Catch C&E grantee, Jesse Epstein sharing her digi wonderbrain at NYWIFT's April 8th Panel

Digi Dynamics Changemakers: Documentaries That Spur Social Movements

How are innovative women filmmakers across the globe using documentaries to inspire social movements?

Join award-winning filmmakers from Iran, India, the United States and Mexico who are combating women's rights abuses, anti-immigration laws and human trafficking through the power of the documentary. The panelists will share their inspiring personal stories and talk about how they use various media, including social networking tools, to get their messages out to the international community.

Event Details:
Thursday April 8, 2010
Ticket Information
NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute 20 Cooper Square

CHICK-FLICK-SHIP continues Bay Area STYLE

San Franciso Women's Film Festival is honoring Judith Helfand with a tribute award Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:00 PM!!

Join SFWFF, Judith Helfand herself and guest organizers/activists from her very-active past to celebrate Judith and 20 years of life, cancer-free sans uterus.

This joyous, interactive and celebratory kick-off to the SFWFF festival will be built around the screening of A HEALTHY BABY GIRL. The beguiling and at times unbelievable, strange but true story of how the anti-miscarriage drug DES (administered to her mother during pregnancy) changed her life and radically transformed her future - followed by an excerpt from its Sundance award-winning sequel BLUE VINYL and EK VELT (a 17-minute short about the big move from the little red wood turned blue vinyl house!).

EVENT DETAILS:
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Roxie Theatre
3117 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Ticket Information

April 8th there will be workshops, screenings & events featuring Judith & Chicken & Egg supported filmmakers sharing story-telling and change-making strategies!

EVENT DETAILS:
Thursday, April 8, 2010 from 12:00 PM- 9:00 PM
Ticket Information and Schedule

Rose and Nangabire at STORY LEADS TO ACTION

Missed last week's invigorating STORY LEADS TO ACTION at the 92Y? Fear not, filmmakers Elizabeth Mandel and Beth Davenport have agreed to share their lessons learned from the evening for your benefit:

Three years after filming the reunion of a Congolese girl and her mother, separated by war in Congo, "Rose & Nangabire" (working title, www.artsengine.net/rose_and_nangabire) is almost complete. The work-in-progress screening last Thursday was an exciting opportunity to share our work outside the edit room. With a focus on audience engagement, it was also invigorating to finally explore in a public forum how the film can be used to create change.

While many social-justice issues are covered in the film, our audience engagement strategy focuses on refugee rights and resettlement; peace-building and reconciliation; and women in post-conflict situations. The evening was moderated by Robert West of Working Films, with panelists Matthew Edmundson, Operations Officer, Mapendo International (www.mapendo.org) and Desiree Younge, Senior Manager, Global Philanthropists Circle, Synergos (www.synergos.org). Audience members included representatives from the International Rescue Committee, STEPS to End Family Violence, Witness, Human Rights Watch and The Safe Harbor Project, as well as filmmakers and film fans.

Ideas and thoughts generated by the post-screening discussion included the following uses for the film or modules created from the footage:

* Reaching policymakers and practitioners who are often, due to politicization, desensitized to the issues Rose and her family confront and challenge.

* Targeting schools, because the presence of a teenage refugee going to high school in the film will make the issues accessible to a youth audience.

* Partnering with the Department of Education to train teachers who work with refugees and other ESL populations.

* Bringing together diaspora communities, for example by creating a women's-only discussion group, and/or a group for teens, where survivors of war can have a safe space to share their experiences.

* Working with women- and girls- leadership programs to provide a portrait of a strong, resourceful role model.

It was also pointed out that while embarking on our project we need to assess who is already doing this work and can program the film into their existing frameworks, and who can use the film to take their work to new places. This thought brings us to our next phase, solidifying relationships with organizations that address our three issue areas, and finessing the ways in which "Rose & Nangabire" can be used to help them in their work. As we finish up the film and begin to screen at film festivals, we're also looking forward to using this momentum to inspire thinking and follow up action on the part of general audiences as well.

