TFI/A&E Documentary StoryLab Kicks Off Its Second Year

Today TFI announced the projects participating in the second annual TFI/A&E IndieFilms StoryLab. The three-day session held in NYC, which kicks off today, will provide in-depth assistance for five filmmaking teams with documentary projects in post-production. There will also be master classes led this year by Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, Detropia), along with their longtime editor Enat Sidi. Additional industry leaders will serve as mentors, including Julie Goldman, Chris Clements and Carolyn Hepburn of Motto Pictures, noted director and producer Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story, Happy Valley), producer Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment and Tribeca Film Festival programmers Cara Cusumano and Sharon Badal.

Participants in this year's StoryLab are:

FRANCO. A DOCUMENTARY, Directed by Lisa Vangellow. Examines a year in the life of the polymath James Franco.

UNTITLED, Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. A disgraced public figure seeks redemption.

THE NATIONAL LAMPOON PROJECT, Directed and Produced by Douglas Tirola, Produced by Susan Bedusa. The story of the National Lampoon and the writers, artists and performers that changed humor in America.

THE PEACEMAKER, Directed and Produced by James Demo. THE PEACEMAKER takes us from one man's isolated life in Cambridge, Massachusetts to some of the most dangerous crisis zones on Earth – from Northern Ireland to Kosovo, Nigeria to Iraq – to chronicle, over five years, Padraig O'Malley's journey as he works a peacemaking model based on his recovery from addiction.

THE WOLFPACK PROJECT (2014 TFI Documentary Fund grantee), Directed by Crystal S. Moselle and Produced by Izabella Tzenkova. Six eccentric teenage brothers growing up in the Lower East Side projects are locked away from society by their father. Their only window into the outside world is watching movies. To handle isolation, they begin reenacting their favorite films - and when one of the brothers breaks free, it changes everything.