FELLOWS GATHERING ATTENTION AND ACCOLADES
A number of Film Independent Fellows have been receiving all sorts of attention from other film organizations, festivals and and the television industry. Let’s have a look:
Documentary Lab fellows Laura Nix and Julia Meltzer have had their film, The Light in Her Eyes, accepted into IDFA (the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam), one of the premiere documentary fests in the world. The film follows an inspiring female Qu’ran teacher in Damascus who is helping women challenge cultural traditions while maintaining Islamic values of women’s roles s wives and mothers. A 10 minute segment of the film will be presented at next week’s Film Independent Forum in our works-in-progress screening on Sunday, October 23.
The film funding organization Cinereach recently granted 17 film projects a total of 
$350,000, and among them were two projects by four Film Independent Fellows. Malika Zouhali-Worrall & Katherine Fairfax Wright documentary feature, Call Me Kuchu, examines “state-sanctioned homophobia reaching new heights in Uganda” and David Kato, “the country’s first openly gay man [who] will stop at nothing to liberate the LGBT community.” The filmmakers will be participating in the Film Independent Forum on Sunday, October 23, in “Reach Your Audience: A Marketing Clinic”.
Bill Ross & Turner Ross‘ documentary feature Tchoupitoulas also received a Cinereach grant. The brothers’ film follows “three young brothers [who] explore the New Orleans night.” Bill and Turner’s previous doc 45365 won the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2010 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Read more about their Cinereach grant winning doc here.
Film Independent Fellow Jessica Sharzer (Directors Lab), is one of the writer/producers on the new FX series, American Horror Story.
Writer/Director Robbie Pickering has participated in Film Independent’s Directors Lab, 
Screenwriters Lab, Fast Track and was a finalist in the Netflix FIND Your Voice contest with his film Natural Selection which just won the Audience Award at the Athens International Film Festival. His film is a story about a dutiful but barren Christian housewife who discovers her husband has a biological son and sets off to find him. Find out more about the movie through the film’s official site naturalselectionthemovie.com.
Congratulations to Film Independent Fast Track participant Cara Marcous who produced the film On the Ice which just won Best Narrative Feature and Best Cinematography at the Woodstock Film Festival in September. The film follows two Alaskan teenagers trying to get away with murder. More information on the film can be found at ontheicethemovie.com.
Film Independent is currently accepting applications for the Documentary Lab. For more information on this and all our labs please visit filmindependent.org/labs-and-programs.
October 14th, 2011 • No Comments