Stay tuned for announcements about our festival premiere and the launch of our audience engagement plan. In the meantime, if you are in any way involved with our issue areas -- refugee rights and resettlement; peace-building and reconciliation; and women in post-conflict situations -- please be in touch, we'd love to hear from you. We can be reached at elizabeth at artsengine.net or beth at artsengine.net.

Story Leads to Action April 15th with THE LINE

Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films present the next installment of a monthly screening and audience engagement series at the 92Y Tribeca on Thursday, April 15th at 7:30 PM with Nancy Schwartzman's award-winning 24 minute documentary The Line

Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Thursday April 15th at 7:30

Committed to using the film in their work to end violence, join panelists for a fine-cut screening and interactive feedback discussion focused on how to actively, creatively and bravely use the film as a tool for violence prevention education in classrooms, activist trainings, presentations and more. Campaign to spark dialogue about sex, consent, power & pleasure

COME AND HELP THINK ABOUT HOW THIS FILM CAN BE USED IN NYC, AND HELP FORM THE FOUNDATION FOR THE CAMPAIGN!

Screening Details:
Evening Starts at 7:30

Moderated by Judith Helfand, Co-founder, Chicken & Egg Pictures and Working Films

With panelists:
Dean and Professor of Law, Michelle J. Anderson, CUNY School of Law
Meghan O'Connor, NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault
Neil Irvin, Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR)

92YTribeca
200 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013

Tickets are $12

About The Line:
THE LINE is a 24 minute documentary about a young woman - the filmmaker- who is raped, but her story isn't cut and dry. Not a "perfect victim," the filmmaker confronts her attacker, recording the conversation with a hidden camera. Sex workers, survivors and activists discuss justice, accountability and today's "rape culture." The film asks the question: where is the line defining consent?

Thinking of applying to C&E? Get your FAQs answered here!

An opportunity for both filmmakers and #Chickeneggpics to learn about the LOI process last Friday night.

It’s so nice to see that you’re not alone in this tough grueling process
I am so CHARGED from listening to everyone in my circle talk about the stories they are following…. many of which are international issues.
After listening to everyone talk in our circle. I mostly wanna see these films get finished!



These were some of the first public statements made after 30 New York-based women documentary makers sat in small groups of six and seven and talked about “the fire in the belly “ that pushes them to make the films they are making, pushed them to apply to CHICKEN & EGG PICTURES 2009 OPEN CALL, and after getting rejected – came in for a personal best practices workshop in a small side-room at Women Make Movies.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is small (staff wise) and unable to provide the kind of personal feedback we know is necessary and deeply wanted by the field – especially when we get 323 applications in a single open call. So we modeled this gathering after the first one we did in Spring 2009 and once again, like doc magic/kismet/old-time consciousness raising women’s group it turned into non-competitive CHICK-FLICK-SHIP – right in front of our eyes.



The evening was structured around questions the filmmakers generated in small groups. In fact, coming up with a list of questions and exchanging FIRE IN THE BELLY stories was the official ice-breaker. Each group of six and seven analyzed our new-improved LOI and guidelines and came up with some GOOD questions (which along with the answers are below).

Does the project need to have a social issue and how explicit?
First of all STORY LEADS – issues don’t. That said, there has to be a social/environmental/economic/class/health/identity etc issue at the central/heart/core of the piece – that gets addressed when ever possible via the story you are following. We have funded projects where the issue is immigration, race, absorption of new immigrants and the story is “what does it mean to become an American/how do you become an American in 2010”. The story leads us to reflect on the deeper issues. THAT SAID: Do we only fund “issues” and socially relevant film?

Well we do that and we reserve the right to make exceptions for when we feel that something is simply beguiling, beautiful, stylistically teaching us something about the world and we feel we have to celebrate this film and filmmaker for what they are offering the field and what they are offering us.. for at the end of the day this is not an exact science… it also comes down to taste and gut hunches.

