Back Education Fund. Simultaneously, Kenya falls into ethnic-based violence, and Chris must decide what to do to save his foundation and his country.

Edet Belzberg – The Watchers of the Sky
“Watchers of the Sky” threads together four journeys, telling the stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives to international justice, even as they come from vastly different backgrounds and life experiences. As these stories unfold we uncover the life of Raphael Lemkin, an impoverished Polish immigrant who was almost solely responsible for the creation of the UN’s Genocide Convention. The film, instead of focusing on violence, quietly examines the small struggles and triumphs that make up the daily existence of passionate individuals like Lemkin. With an intricately layered storyline, it links together different times and places to ask why the rest of us, as individuals and members of a larger society, often do nothing in the face of mass atrocities.


CELEBRATION GRANTS:
Atomic Epilogue - Ellen Spiro
Atomic Epilogue explores the changing face of energy production in the United States through one man’s unusual life and legacy. “Atomic” Ed Grothus spent decades as an activist and educator, speaking out against nuclear weapons and advocating for a solar-powered future. In his final days, Ed confronts his own death with honesty and humor, looking forward to the legacy of hope he wants to leave behind.

Gail Dolgin & Robin Fryday – The Barber of Birmingham
The film features 85-year old Mr. Armstrong, an African American barber in Birmingham, Alabama, as he experiences the manifestation of an unimaginable dream: the election of the first African American president. This colorful and courageous activist of the Civil Rights era casts his vote, celebrates Obama’s victory and proudly unfurls the American flag as he is inducted into the Foot Soldiers Hall of Fame. Mr. Armstrong links the magnitude of the present paradigm shift with challenges he faced in the past: from his sons’ integration into an all white school to the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights. The documentary raises questions about democracy and patriotism in the face of adversity, and the vigilance and action required to ensure continued forward movement to end racial injustice.

The unstoppable Rose Mapendo pays a visit to GRITtv

Rose Mapendo of 'Rose and Nangebire', a documentary executive produced by Chicken & Egg which is due to premiere this year, was a guest on the news show GRITtv with Laura Flanders in October to discuss an issue that is still of pertinent importance to this day; the humanitarian crisis in the Congo. Rose flew overnight all the way from Arizona for the half hour interview, to give a voice to the hundreds of thousands of Congolese victims of sexual violence, by sharing her personal story of extreme suffering and profound message of forgiveness.

Watch the show below,

Click To Play

The panel was organized to coincide with a series of Congo related events taking place globally, in a grassroots effort towards "Breaking the Silence" about the on-going crisis and revive dwindling international concern for a country stuck in a devastating cycle of violence and impoverishment. Located in the heart of Africa, the killing in the Congo is also said to be at the heart of the deadliest conflict the world is witness to since WW2, with over 5 million dead, the majority of whom were defenseless children under the age 5.

Rose Mapendo is the Ambassador for Mapendo International, an organization that rescues and protects at-risk Congolese and other African refugees can be visited here.

Other guests on the show were Kambale Musavuli, student coordinator from 'Friends of the Congo' as well as the formidable woman, Eve Ensler, who talked about her V-day Spotlight Campaign to raise awareness about rape as a weapon of war in the Congo and funds to build a safe house called the 'City of Joy' in Bukavu, South Kivu--a project of Panzi Hospital in partnership with V-Day and Unicef-- that will be a refuge for female survivors of sexual violence and equip them with the necessary tools and education to protect themselves in the future. According to Rose, this form of aid work which educates victims and provides them with the means to begin the healing process, is absolutely necessary to help the Congolese extract themselves from this vicious cycle of violence.

'About Face' wins Accolade Award

Affinityfilms 'About Face: The Story of Gwendellin Bradshaw', executive - produced by Chicken & Egg, has won a prestigious Award of Excellence from The Accolade Competition. The award was given in the Feature Documentary category. The production was noted as featuring "exceptional storyline, visual application and direction."

"We are very proud of this work which is receiving international invitations to festivals in Korea, Greece, Israel, and Italy. Gwen's bravery in sharing her story to help others facing the stigma of mental illness is heartrending and we were graced with the opportunity and privilege of being trusted with her story, " Mary Katzke, director of Affinityfilms, Inc.

An internationally respected award, the Accolade recognizes film, television and videography professionals who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to profound social change.

