Chicken & Egg Pictures has selected the recipients of the 2022 Chicken & Egg Award, which offers unrestricted funding to advanced women and gender nonconforming documentary filmmakers. Women and Hollywood can exclusively announce that Petra Costa (“The Edge of Democracy”), Tracy Heather Strain (“Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart”), Beverley Ditsie (“Lesbians Free Everyone”), Anayansi Prado (“The Unafraid”), Margreth Olin (“Self Portrait”), and Brett Story (“The Hottest August”) will each be honored with $50,000 as well as career coaching and mentorship as they develop new projects.
These upcoming projects include Strain’s “Survival Floating,” a hybrid doc exploring African-descended peoples’ relationships with swimming, and Olin’s “Songs of Earth,” a Norway-set nature film led by the filmmaker’s 84-year-old father.
Chicken & Egg Award finalists Sonia Kennebeck (“Enemies of the State”) and Ditsi Carolino (“Life on the Tracks”) will receive the inaugural Finalist Development Grant. The filmmakers will be presented $15,000 each in recognition of their strong award applications, their filmmaking acumen, and the “daring new projects” they have in development.
“The Chicken & Egg Award makes bold investments in the personal and professional wellbeing of visionary women and gender nonconforming documentary makers. Over the past seven years, we have given unrestricted cash grants totaling $1.9 million US dollars to 38 change-making directors,” said Program Director Lucila Moctezuma. “Because filmmakers — especially those affected by roadblocks tied to their gender, race, class, and location — deserve financial freedom while they create new projects.”
Tatiana Huezo (“Prayers for the Stolen”), Loira Limbal (“Through the Night”), and Jialing Zhang (“One Child Nation”) are among the Chicken & Egg Award’s previous recipients.
Bios for the 2022 Chicken & Egg Award honorees and the Chicken & Egg Award Finalist Development Grant recipients are below.
2022 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENTS
Petra Costa (BRAZIL)
Petra Costa is a Brazilian documentary film maker whose work straddles the lines of the personal & the political. She directed The Edge of Democracy (2019), which was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature in 2020; Undertow eyes (2009); Elena (2012) Olmo and the Seagull (2015). Petra is associate producer of Barbara Paz’s Babenco (2019), producer of Moara Passoni’s Ecstasy (2020), and EP of Rebeca Huntt’s BEBA (2021).
Beverley Palesa Ditsie (SOUTH AFRICA)
Dr. Bev Palesa Ditsie (Hon) is a radical gender nonconforming lesbian activist and award winning filmmaker, disruptor and change agent who was instrumental in bringing LGBTIQA+ rights into focus in the late 80’s and 90’s in South Africa and the world. She is also a reality television director. Big Brother Africa, Survivor South Africa, Project Runway South Africa. Among her film credits are Simon & I, A Family Affair, The Commission. Lesbians are Free for Everyone(2020), their latest work captured during lockdown takes you on their journey as the first African Lesbians to address the UN at Beijing 1995’s Fourth World Conference on Women.
Anayansi Prado (PANAMA, UNITED STATES)
Anayansi Prado, a Panamanian documentary filmmaker, was born in Panama. Undocumented immigration, indigenous rights, as well as race have been the focus of our work. identity. PBS has aired her feature films across the country, The Unafraid (2018), Paraiso for sale (2010). Maid in America (2005). Anayansi is a Rockefeller Media Fellow and Creative Capital Artist; her work was supported by MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, amongst others.
Brett Story (CANADA, UNITED KINGDOM)
Brett Story is a Toronto-based award-winning filmmaker and writer. She is the director of the critically-acclaimed feature documentaries. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) The Hottest August (2019), both of them have been screened all over the world. Brett has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Sundance Institute, and she was named one of Variety’s 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch 2019.
Margreth Olin (NORWAY)
Margreth Olin, a Norwegian director and producer, has a large audience in Norway. She He has been in 13 films that have received critical acclaim and participated in numerous events. Festivals abroad, and won many international and Norwegian awards. Margreth is She was able to spark important dialogues around the topics that her films illuminated. She 26 honorary medals were awarded to her personally for her dedication and focus in human affairs. rights. Some of her credits include My Body (Tribeca 2002), EFA-nominated Raw Youth (2004), The Angel (TIFF 2010), Nowhere Home (IDFA 2012), Cathedrals of Culture (Berlinale) 2013), Self Portrait(DOC NYC 2020).
Tracy Heather Strain (UNITED STATES).
Tracy Heather Strain, two-time Peabody Award-winning, Emmy-nominated filmmaker explores stories about American life experiences. She was awarded an NAACP Image Award, Motion Picture Directing. Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling HeartThe premiere of, which was shown at TIFF, was broadcast on American Masters. She is currently working on a new project. Survival Floating, a hybrid documentary investigating African-descended peoples’ relationships with swimming.
2022 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD FINALIST DEVELOPMENT GRANT RECIPIENTS
Ditsi Carino (PHILIPPINES).
Ditsi Carolino studied filmmaking at the National Film & Television School in the UK on a Chevening Scholarship. Some of her past projects include Life on the TracksThe story of a couple who lives in the railway slums (IDFA, BBC Storyville Broadcast); Bunso, The Youngest, about three imprisoned boys from 11–13, which was used by child rights advocates to pass the juvenile justice law. Ditsi is a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Sonia Kennebeck (US, GERMANY, MALAYSIA)
Sonia Kennebeck is an award-winning producer and director who has released three critically acclaimed independent feature films. National Bird (Berlinale Special 2016), Enemies of State (TIFF 2020), United States vs. Reality Winner (SXSW 2021). She She was awarded the Adrienne Shelly Excellence Filmmaking Award, and Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize. She is a first-generation college grad who was born in Malaysia and raised in Germany. She now lives in the United States.
Note: The parentheses next to the directors’ names indicate the filmmakers’ nationalities and/or countries of origin.
Source: Women And Hollywood