What is the “storytelling” question looking for and do we have to answer all of the questions listed?
You do not have to answer all of the questions. They are just there to frame your thought process in approaching this section. We just want to encourage you to lead with the story. When we say “Story Leads to Action” we do so meaning that the people who will most likely be using your movies, (the grassroots activists on the ground who work on these issues for years at a time) don’t want MORE OF THE SAME ISSUES THEY TALK ABOUT… They want a film that can translate those issues into a story that moves people to open up to the facts and figures [the stuff of the issues]. You need to give us a sense of the story, character and/or community your lead characters are a part of and how they will take us somewhere else… take you on the next part of the journey.

What is the relationship between the LOI and the work sample?
ONCE WE START READING YOU WANT TO TRANSPORT US FROM PAPER TO MOVIE, meaning tell us a story in the LOI, make us see the film visually, make me NOT BE ABLE TO WAIT to pop in the DVD or download your film. Make your LOI make me want to live through the “buffer” (the time it takes for online materials on VIMEO to be ready to play). The synopsis is the space to talk to us about story BUT use words that convey the tone and the style of your film. Here is an example of one that really worked for us – OSCAR’S COMEBACK by Lisa Collins. It is visual, it gives you a sense of the tone, you know it is not a book or an article, it has to be a movie and I have a sense from reading this that Lisa is in control of this story (to the extent you can be in control of a doc like this!) I feel safe, I want to buckle up and go with her… she is not TELLING ME, she is showing me.

Judith reading the synopsis for Oscar's Comeback
SYNOPSIS/ OSCAR’s COME BACK: (with permission from Lisa Collins)
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 a 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. Micheaux is best known for his controversial, Prairie-inspired, racially-charged melodramas; 100+ years later Gregory -- claiming him theirs -- falls under the same spell. Similar to discovering a murder mystery while filming in Hitchcock’s hometown, we‚ hAve uncovered a parallel universe nodding to Micheaux’s own story and storytelling. In this spirit, we will employ a suspenseful, but truthful, editing style through orchestral pacing and heightened music. Inserting languid, panoramic scenes of Gregory will ground its reality. Train imagery/sounds will bridge transitions, highlighting Micheaux’s Pullman porter roots.

HOW MUCH MATERIAL WILL YOU REALLY WATCH?
Someone on the panel will watch everything you submit, a whole ROUGH-CUT or all of your SELECTS. That is not an invitation to be sloppy or to believe that we do all the work to pull out any jewels. SURE.. if we find them, and we do, we will fight for a project that is rough but has powerful material in it, material that is palpable. It is much better for you to make really good choices about what you want us to see and link it on paper to the film you are proposing to make – help us see what you see, even if you have not been able to edit it perfectly yet.

If you are making a trailer, I advise you to make one that does not feel like a zippy “cool” commercial. Slick does not help us see what happens when “the music stops” and you are alone with your character, and it is time for a scene to evolve, or an interview to take a shape…. Trailers are often difficult because we don’t learn enough about a lead character, we don’t get a feel for what the material holds, or what the movie might actually feel like when it “lands”. PLEASE LAND.. by “land” I mean.. make sure that we get to spend some time with your film when it is not running, where we can see a place, feel the tone, be dropped in the zone of your film. You can certainly send in a trailer, the one you are sending round, but we’d love for your to add to it a few scenes/character strands where you help us see how the movie might proceed and where you might “go” given the chance to get there.

There is ample room on the LOI for you to tell us how your work-sample, both the proposed work and what you submit as “prior work” (if applicable) does and doesn’t relate to your overall project. USE REALLY CLEAR LANGUAGE and GUIDE US THROUGH what we will be looking at and WHY.

