2012 TAA Grantees and Awards Announced
TFI announced the winners of the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Awards at a ceremony last night during the Tribeca Film Festival. The narrative Rhymes for Young Ghouls and the documentary each received $10,000. TFI also announced this year’s TAA alumni grants and fellowships totaling $92,000 in funds.
Along with the cash prizes, The New Black and Rhymes for Young Ghouls also received original pieces of art from a contemporary artist. Ghouls took home Stephen Hannock’s Study: A Recent History of Art in Southern California (Mass MoCA #169), 2012 and Black received Hugo Tillman’s The Echeverria, 2008.
Now in its ninth year, TAA was created to help foster and nurture relationships between film industry executives and filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities. The 2012 TAA Creative Promise narrative jurors were Rosario Dawson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Mekhi Phifer and Gabourey Sidibe. The award’s documentary jurors were Claire Aguilar, Julie Goldman, Eugene Hernandez, Jean Tsien and Debbie Zimmerman.
This year’s Tribeca All Access Creative Promise winners included: • TAA Creative Promise Award for Narrative This film is a raucous coming of age tale about Aila, a young Mi’gMaq girl embroiled in the family drug trade who is coping with the suicide of her mother and the recent release of her imprisoned father. Jeff Barnaby (writer/director); John Christou & Aisling Chin-Yee (producers) • TAA Creative Promise Award for Documentary The New Black This documentary uncovers the complicated and often combative histories of the African-American and LGBT civil-rights movements. Yoruba Richen (director); Yvonne Welbon & Angela Tucker (producers) • TAA Creative Promise Honorable Mention for Narrative Bypass 20 year-old Katie is popular, high-achieving and obese, but all of this is about to change when she undergoes a series of radical gastric and plastic surgeries. BYPASS is a modern day twist on Frankenstein in which the protagonist is herself both creator and monster. Liliana Greenfield-Sanders (writer/director); Amy Basil & Rowen Riley (producers) TAA’s programming and support for alumni this year included grants and fellowships for past TAA projects in development or new works by program alumni. The following grant recipients were announced: TAA Alumni Documentary Grants Support made possible by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. • The Path In a dusty Pakistani village lives an 80 year-old barber who has rescued over 8,000 kidnapped children. The Path follows his journey from personal barber to Pakistan’s president to savior of thousands. Senain Kheshgi (director/producer); Rasheed Ahmed (producer, Pakistan) • Out Run This feature documentary follows two pioneering LGBT activists in conservative parts of the world as they undertake highly visible and dangerous new struggles as openly gay candidates running for public office. S. Leo Chiang & Johnny Symons (directors/producers) TAA OnTrack Grants A grant to assist TAA alumni with the completion of their past TAA project or further the development of a new work-in-progress. • God Loves Uganda (Documentary) This documentary is a journey into the heart of East Africa, where Ugandan pastors and their American counterparts spread God’s word and evangelical values to millions desperate for a better life. Inspired by his own roots in the African American Baptist church, director Roger Ross Williams seeks to explore a place where religion and African culture intersect. Roger Ross Williams (producer/director); Julie Goldman (producer) • I Am Nojood (Narrative) Based on the true story of Nojood, a 10-year-old Yemeni girl married off by her impoverished family and repeatedly abused by her 30-year-old husband. With the help of an activist lawyer and sympathetic judges, she becomes the youngest person ever to be granted a divorce in Yemen. Kadija Al-Salami (writer/director); Anne Hubbell & Amy Hobby (producers) TAA Adrienne Shelly Foundation Filmmaker Grant A grant to aid in the advancement of talented women filmmakers. • Xanadu An inveterate tomboy tries to win over the new girl in town, despite her flamboyant brother’s amusingly ineffectual attempts to sabotage her. Rose Troche (director); Susan Austin (writer); Amy Lo (producer) TAA Marketing & Web Fellowship A collaboration between TAA and Push Creative, a full service branding agency, to encourage audience development – including a newly-designed website. • This documentary, 12 years in the making, chronicles the intricate school experiences of two African American boys and their families, offering an intimate look at the complexities of race, parenting, privilege and education at the dawn of the 21st century. Michele Stephenson & Joe Brewster (directors/producers) The Games for Change Fellowship for TAA Alumni A collaboration between TAA and Games for Change (G4C), to support one alumnus in creating a game as part of the filmmaking process. • Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines From the birth of the comic book super-heroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, WONDER WOMEN! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan (director); Kelcey Edwards (producer) TAA Packaging the Pitch Grant A grant to support Alumni who need assistance developing a visual-based pitch for their project (i.e. trailer, location shooting, sample scene). • Spies of Mississippi (Documentary) This documentary will bring to light in chilling detail how a secret shadow state government, determined to maintain segregation, spied on its own citizens in brazen defiance of the law. The dead, and some still living…will finally reveal their secrets. Dawn Porter (director/producer) • Akilla’s Escape (Narrative) Akilla is a narcotics trader who finds himself at the centre of a robbery and soon discovers the crime syndicate he once belonged to orchestrated the heist. Akilla’s Escape follows a man forced to face ethical dilemmas around his chosen path, while confronting a vicious cycle of youth violence. Charles Officer (writer/director) Christina Piovesan (producer)
