Directory of Sponsored Projects

Girls of Tomorrow is an ambitious series of documentary films which intimately follows five diverse women from their twenties to their fifties. From the all-female Barnard College in New York City to the life they will shape in their adulthood, "Girls of Tomorrow" pays tribute to their contagious sense of immediacy and their unique sense of purpose. The series started in January 2016.The dramaturgy of the first film unfold throughout the College years, being naturally driven by the goals the young women pursue, the obstacles they encounter, the questions they ask about themselves and about society in their pursuit of a more just world. The project will follow them throughout their personal lives, careers, political engagements, wherever they chose to settle in the world - likely China, Senegal, the United States...

Ex Libris is a hybrid non-fiction film incorporating animation, collage, and first person narrative to frame my grandfather’s story as he did: through his collection of exlibris, an art form now almost forgotten. Exlibris, or bookplates, are small limited edition prints, commissioned to commemorate the people, places and times of the collector. Those graphics marked and commemorated what was most meaningful to my grandfather. On the surface, he was an ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances – Vienna in the early 20th century, a time of cultural and political ferment; the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Nazi occupation of Vienna. He was also an eccentric dreamer who created a personal iconography, a vibrant universe parallel to his everyday life as a neighborhood pharmacist. The bookplates, which contain great visual beauty and narrative expressiveness, will be the center of the film. Through animation, hand-drawing, and collage they will be illuminated, manipulated, and re-imagined. The film will reconfigure my grandfather's world and refract it through high-definition video, super 8mm film, archival footage, family photographs, and cityscapes. Marco’s diaries provide a narrative spine; allowing his rich, observant voice to offer content and commentary. A companion book and interactive website where collectors can upload images and stories of their exlibris will enlarge the scope of the film and support my intention to ignite a renewal of exlibris culture.

Heat ripples off the undulating dunes as the dust settles in China’s Gobi Desert - the aftermath of a dust storm. Meng Tao lets out a sharp whistle, then pushes forward on her motorbike, herding sheep through the dunes at sunset. The yellow desert gives way to a patch of green – Meng’s desert oasis home. Inside her tin house, a layer of sand covers everything. She picks up a broom and begins to sweep, a twice-daily ritual in this dusty land. Hwangsa: Colour of the Wind is a feature documentary that paints a vivid and surreal portrait of a shapeshifting monster that rises from the deserts of Western China and the people who live in its shadow. This monster can be enormous and daunting, or it can be next to invisible. This monster is dust, the protagonist of the film, and a phantom that haunts every frame, threading together the stories of the film’s characters, each embroiled in a battle of survival or adaptation to a rapidly changing climate. The film unfolds as a cinematic journey across a series of landscapes along the geographic path of the dust as it blows over the Asian continent, from China to Korea to Japan, and ultimately across the Pacific to North America. Through intimate stories, the film’s characters fit together as pieces of a larger mosaic, each adding a layer of complexity to the story of the dust that can’t be contained in one country, culture or continent.

The forgotten story of the first South Asian immigrants in the U.S. who arrived before the Asian Exclusion Act. They married African-American women and found a welcome in that community. The men were Muslim; their wives were Christian. Together, they built families in an America that held them all at arm's length. A granddaughter of this vibrant cultural tangle, journeys across deep divides of culture, from her hometown of New Orleans to India, in search of her grandfather’s village and family there. One woman’s moving and unlikely quest untangles our immigrant origins.

PICTURE CHARACTER explores the complex, conflict-prone, and often hilarious world of the creators, lovers, and arbiters of emoji, our world’s newest pictorial language. How do you create a global language on the fly? This film charts the evolution of emoji and investigates what they may reveal about our increasingly technological world.

ON THE DIVIDE follows a community in McAllen, TX which is adjacent to the U.S./Mexico border, and situated between multiple patrol checkpoints. McAllen is a majority Latinx and undocumented population and is home to the only abortion clinic serving the entire Rio Grande Valley as well as the largest immigrant detention center in the United States and the location of the construction of Trump’s Border wall. ON THE DIVIDE follows the stories of people in McAllen whose lives are directly impacted by these issues that continue to divide their own community and the larger public all around the country. From the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, who could overturn Roe v Wade, to troops being sent to the border to stop the migrant caravan-- activists and citizens on both sides of these debates are emboldened by the political climate, creating further division within the community. Our characters, however, are caught in the crossfire as they contend with their community being torn apart by conservative politics and policies. Our film follows Rey Guerrero, a 60-year-old clinic security guard who has been isolated from his church community, Mercedes Soto, a 35-year-old gang member turned pro-life warrior who has found a new community within the church and, Denisse Gonzalez, a 34-year-old mother of four who previously felt stuck in her role as a housewife but now is a driving activist force in her community where she has finally found her purpose.