“This is like my project in the following ways” and explain vis a vis (tone, style of shooting, relationship between music and picture). “This is nothing like my project but I am showing it to you to give you the sense of where my fieldwork can lead, and how my great way with people (as a researcher) can bring me and with me an audience – close to a character.”

You can also tell us.. This is as far as I have gotten. I have shot for six months. I have pulled together twenty minutes of what I think is the most compelling materials/I don’t know how I will use music so there is none here/I don’t know how I will deal with transitions/ I was so busy shooting the inside of this family’s life that I did not bother to get exteriors. I hope to go back with a more advance cinematographer and just focus on visuals in the future.

THAT IS CODE FOR IF YOU FUND ME.. and that is fine.. that is directions to me to focus on the characters and not worry/judge. She is preempting my judgment with a honest “I DON’T KNOW” but with “DIRECTION”. Tell us where and when you don’t know something –we’re not here to judge you on that but work with you in ways that we can.
That is the mentorship part of the grant and we need to know if you are open and where you need it.

I’m in development and don’t have anything to show, what do I do?
ALL OF ME, by Alexandra Lescaze, wanted to apply for development funds for a film about morbidly obsese women who as a last resort opt to have weight loss surgery. She had not shot a frame – BUT SHE HAD A GOOD HUNCH and had done a lot of research. We encouraged her to shoot an interview – nothing fancy. JUST AN INTERVIEW and then make selects. She did.. and we were able to see that she had a story that she had to FIND and that we believed she could find.. and then tell. So we gave her what was her very first development grant which she used to identify a community of women in Austin, TX who would become her lead subjects/characters, shoot and edit a “trailer” and get a competitive package together.

So… even if you do it on a flip camera, even if you are forced to do it on SKYPE, let us see what you see. If you’re subject is abroad or the event that is your story is happening for a while, go the analogue route. Find clippings, photographs, archival and or new footage on youtube… put together something you can show us that gives us a sense of the characters, your hunch, your drive – SHARE THE FIRE IN YOUR BELLY. If you are submitting photos, please create an online account (like Flickr) and submit the link). Do not be afraid to let us into the first stages of “development” – early is okay, if you can justify why at this early stage you need our support to move forward and there is SOMETHING THERE and you know where to find it, have unique access and a concept…

HOW MUCH DO YOU REQUIRE US TO KNOW ABOUT OUTREACH/ENGAGEMENT ?
Of course this depends on where you are in the process but you should be thinking about WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE AND WHY THEY HAVE TO SEE YOUR FILM… AND HOW THEY MIGHT USE IT… Again, you need to be really honest about this. This question/answer should be driving or at least connected to your passion, your narrative choices, your tone and your direction – while you are open to the unexpected twists and turns of the form. If you are in development we naturally understand that your engagement plan is not going to be as developed as someone who has been working on this for years… BUT that said.. it is harder and harder to get foundation money without these ideas and a baseline vision for how your film will be used, function in the world. We encourage you to go to both the Working Films’ site www.workingfilms.org and www.fledglingfund.org and look for videos, articles, STORY LEADS TO ACTION pieces and examples of “impact” to help you understand what we mean by “engagement”, “impact”, audience development and mutually beneficial relationships with NGO’s that honor a double bottom line and leverage distribution opportunities in ways that serve the movie and the movement. Fledgling has a great article on what social impact and reaching your audiences looks like to them.


WHERE DOES THE “FIRE IN MY BELLY” FIT INTO THE PROPOSAL?
Your bio doesn’t have to be a standard bio, tell us about yourself – your prior work, your expert niche’s, what brought you to this place and this story… Think of creative ways to link your bio to the film you are proposing to us. WE DON’T EXPECT or WANT everyone to be making a personal doc but there must be something that led you to pick up the camera in the first place and “have to tell this story”.

Something you should be thinking about when you are pitching in general is “let me tell you why I can do this movie” - let us read that in the LOI. If you are a first-time director it is often your personal experience, connections that lead you to a story you shouldn’t let your lack of experience overwrite your access to a story. Tell us why you have access to this story in ways that other people don’t/haven’t addressed in the same way before.

