The 2015 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Grantees Are Announced!

The names are in! TFI and Gucci have announced today the 2015 grant recipients for the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund! The ten projects receiving grants and year-round support are feature-length projects that highlight and humanize critical domestic and international social issues.

This year, the AOL Charitable Foundation joins us to present grants to four filmmakers whose documentaries illuminate the lives of women and youth around the globe, and spotlight the ways they are working to improve their communities and futures. We’re so excited to have them on board to present this new award!

The recipients of the 2015 Gucci Documentary Fund are:

• ACORN AND THE FIRESTORM, Directed and Produced by Reuben Atlas & Sam Pollard. ACORN, a national community-organizing group devoted to empowering lower income communities, is attacked. The story involves a fake prostitute and voter fraud, and cuts to the heart of the political divide.

• ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT, Directed and Produced by James Longley; Produced by Basil Shadid; Executive Produced by Joslyn Barnes. ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT reveals the daily struggles and inner lives of students and teachers at a school in Kabul, Afghanistan during the closing years of America’s longest war.

• BEITAR (working title), Directed and Produced by Maya Zinshtein; Executive Produced by John Battsek and Nicole Stott; Produced by Geoff Arbourne. In January 2013 a historic transfer deal transported two Muslim players into the heart of Israel, Beitar Jerusalem F.C. One season and one football team in crisis, and behind the story lurks the money and power that will send the club spiraling out of control.

• ROLL RED ROLL, Directed & Produced by Nancy Schwartzman; Executive Produced by Jennifer Fox; Produced by Jessica Devaney and Steven Lake. A whistle-blowing blogger uncovers disturbing social media evidence documenting the gang rape of a teenage girl. The story of a football town divided, ROLL RED ROLL is an immersive mystery thriller examining rape culture in the 21st century.

•, Directed and Produced by Banker White; Co-Directed and Produced by Anna Fitch & Arthur Pratt. Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmakers, SURVIVORS presents a portrait of their country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the socio-political turmoil that lies in its wake.

• THE OAKLAND POLICE PROJECT, Directed by Peter Nicks; Produced by Linda Davis; Executive Produced by Jon Else; Edited and Produced by Lawrence Lerew. This is a film about police power and restraint unfolding deep inside the famously troubled Oakland Police Department. We observe in intimate detail the rare perspective of beleaguered officers who are often viewed as oppressors in the community they serve, even as they and their young chief struggle to rebuild trust in the face of mass protests, budget cuts, and more violent crimes per officer than any city in America.

2015 Recipients of the AOL Charitable Foundation Award are:

• AUDRIE AND DAISY, Directed and Produced by Jon Shenk & Bonni Cohen; Produced by Sara Dosa & Richard Berge; Edited by Don Bernier. In two towns on different sides of America, two teenage girls pass out while intoxicated at high school parties, and, while unconscious, both are sexually assaulted by boys they call their friends.  In the aftermath, the girls each endure online harassment, both attempt suicide, and tragically, one girl dies.  AUDRIE & DAISY explores this new public square of shame from the perspective of the teenagers and their families – including the boys involved in the assaults and the girls willing to speak out publically for the first time.

• BELLY OF THE BEAST, Directed and Produced by Erika Cohn; Executive Produced by Geralyn Dreyfous and Mark Lipson. The significance of BELLY OF THE BEAST lies in the banality of the evil it exposes, intimately chronicling the journey of women fighting reproductive injustice in their communities.

• A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS, Directed and Produced by Geeta Gandbhir & Sharmeen Chinoy; Executive Produced by Perri Peltz. A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS follows three women in an all female, predominantly Muslim unit of police officers sent to post-earthquake Haiti as UN Peacekeepers for one year. The mission challenges these women while shattering commonly held stereotypes.

• THE WAR TO BE HER, Directed by Erin Heidenreich; Produced by Cassandra Sanford-Rosenthal and Jonathon Power. In the Taliban controlled area of Waziristan, sports are decried as un-Islamic and girls rarely leave their homes.  But she did, by pretending to be a boy.  She’s now a world-renowned athlete and a flashpoint in her country’s battle over feminine identity.  Her name is Maria Toorpakai Wazir, the young woman known as Genghis Khan.  This film chronicles Maria and her family on the run from the Taliban.

Check out the full press release here: http://bit.ly/1LZu74r

Photo: AUDRIE AND DAISY,  Credit: JON SHENK