Chicken and Egg Pictures supports women filmmakers who are telling the tough stories. They just gave out their latest round of grants. One of the the organization’s co-founders filmmaker Judith Helfand spoke about this latest round of grants.

The Spring Open Call is our most challenging because it is our general call, not bound by a particular theme. We received over 300 applications — varied stories from across the globe and this country. We took the time to make some very hard and painful decisions [we truly wish we could have funded more worthy projects] to insure that our final line-up featured both emerging and veteran women filmmakers who are exploring crucial and timely issues in ways that are artful and pushing personal, political and creative boundaries — all at once. These films represent a rich diverse world, that will bring viewers inside the life and times of individuals, families, communities, institutions that offer insight into the social justice, environmental and human rights issues told through the voices, hearts, collective conscious, vision and experiences of women who we think are on the front lines of non-fiction storytelling. We are as thrilled to be taking “risks with them” [and not on them] by supporting a few projects in early development as we are to be supporting others cross the finish line and get ready to launch in 2011 and early 2012.

Full grant list.

Here’s the full list of grantees from the press release:

I BELIEVE IN YOU Grants:
A QUIET INQUISITION, directed by Holen Kahn and Alessandra Zeka
A doctor must choose between breaking the law or breaking everything she stands for. This is the reality of living in one of the six countries in the world where the termination of any pregnancy, even if in response to a result of rape, incest, or to save the woman’s life is illegal and actively prosecuted.
For: Editing

CAUGHT IN THE NET, directed by Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shalm
“Caught in the Net” follows China as the first country in the world to classify Internet Addiction as a clinical disorder. The film features a Beijing treatment center where
Chinese teenagers are being de-programmed. We follow the lives of three teens from the day they arrive throughout their three-month treatment period and their return home.
For: Production

FIGHTING FOSTER, directed by Stephanie Wang Breal “Fighting Foster” brings to life the conflicting values, uncertainties and tensions that
surround the foster care system. The film follows three parents who have lost their child(ren) to the child welfare system and the legal, administrative and emotional battles they must overcome in order to get their child(ren) home.
For: Development

GIDEON’S ARMY, directed by Dawn Porter
The United States criminal justice system is strained to the breaking point. What it is like to work as a lawyer for the accused? Long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads are so common that even the most committed often give up. But they now have help.Jonathan Rapping, founder of the Southern Public Defender Training Center has dedicated his career to mentoring the lawyers who represent the people society would rather forget. Can he make a difference?
For: Production

HOME AGAIN, directed by Julie Englander
When you’ve grown up all over the world, can you ever really go home again? HOME AGAIN is an intimate documentary that poses questions about citizenship, faith, politics, and identity — one that views America through the eyes of missionary kids who’ve grown up overseas. Though their passports say they’re American, they find upon their return that the U.S. can be the strangest country of all.
For: Production

IN THE MIDDLE, directed by Lorena Luciano
Locals on the remote Italian island of Lampedusa are split between compassion and animosity. As thousands of migrants make the dangerous crossing to Lampedusa
fleeing the ongoing crisis across the Arab world, NGOs such as UNHCR, Red Cross, and Doctors without Borders have poured on the island to assist the asylum seekers, the unaccompanied minors, the pregnant women who are kept in detention centers, painfully unaware of the uncertain future awaiting them.
For: Development

THE NEW BLACK, directed by Yoruba Richen
The New Black is a documentary-that uncovers the complicated and often combative relationship between the African-American and LGBT civil rights movements.
Specifically, the film examines homophobia in the black church and reveals the Christian right wing’s strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda.
For: Production

UNSTABLE ELEMENTS, directed by Madeleine Sackler
The members of the Belarus Free Theater risk their lives staging illicit performances and campaigning around the world to expose what life is truly like under the last dictatorship in Europe, where the secret police are still called the KGB and political dissenters
disappear.
For: Production

LIBERTY GRANTS:
GIRL MODEL, directed by Ashley Sabin
Girl Model follows a complex supply chain between Siberia, Japan, and the U.S. within the modeling industry. The story is told through the eyes of a scout and a 13
year-old model.
For: Completion

THE MOSUO SISTERS, directed by Marlo Poras
Two spirited daughters from China’s last remaining matriarchal ethnic minority are thrust into the worldwide economic downturn when they lose the only jobs they’ve ever known.
For: Completion

MARIACHI HIGH, directed by Illana Trachtman
Mariachi High follows a year in the life of competitive high school musicians in the top- ranked ensemble Mariachi Halcon in Zapata, Texas — a flash point for the issues facing the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S. As President Obama sounds a call for lowering the Latino dropout rate, the highest in the country, Mariachi High turns a positive lens on college-bound Latino role models who are inspired by cultural pride and striving for excellence. High school has never sounded so good.
Additional grant for: Editing

WHICH CAME FIRST Environmental Film Fund:
ATOMIC EPILOGUE: Hope Dies Last, directed by Ellen Spiro
Atomic Epilogue explores the changing face of energy production in the United States through one man’s unusual life and legacy. “Atomic” Ed Grothus spent decades as an activist and educator, while collecting tons of detritus from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in his unofficial museum of the nuclear age, The Black Hole. In his final days, Ed confronts his own death with honesty and humor, looking forward to the legacy of hope he wants to leave behind.

Additional Liberty Grant for: Completion
BIDDER 70, directed by Beth Gage and George Gage
Moral monkey-wrencher, Tim DeChristopher derailed President George W. Bush’s 2008 Christmas gift to the energy industry, fraudulently bidding $1.8 million at auction without intention to pay or drill, to save 22,000 acres of Utah’s pristine red rock wilderness. Now he’s paying for it with his future. On July 26, 2011 a federal judge sentenced DeChristopher to 2 years in prison, 3 years of supervised probation and a $10,000 fine for his act of civil disobedience — an act that has catapulted DeChristopher into the national spotlight and energized a movement.
For: Post production

XMAS WITHOUT CHINA, directed by Alicia Dwyer
Two families living side by side, but worlds apart, collide when pride and mischief inspire Chinese immigrant Tom Xia to challenge his American neighbors to celebrate Christmas without any Chinese products.
For: Editing