WHO NEEDS TO SUBMIT PREVIOUS WORK?
First-time directors and those who only have “trailers”. It will help us contextualize the movie you want to make, it will give you more credibility, it will help us see how you are either building on your work (even if it is work that you have done with others as a researcher, co-producer or sound recordist) and/or it will help us see how you are taking a great risk and stretching as an artist. Of course, your proposed project might be “really different” or the others were “not in your voice” but you can write about this in your LOI. We want those of you who’ve worked on other peoples’ films and who are taking the directors chair for the first time to “own” the work that you have done. EXAMPLES: Did you do the research to find a character? Did you do the fieldwork and face-time to make them comfortable, to understand their daily life and to develop the actual shooting strategy? Did you help develop the story? Were you shooting and right there where the action was? Did you go in and shoot and essentially direct when the director could not/did not feel like they could be there [for a whole assortment of reasons]. Your prior work/production experience all leads you to the position and the very place you are in now.. as you are poised to fill out this LOI and tell us about yourself and project. Make a reel that is uniquely yours… and own it!. Tell us about your work. Be very upfront about what you have contributed to the field and take credit for it!

ONLINE MATERIALS Vs. DVD?
Online materials are easier for the panel to review as we are in different parts of the country. So… if you send online we can view at anytime, anywhere and you have a better chance of an updated link being seen by the panel than an updated DVD. PLEASE KEEP IT SIMPLE. There are many easy delivery systems. It is better for you to use those (Vimeo, youtube or to make a password protected blog) than to take us to your idisk or yousendit.com link. PLEASE WORK ON THIS AND KEEP IT SIMPLE.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE CARBON OFFSET SECTION?
We offset our carbon footprint with a company called Brighter Planet. You can use their website to calculate the omissions [FLIGHTS, ELECTRIC, POSTAGE, COURIER, CARS etc] you have written in your current budget and create a line item for that. We understand that filmmakers are working with tight budgets as it is and we won’t penalize you for not having this written in. But the bottom line is…. it’s not expensive and its important. It is also not perfect.. but it is moving all of us closer to being better. Our film industry, especially the part of it that is focused on social issue areas, has to be constantly reassessing and taking responsibility for our part of transforming the energy grid/our collective footprint. By calculating this.. and please if you have a local way of offsetting PLEASE GO FOR IT, you are doing something that will serve you well in other applications to foundations who are also trying to figure this out – AND IT IS A GOOD THING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY and THE PLANET.

Is it possible to update/revise our applications if there is a considerable story change after submission?

You are welcome to submit an update as the process moves along. We cannot guarantee that this will be included in your review as material traffic and reviewer schedules get set. BUT if it is there/here we will try to incorporate it into the ongoing process.. especially if along the way there are questions that your update answers. AND KNOW.. that anything you write for us as an update you should incorporate into your next proposal.

IF YOU HAVE AN UPDATE: Email Natalie (Natalie@chickeneggpics.org) with the PROJECT TITLE in the subject line and whatever you want to tell us about in the BODY of the email.

You ask for the tagline to be catchy. What’s a good strategy with this?
YOU want the tagline to be memorable. I want it to have some meaning and FUN is not bad… irony is good and double entendre is your friend.

Write down all your words that are part of your project – this is great for making a title -- and just see what they look like. Play with them… it will come to you.

What amount of money should we ask for?
Be really concrete with your ask. On average we give $10k grants so think about what you could do with 10K and 7.5 K and 20K and then tell us what you could do with each of these in your budget narrative/request narrative.

Am I doomed as a 1st-timer without a producer/ep?
No ---- WE ADORE EMERGING and FIRST-TIME FILMMAKERS.. BE YOURSELF…. BE OPEN, BE NAÏVE if you are … BE ALIVE and PASSIONATE and HOLD ON TO YOUR ‘HAVE TO GENE”.


