Chicken & Egg Pictures will support Nanfu Wang, Ramona Diaz, Natalia Almada, Laura Nix, and Kimi Takesue as they break through to the next phase of their filmmaking careers. The five documentary directors are the recipients of the 2018 Breakthrough Filmmaker Award, a press release has announced. The honor includes a $50,000 unrestricted grant and a year of professional mentorship.
The Breakthrough Filmmaker Award was conceived in recognition of the fact that most female nonfiction directors cannot afford to make films full-time. As such, Chicken & Egg uses the accolade to identify women with unique storytelling voices and offer them the financial and professional resources they need to make a living as filmmakers.
“Recipients have often described their Breakthrough year as life altering,” said Lucila Moctezuma, Program Director of Chicken & Egg. “Unlike any other award, it’s not just a recognition of past accomplishments, but an investment in the future, both for the filmmakers’ careers and for the film industry at large, which must do more to honor women’s leadership and voices.”
Previous Breakthrough Award winners include Geeta Gandbhir (“I Am Evidence”), Kirsten Johnson (“Cameraperson”), Dawn Porter (“Trapped”), and Yoruba Richen (“The New Black”).
Check out the 2018 honorees’ bios below, courtesy of Chicken & Egg.
Natalia Almada
Recipient of the 2012 MacArthur “Genius” Award, Natalia Almada’s debut feature narrative Todo lo demás premiered at the 2016 New York Film Festival and was nominated for an Ariel Award from the Mexican Academy of Film. Her three feature documentaries, “El Velador” (2011 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight), “El General” (2009 Sundance US Directing Award: Documentary), and “Al Otro Lado” (2005 Tribeca Film Festival), all broadcast on the award-winning program POV. Natalia lives between Mexico City and San Francisco.
Ramona Diaz
Ramona Diaz is an award-winning Asian American filmmaker best known for her compelling character-driven documentaries that combine a profound appreciation for cinematic aesthetics and potent storytelling. Her films have screened and won awards at Sundance, the Berlinale, and Tribeca, among others. All four of Ramona’s films — “Imelda” (2003), “The Learning” (2011), “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey” (2012), and “Motherland” (2017) — have broadcast on either POV or Independent Lens on PBS. Recently she was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Laura Nix
Laura Nix is the director of the feature documentary Inventing Tomorrow, premiering in US Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival 2018. She previously directed “The Yes Men Are Revolting” (2014 Toronto International Film Festival; Berlinale), “The Light in Her Eyes” (2011 IDFA), and “Whether You Like it or Not: The Story of Hedwig” (2003), as well as the fiction feature “The Politics of Fur” (2002 Outfest Grand Jury Prize). In 2017 she was awarded the Sundance Institute/Discovery Impact Fellowship.
Kimi Takesue
Kimi Takesue is an award-winning filmmaker and recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships. Her documentary and fiction films have screened at more than two hundred festivals and museums internationally including Sundance, Locarno, New Directors/New Films, SXSW, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and have aired on PBS, IFC, Comcast, and the Sundance Channel. Kimi’s documentary “95 and 6
to Go” was nominated for the 2017 European Doc Alliance Award and screened at CPH:DOX, DOC NYC, Doclisboa, and DOK Leipzig.
Nanfu Wang
Nanfu Wang is an award-winning filmmaker based in New York City. Nanfu’s feature debut “Hooligan Sparrow” (2016) was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Awardâ for Best Documentary Feature. Since its premiere at Sundance 2016, it has won over twenty awards internationally including two Emmy nominations, a Peabody Award, a Cinema Eye Honor, the George Polk Award, an IDA Documentary Award, and an Independent Spirit Award. Her latest feature documentary “I Am Another You” (2018) premiered at the
SXSW Film Festival and won two special jury awards at the festival.