PERSONHOOD traces the rise of the fetal rights movement and reveals a widening web of laws that encourage the surveillance and criminalization of pregnant women. The film follows the story of a young mother from rural Wisconsin whose life was upended by the state’s 'Unborn Child Protection Act.' After seeking medical care upon discovering she was pregnant, Tammy Loertscher unwittingly set off a nightmarish chain of events that stripped her of her rights and ultimately sent her to jail – all for behavior that occurred before she even knew she was pregnant. PERSONHOOD asks the alarming question—could this happen to you?

Each morning we slather with 1000’s of chemicals hidden inside cosmetics and personal care products, many of which are toxic. In the United States, the Cosmetic and Personal Care Industry regulates itself. Links to hormonal disruption in baby boys, developmental delays, low sperm count in men. Infertility, cancer, diabetes, obesity and skin disease - the cosmetic industry isn’t pretty. Top researchers worldwide have the hard science to answer the question ‘Are cosmetics and personal care products making us sick?’

Narrated by Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker, MAESTRA (Spanish for teacher) explores the experiences of nine of the women who, as young girls, helped eradicate Cuban illiteracy within one year. Interweaving recent interviews, archival footage, and campaign photos, this lively documentary includes one of the first Cubans of her generation to call herself a feminist and one of the first openly proud members of Cuba’s LGBT community. With wit and spirit, all recall negotiating for autonomy and independence in a culture still bound by patriarchal structures. Eight years in the making, MAESTRA highlights the will and courage that made the monumental endeavor possible and the pivotal role of women’s and youth empowerment in building a new society.

Sixty years ago, Louis Kelso, a successful San Francisco business attorney, foresaw an American economy throttled by stagnant wages and mounting inequality. His solution was to “take the best of Marxism, namely the goal, and take the best of...the Capitalist system, namely the free market means, put them together and make it work!” It was much in the spirit of the Homestead Acts that granted land to settlers earlier in our history, but instead of land, individuals would acquire income-producing capital, like company stocks and bonds. Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee for two decades, championed the Kelso Plans, giving tax breaks to corporations willing to share ownership with their employees. He wasn’t above (in his words) “using a lump of sugar to get a horse into the barn.” Kelso’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan became federal law in 1975 and since then eighteen laws have been enacted to help the idea evolve, and to include citizens beyond ESOP companies. Its successes and failures received considerable press coverage in the 1980s and 90s, and there were a few frauds against which Kelso spoke out publicly. Today more than 11 million workers have a capital stake in over 7000 ESOP companies, and stock grants are widely used in other companies a few of which will be featured in the documentary.

I Am, But I’m Not is about three women from the same orphanage in India who were raised separately by white Americans in the Western United States. Though they share common experiences, each of these Indian American adoptees chooses a different way to grapple with the tug-of-war between their birth heritage and the culture in which they were raised. Their stories speak to the hundreds of thousands of adopted children struggling to understand who they are as transracial adoptees.

Spanning seven years of cinema vérité surveillance, ANYTHING YOU LOSE is a feature documentary focusing on a little known and fast growing sector of society - those who are trying to conceive with the aid of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). A personal exploration, it studies the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to the treatments and the innate human need to connect through time and generations. 7.5 million people domestically struggle to conceive through ART. Odds are, you know someone who’s going through the treatments. And odds are, they haven’t told you. Gutsy and original, the hybrid documentary ANYTHING YOU LOSE takes on the unconventional subject of infertility and elevates it to the heights of cinema vérité drama. The informational field we live in is abundant with stories of scientific breakthroughs and babies born to women in their fifties. But the reality of the experience is frequently quite different. For every miracle announcement there are decades of trial and failure. What’s kept behind the scenes in most scenarios becomes the precious bloodline of this story. For the late bloomers Eddie and Irina, to have a child means to seal their union and to join in the ranks of the responsible adults, somewhat reluctantly, to the delight of their families. But when Assisted Reproductive Technologies do not deliver as surely as advertised, the quest becomes a matter of importance; demanding time, emotional maturity, stealthy focus and resources. ANYTHING YOU LOSE speaks volumes about reaching into the depths of self for added strength.