Judith Helfand and Debbie Zimmerman

Please feel free to add your comment on anything you need answered - BUT - make sure you read our guidelines FIRST. Many of the answers you need are there. DEADLINE IS MARCH 30TH.

Photos courtesy of Ivana Todorovic.

Monica and David @ The Tribeca Film Festival

Monica and David directed by Ali Codina will be in the World Documentary Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival!

Monica and David is a feature documentary on the marriage of a young couple with Down syndrome and the family who strives to support their needs.

Screening Details
Saturday, April 24, 7:30 pm, Village East Cinemas
Sunday, April 25, 5:30 pm, Village East Cinemas
Tuesday, April 27, 3:45 pm, Village East Cinemas
Wednesday, April 28, 4:00 pm, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea
Director, Ali Codina, will be present for all screening

For updates on the film, including upcoming announcement about national TV distribution, sign up as a fan on facebook or join the subscribers list

New Directors/New Films 2010

Chicken & Egg grantees to play ND/NF! Robin Hessman's My Perestroika and Laura Poitras's The Oath are both playing at New Directors/New Films 2010.

My Perestroika
The history of the 20th century was bookended by the Bolshevik Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in between came the era-defining Cold War. But for Russians who grew up during this history and now live beyond it, what does it mean to be Russian today? Robin Hessman’s thoughtful and beautifully crafted documentary explores the lives of a group of former schoolmates who are finding their ways in a brave new world: two teachers, a businessman, a single mother, and a once-famous rock musician.

Screening Details:
Thu Mar 25: 6:15 (MoMA)
Sun Mar 28: 3:30 (FSLC)
For information on tickets

The Oath
Filmmaker Laura Poitras interweaves the stories of Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard—now driving a cab in Yemen—and a Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged with war crimes. Poitras shades the complexities of her subjects in the manner of great novelists, delivering an intimate portrait filled with plot reversals, betrayals, and never-before-seen intelligence documents. The second in a planned trilogy on America post–9/11, The Oath is an intricately constructed work that keeps the viewer off balance and works on several levels.

Screening Details
Fri Mar 26: 6:15 (FSLC)
Sun Mar 28: 4:00 (MoMA)
For information on tickets

This year, the festival runs from March 24–April 4, 2010, and takes place at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and at The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1 at MoMA.

Good Pitch @ Silverdocs

THE CHANNEL FOUR BRITDOC FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES THE RETURN OF THE GOOD PITCH @ SILVERDOCS
FOR THE 2010 AFI-DISCOVERY CHANNEL SILVERDOCS DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival have announced the return of The Good Pitch @ Silverdocs. The Good Pitch is a one-day forum set to take place during the Festival (June 22-27, 2010), bringing together specially selected foundations, NGOs, social entrepreneurs and broadcasters to maximize the impact of social-issue documentary. Eight filmmaking teams pitch their projects and associated outreach campaigns with the aim of creating a unique coalition around each film to accelerate its impact and influence. The Good Pitch @ Silverdocs will be held on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 and is now accepting applications through Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at: britdoc.org/goodpitch.

The Good Pitch @ Silverdocs is aimed at directors and producers of any nationality with an ambition to work in partnership to harness the power of documentary to create positive change. In keeping with the mission of the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, the Good Pitch supports the diversity and free expression of independent storytellers and is interested in reaching out to filmmakers from traditionally under-represented communities. Given the proximity of the festival to Capitol Hill, the Good Pitch is particularly interested in projects that speak to the many government agencies and lobby groups situated in the area.

ABOUT:
The Good Pitch is a project of The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. It is made possible by The Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Tides Foundation and anonymous donors, with campaign development for filmmakers provided by Working Films.

CONTACT:
For more information on The Good Pitch, contact Good Pitch producer Elise McCave at the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation: elise@britdoc.org or 011 44 7980 986 862.