Thomas Baker, Ph.D., who chairs The Accolade, had this to say about the latest winners, "The Accolade is not an easy award to win. Entries are received from around the world. The Accolade helps set the standard for craft and creativity. The judges were pleased with the exceptionally high quality of entries. The goal of The Accolade is to help winners achieve the recognition they deserve."

For more information, call Affinityfilms, Inc. at 907-677-7970 or visit About Face to learn more about the film.

OWN: THE OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK establishes a doc film club!

OWN in partnership with ro*co productions, a division of ro*co films international documentary film distribution company, is open for film submissions in preparation for OWN documentary film series launching January 2011.

The documentary film club multiplatform experience will include a primetime monthly documentary film series airing on the channel, an online community experience and exclusive footage on OWN.tv, as well as the opportunity for some documentaries to be presented as a nationwide theatrical screening event.

The "event" films will give the audience a festival experience by creating communities nationwide that can screen the film together and participate in a live, moderated panel discussion. As an important part of the new channel's programming mix, OWN will spotlight cinematic documentaries that can inspire and entertain, as well as provide opportunities for the audience to engage with each film's emotionally gripping, universally important themes.

For further information and to submit a film visit Rocofilms here

SILVERDOCS 2010 Call for Submissions Open Now

SILVERDOCS Festival Call For Entries is in full swing, taking place June 22-27, 2010 at the AFI Silver Theatre & Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES:
EARLY: January 15
REGULAR: March 12
LATE: March 19

To submit, visit the SILVERDOCS website here or go to Withoutabox.com

All Filmmakers will be notified of their status by May 21

Questions regarding submissions may be directed to: info@SILVERDOCS.com

SILVERDOCS Programming
SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival
June 15-22
programming@silverdocs.com
www.SILVERDOCS.com

IFP'S 2010 INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER LABS OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

IFP's Independent 2010 Filmmaker Labs are accepting applications up to February 12th for their Documentary Lab which takes place from April 12th-16th. It is the only program in the U.S. supporting first-time feature directors with projects at the crucial rough cut stage, before they are submitted to festivals.



Taking place in New York, the free, week-long workshops offer personalized feedback and advice on all aspects of the post-production process, audience building, and distribution strategies in the digital age, followed by continued support from IFP as the project premieres in the marketplace. More than half of Lab alumni have gone on to premiere at major festivals - including Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, and Venice, and have enjoyed theatrical releases, been broadcast nationally, or released on DVD. Among recent alums, Geralyn Pezanoski's Mine, produced by Pezanoski and Erin Essenmacher, opens nationwide this month via Film Movement, and Zeina Durra's 2009 Lab project, The Imperialists Are Still Alive!, produced by Vanessa Hope, premieres in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2010.

Drawing from a national candidate pool, 20 projects (10 documentaries and 10 narratives) are selected for this year-long Lab fellowship which, includes the five-day Lab in New York City, one-on-one mentorship with industry innovators and icons, and during IFP’s Independent Film Week in September - pre-scheduled meetings with potential buyers, sales agents and festival programmers and inclusion in a Lab “Sneak Preview” Showcase presentation.

Visit IFP's website here - to apply for the Documentary and Narrative Labs which will take place in April and June, respectively.

WNET/Thirteen - weekly short film contest seeks participants

The producer of Reel 13's weekly film showcase, and Curator of Reel 13 Shorts - Colleen McHugh - is always looking for great short films to enter their WNET/Thirteen contest.

They accept submissions via upload on our website here, FTP, or by sending a DVD to the address listed below. The TRT is optimal at under 8 minutes.

Please contact Colleen if you have any questions or need more information.

Colleen McHugh
WNET/Thirteen
450 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001

TFI's Camera-to Classroom Grant App deadline - FEB 1st

Tribeca Film Institute’s Camera-to Classroom Fund, is giving away fifteen $2,500 awards to non-profit organizations in New York City who wish to create or meaningfully improve a partnership with an NYC public school using the Department of Education’s new Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts: The Moving Image as their guide.



Proposals are due in less than a month so please visit Tribeca's website here for application details and guidelines asap.

SEE Garbage Dreams at the IFC Centre - until Tuesday Jan 19th

GARBAGE DREAMS, executive produced by Chicken & Egg, is being shown 5 times daily at the IFC centre until next Tuesday. The director Mai Iskander will appear in person at the 6:30pm shows.

The award winning documentary follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen — Arabic for “garbage people.” Far ahead of any modern “Green” initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.

Click here to buy tickets on line at the IFC website
ADDRESS IFC Centre: 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street | (212) 924-7771