Marianne takes its name from the national icon of the French Republic which portrays the Goddess of Liberty, to explore the lives of France’s ongoing existential concern: Muslim women and their place in the public sphere. Legislated, judged, and regulated in public spaces French Muslim women are spoken about at length but rarely given the opportunity to speak in the mainstream conversation surrounding feminism, laïcité (France’s version of secularism) and Islam – or any other topic for that matter. Marianne aims to contribute towards the effort to redress this imbalance. It does so with unprecedented access to French Muslim women’s lives from across the country. Seven of these women from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, hijabis/non-hijabis, Muslim-born and converts- open up and allow us to see them in all their vibrancy and nuances. A back-to-the land horticulturalist with an inter-racial family, a “mipster” (Muslim hipster) who shaves her head as a protest to the required removal of her scarf at work, an upper class blonde medical student convert, a public school teacher turned opera singer, a gritty lawyer from the banlieues, a social media influencer, and a once homeless single mother now serving in UK council. Coming from different walks of life, they challenge the dominant French French narrative of a uniform group, defined by oppression and a backwards worldview. Through their respective journeys and points of views, the film questions the concepts of laïcité, universal feminism, liberty, and French identity as they have been defined.

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At the southern edge of Japan, the construction of a new U.S. military base has sharply divided the residents of Okinawa Island, an island dominated by 32 U.S. military facilities. In 2016, a local woman is brutally murdered by an American contractor, igniting tensions that have been brewing since the U.S. occupation began in 1945. In late-2016, Okinawan anti-base activist Hiroji Yamashiro is arrested and thrown into solitary confinement on charges related to protest activities. An indigenous shaman continues to breathe life into the dying traditions of the Ryukyu era, while supporting the conservative, pro-military government. More divided than ever, Okinawans must choose sides during a critical gubernatorial election that will determine the future of the island. A meditation on nature, history and the deep insidious effects of imperialism, Okinawa Documentary carefully examines the complexities of a little-known island that is vital to regional politics.

In the 1970s, the South Bronx was on fire. Abandoned by city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multi-ethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Puerto Rican residents bore the blame and were left to fend for themselves. Despite being surrounded by staggering devastation and fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, they were able to save their neighborhoods. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx-born Vivian Vazquez exposes the truth about the borough’s untold history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild. DECADE OF FIRE tells the story of the South Bronx that you’ve never heard before, and offers us a roadmap for building the communities we want and truly deserve.

On August 23, 2007, Jennifer Magnano was murdered in front of her children by her newly divorced husband. He shot her in the face and chest on the front stoop of the family home. JENNIFER, 42 is not a whodunnit, it's not a mystery where we search for clues and evidence of guilt or innocence. We know who the murderer is. We know Scott Magnano pulled the trigger. But how did it get to this? After enduring 15 years of extreme coercive control and escalating violence at the hands of husband Scott, Jennifer made a clever plan, and with the help of her best friend, she and the children made a dramatic getaway. But their escape only marked the beginning of a bizarre and hair-raising journey through a system that could not...or WOULD not protect her. In a series of shocking events and baffling acts by various authorities, Jennifer’s life turned into a life-and-death game that she couldn't win. While the details of Jennifer’s twisty-turny story are unbelievable and devastating, they are anything but unique. Like clockwork, 16 hours from now there will be another domestic violence homicide. Another woman, somewhere in this country, will be killed by her partner. Jennifer may be gone, but her story lives on and the fight continues. We must do better for victims of domestic violence.

Narrowsburg tells the stranger-than-fiction story of a glamorous French film producer and her mafioso-turned-actor husband who move to a struggling town in upstate New York with dreams of starting a new life. A critical reflection on the power of cinema, and the question of when dreams become delusions, this film follows Richard and Jocelyne Castellano, as well as the local townspeople, as they work to transform Narrowsburg into the “Sundance of the East.”