For more information on AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs, contact Jody Arlington, Jarlington@AFI.com or 202.316.4316.

SXSW/Chicken & Egg Award for a Woman Narrative Director goes to...

Now.. people I've learned will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. POET LAURETTE MAYA ANGELOU said that... which we think is the best way to introduce OUR SXSW/C&E Award for a Woman Narrative Director – one that we are so proud to give at SXSW -- because the seven women narrative directors at this year’s festival made audiences FEEL… a lot.

Yesterday morning we honored the women narrative filmmakers at a breakfast and had the pleasure of meeting three of them. What amazed us most about each of them -- Lena Dunham, Katie Aselton and Martha Stephens -- is that they didn’t wait for someone to green-light them.

They green-lit themselves.

In addition to directing, they wrote their own stories, starred in their films, pulled their families and friends-and their family’s and friend’s homes--into the service of their visions. They didn’t shy away from making themselves vulnerable, or unsympathetic, or naïve. We look forward to seeing what each of these filmmakers has to say next.

After much FEELING and MUCH deliberation we decided to give two awards:

The second annual SXSW/C&E Award for a woman narrative director goes to Lena Dunham, a triple threat writer/director/actor. Her portrait of a complicated, lovable, infuriating college grad made us cower in recognition. Her great achievement is that the film is as personal, intimate, and GUTSY as it is UNIVERSAL. Lena’s fearlessness on both sides of the camera is inspiring –WE ARE SO PROUD TO PRESENT her WITH THIS AWARD for TINY FURNITURE.

We’d also like to present a special Chicken and Egg “We Believe in you” award to a first-time filmmaker who has impressed us all with her tenacity, will and commitment to telling the stories of her community in rural Kentucky – unflinchingly, with deep love, respect and hope. Martha Stephens of PASSENGER PIGEONS – WE BELIEVE IN YOU.

Picture is Jen Small, Wendy Ettinger, Filmmaker Lena Dunham, Producer Alicia Van Couvering and Judith Helfand. Photo is by Nate "Igor" Smith

Story Leads to Action this THURSDAY with ROSE & NANGABIRE

JOIN US AT THE NEXT STORY LEADS TO ACTION
featuring
An extraordinary story of a Congolese mother
[a war refugee, now resettled in Arizona]
and daughter reunited after a decade separated by civil war
ROSE & NANGABIRE
(working title)
Directed by Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel

- INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S MONTH -
Thursday, March 18th at 7:30 PM

Join the filmmakers and a panel
for a fine-cut screening and interactive feedback discussion
dedicated to balancing the needs of the narrative with
the needs of a highly effective and resonant engagement campaign focused on:

Refugee rights and resettlement

Post-conflict peace building and reconciliation

Women and war

- - -
COME AND HELP THINK ABOUT HOW THIS FILM CAN BE USED IN NYC, AND HELP FORM THE FOUNDATION FOR THE CAMPAIGN!
- - -

SCREENING DETAILS:
Evening starts at 7.30PM
Moderated by Robert West Co-Founder and Executive Director of Working Films
with special guests
Panelists TBA

92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013

Tickets are $12
Click here to purchase tickets

- - -

JOIN US AND BE A PART OF THE ACTION!
STORY LEADS TO ACTION is a monthly series featuring Chicken & Egg/Working Films' filmmakers coming together with strategic advocates and educators to brainstorm and "design" on-the-spot community/audience engagement strategies for their films.

ABOUT THE FILM: Rose & Nangabire (working title) is a feature-length documentary that tells the extraordinary story of a mother and daughter reunited after a decade separated by civil war. In the late 1990s, Rose Mapendo lost everything to the violence that engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo. She emerged from the suffering advocating peace and reconciliation. But after helping numerous victims to rebuild their lives, there is one person Rose must still teach to forgive - her daughter Nangabire. For more information about the film, please visit www.artsengine.net/rose_and_nangabire