While celebrating 15th anniversary of Tribeca All Access, TFI announces grants for ten new film projects.
The Tribeca All Access (TAA) which celebrates its 15th anniversary is a program designed emphasize and highlight stories from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
This year, the Tribeca Film Institute announced that it will provide $10,000 grant for each project as well as customized year-round support, guidance, and industry access. Seven out of ten projects have female directors.
Hailing from 7 different cities, these projects tackle a range of themes from coming-of- age with growing immediacy and access to technology, to the effect the current administration has had on all different races, ages and regions.
Amy Hobby, TFI Executive Director says:
As demonstrated by the 2018 grantees, Tribeca All Access continues to be a torchbearer for bold projects that experiment with storytelling and navigate culturally relevant topics with courage and grace. TFI is proud to be an early funder of so many TAA stories created by, about, and for communities that historically have been pushed to the margins. At a time when truths are called into question, we are thrilled to amplify authentic voices from across the U.S., whose echoes will be felt far and wide.
TAA is made possible by Time Warner Foundation, a leading supporter of TFI since 2006, with additional support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and New York State Council on the Arts.
The grants will be divided evenly between scripted and documentary projects. Five grants will be awarded to scripted projects in various stages:
FAREWELL AMOR Director, Screenwriter, Producer: Ekwa Msangi
After 17 years in exile, Walter’s wife and daughter are reunited with him in the U.S., now absolute
strangers. They struggle to overcome the personal and political hurdles between them, sacrificing the
lives they built while separated and need to rely on the muscle memory of Angolan dance to rediscover
each other.
Producer: Huriyyah Muhammad
JOY RIDE Director, Co-screenwriter: Natalia Leite
After cutting her ties to responsibility and romance, a reckless train hopper on a nightmarish ride must
confront the cost of freedom.
Co-screenwriter: Liz Armstrong
MODERN LOVE Director, Screenwriter: Francesca Mirabella
In the era of chill, where the goal is to “live your best life” for your followers, two young lovers are torn
apart. Twenty year-olds Zoe and Oscar fight for love, sex and connection in the age of Instagram.
Co-Producer: Ilana Rossein
NO HALF STEPPIN’ Director, Screenwriter: Joel Vargas
When Malik’s single mother confiscates the speaker he uses to dance on the subway, he reinvents
himself as the “man of the house” to earn her respect. As he fights a looming eviction from their South
Bronx home, the call of his passion for dancing becomes too strong to ignore.
Producer: Alyssa Villegas
WE STRANGERS Director, Screenwriter: Anu Valia
We Strangers follows Rayelle “Ray” Martin, who is a commercial cleaner for a company that sends her to
clean foreclosed homes and commercial spaces. While on the job, she meets a dentist who invites her to
become his personal housekeeper for a substantial amount of money. Ray accepts the job, and she
unwittingly enters a whole new world of the rich Northwest Indiana elite.
Producer: Rachel Nederveld
DOCUMENTARY
ALWAYS IN SEASON Director, Producer, Writer: Jacqueline Olive
As the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present, Always in
Season follows both the relatives of the perpetrators and the victims who are seeking justice in the
midst of heated national debates surrounding the value of black lives.
Produced by: Ann Bennett
BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM Director, Producer: Chelsea Hernandez
In the shadow of Texas’s lucrative building boom, immigrant workers are on a downward spiral to
poverty, illness, and death. Building the American Dream explores intimate stories from the frontlines of
the construction industry, as undocumented immigrants fight for their basic rights.
Producers: Marisol Medrano and Mario Troncoso
MIDNIGHT TRAVELER Director: Hassan Fazili
Midnight Traveler follows a family of Afghan filmmakers on the run from the Taliban. Told from
filmmaker Hassan Fazili’s first-person perspective, their story provides unprecedented access into the
complex refugee crisis with the West.
Producer: Emelie Mahdavian
PAHOKEE Directors, Producers: Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan
In a Florida town where hardship and struggle have afflicted generations, hopes for the future are
concentrated on the young. Pahokee is a poetic observation that follows four youth ascending from
heartbreak and relishing in the joyous rites of passage that serve as their send-off from the only town
they call home.
Producer: Maida Lynn
Co-Producers: PJ Raval
UNBOWED Directed and Produced by Nehad Khader
Unbowed is the untold life story of an iconic seventy-year- old revolutionary. Surviving a lifetime of
resistance, torture and prisoner exchanges, she restarts her life in the aftermath of a political
deportation.
