14 July 2011
LEF Foundation awards $35,000 to New England Independent Documentary Filmmakers
The LEF Foundation is excited to announce 7 grants totaling $35,000 to independent documentary filmmakers with projects in pre-production.
The LEF Moving Image Fund invests in projects that demonstrate excellence in technique, strong storytelling ability, and originality of artistic vision and voice. In addition to these criteria, the grantees represent a group of filmmakers at different stages in their artistic careers, from emerging to established makers.
These innovative feature-length films address a broad range of topics and demonstrate the strong and unique voice of the artist. The grantees are:
Pre-Production
Chico Colvard - Black Memorabilia ($5,000)
Black Memorabilia examines the culture around the collectibles and antiques that serve as reminders of the US's troubled racial history. The film is a portrait of the people who consume, manufacture and assume the identities of these objects.
Peter Frumkin - Alexander Dorner Film Project (wt) ($5,000)
The Alexander Dorner Film Project (wt) explores the life of ground-breaking and controversial German art curator Alexander Dorner, who smuggled modern artworks out of Germany during WWII at the price of collaboration with the Nazi government.
Elizabeth Jones - Absaroka! The State That Never Was ($5,000)
A hybrid documentary, this film revisits a disgruntled group of US Citizens who attempted to secede in 1939 to form a new state, only to discover that institutional change is more complicated than it seems.
Audrey Kali - Abattoir Rising ($5,000)
Local farmers raise animals on pasture, out of cages and in good health – who would have thought a humane death would be so difficult? Abattoir Rising deals with the complex problem of inadequate and inhumane slaughterhouses.
Ann Kim - Salty Matrons ($5,000)
In Korean, they’re called the haenyo – seawomen. Diving without tanks, they fearlessly hunt along the ocean floor for abalone, conch and sea urchin, but as the women age and the haenyo tradition loses its grip, this film asks: what happens when we can no longer do the thing that defines us?
Ashley Sabin & David Redmon – Downeast (wt) ($5,000)
In an era of US post-industrialization when many factories and the jobs that accompany them are being exported, Downeast focuses on attempts to open a lobster-processing plant in rural Maine.
Nicky Tavares - Son of a Bug ($5,000)
This experimental documentary explores the history of The Bugs, the first Pakistani rock band (formed circa 1964), and what it means to be Muslim and Pakistani-American, through the relationship between The Bugs’ former drummer, Jumshade “Jimmy” Muzaffar, and his son Shams-Tabraiz “Tabby,” a Texas-raised human rights activist and scholar.
In total, LEF will be distributing $200,000 in funding to documentary production over the course of our 2012 fiscal year.
The next grant deadline is 27 January 2012 for projects seeking production and post-production support. Please check www.lef-foundation.org for details regarding LEF Moving Image Fund guidelines and eligibility. For more information on the Foundation or its funded projects, please contact Program Manager Sara Archambault: 617.492.5333 or sara@lef-foundation.org.
We extend our warmest congratulations to this group of grantees and our best wishes for success to all the projects reviewed for this deadline.
A private family foundation dedicated to the support of contemporary arts, LEF was established in 1985 with offices in Massachusetts and California. The Moving Image Fund was launched in 2001 through the LEF office in Cambridge, MA to support independent film and video artists. Since its inception, the Moving Image Fund has supported over 200 independent filmmaker projects with approximately $3,500,000 in funding. The goal of LEF New England is to fund the work of independent film and video artists in the region and broaden recognition and support for their work locally and nationally.