What sometimes gets forgotten in the midst of the glitter and excitement of premieres and parties at the Tribeca Film Festival is how the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) encourages new filmmakers with generous award grants.
This week, the TFI announced the 2013 TFT Latin America Media Arts Fund, Heineken Voces and TFI/Worldview Grant winners, along with the inaugural Bloomberg Fellows which should help out some of those filmmakers who may have maxed out their credit cards.
The fund totals $130,000 to support innovative Latin American film and video artists and help them explore stories reflecting their diverse cultures, as well as gaining them exposure in the film industry. In addition, Bloomberg, a new sponsor of the TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund, will award grants and mentorship to three Bloomberg Fellows to help them develop their projects.
The TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund awards $10,000 grants to animation, documentary, or hybrid feature-length films in advanced development, production or post-production from filmmakers living and working in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. The lucky recipients also receive exclusive guidance from TFI to ensure their films are completed and get the best possible shot to enter the U.S. marketplace.
The following four films are winners of this year’s TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund:
The Girl Behind the Camera (Argentina), Directed and Produced by Paula Schargorodsky – A 35-year-old woman has chronicled the past 10 years of her life on film. Five boyfriends and two wedding proposals later, she remains single. The Girl Behind the Camera is a humorous, intimate investigation on a generation of unsettled women that poses a question about the choices we make (or don’t make) in life.
Missed Days/Los Dias No Vuelven (Mexico), Produced and Directed by Raul Cuesta; Written by Fernando del Razo – Disappointed over a premature retirement from professional tennis and never fulfilling his deceased father’s dreams, Enrique hopes the birth of his first child will bring him redemption.
The Naptime (Mexico), Written, Produced and Directed by Carolina Platt – A visual elegy through the eyes of the director that follows how families learn to live with the loss of a child.
Solitude Square/Plaza de la Soledad (Mexico), Directed by Maya Goded; Produced by Martha Sosa Elizondo; Co-Produced by Iris Lammertsma – Two aged prostitutes are forced to contemplate their lives and confront their issues so they can live out the remainder of their days with dignity and hope.
As the new presenting sponsor, Bloomberg will also support TFI’s commitment to champion Latin American filmmakers. The partnership will launch in the summer of 2013 with a series of multi-day workshops in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; and Santiago, Chile, to aid five emerging filmmakers in each region with creating their documentaries.
The three Bloomberg Fellows, one from each region, will be awarded a $12,000 grant and an invitation to participate in one of the workshops. The TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund is also sponsored by Moviecity and CANACINE.
The following three filmmakers were selected as the 2013 Bloomberg Fellows:
Children/Los Ninos (Chile), Directed by Maite Alberdi Soto; Produced by Clara Taricco – A group of friends with Down’s Syndrome face a new stage in life. They feel unprepared to grow old. Parents die, they are left alone, and they suffer diseases of the elderly, like Alzheimer’s.
The City Where I’m Getting Old (Brazil), Directed by Marilia Rocha; Produced by Luana Melgaço – At a moment when the Portuguese government publicly recommends that the country’s citizens seek work abroad, a young Portuguese woman, Teresa Pestana, heads for the city of Belo Horizonte, one of the major Brazilian state capitals.
Someone Else’s Secret (Mexico), Written and Directed by Hector Barrios; Written and Produced by Denisse Quintero – Through a private detective’s life and work, Someone Else’s Secret follows a real case of distrust and portraits the honest communication crisis prevailing in modern societies. On a double espionage, the documentary reveals the detective’s secrets.
As part of the Latin America Media Arts Fund, the Heineken VOCES Award is granted to one documentary and one narrative project annually. The awards are granted to Latino filmmakers 21 and older living in the United States and working on feature-length narrative or documentary films that offer new perspectives on their cultural experiences.
The winners of the Heineken VOCES grants for documentary:
Man of the Monkey, Directed by David Romberg – Intrigued by the tale of a scary man living in isolation with his chimpanzee wife, David Romberg travels to his childhood home on Ilha Grande, Brazil to find him, only to discover that the tale pales in comparison to what he uncovers.
And for Narrative:
Nobody is Watching, Written, Directed, Co-Produced by Julia Solomonoff, Written by Martina Broner, Co-Produced by Maria Arida – Guille, an out of work actor who knew success in Argentina, navigates life as an immigrant on the fringes of New York and wrestles to find a place he can call home.
An additional three development grants of $10,000 will be awarded to filmmaking teams based in Latin America and the Caribbean through the TFI/WorldView Partnership, a collaboration between the Tribeca Film Institute and CBA WorldView.
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