Kartemquin Films announced the two projects that will participate in the first year of the Hulu/Kartemquin Accelerator: Traces of Home by director Colette Ghunim and Tres Fridas by director Reveca Torres.
The Accelerator program offers two alumni of Kartemquin’s acclaimed Filmmaker Development Programs $20,000 each towards production, and mentorship through 2020 within the award-winning Kartemquin collaborative production model.
The Accelerator program builds upon a successful relationship between Hulu and Kartemquin on the Oscar and Emmy nominated documentary Minding the Gap, directed by Bing Liu and produced by Diane Quon, which also won a Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Filmmaking at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Liu originally developed the film through Kartemquin’s Diverse Voices in Docs program, of which both Torres and Ghunim are also graduates.
“Access to meaningful development opportunities for underrepresented filmmakers is critically important, especially as we see just how under-resourced our community of independent documentary filmmakers of color are in this pandemic moment. This intervention — to bring a streaming service together with filmmakers at an earlier stage in the storytelling process — is where we want to be. Here at Kartemquin, we could not be more proud to support Colette and Reveca and the transformative films they are making. Both are powerful storytellers and incredible movement builders in their communities,” said Jolene Pinder, Executive Director.
ALSO READ: Peabody honors ‘Minding the Gap’ and Kartemquin
“Being selected for the Hulu/Kartemquin Accelerator Program for a film so personal to me is a true honor. Kartemquin Films has been the catalyst for both Traces of Home and my emerging career in documentary filmmaking. I applaud their intentionality to push for equity by lifting up filmmakers from communities often ignored,” said Traces of Home director Colette Ghunim.
“It is an honor to have such an opportunity for mentorship and support from both Kartemquin and Hulu. This experience will provide me with the tools and confidence to tell this story and future stories authentically and creatively. I love being part of the KTQ community and look forward to learning and developing as a filmmaker,” said Tres Fridas director Reveca Torres.
More on the Hulu / Kartemquin Accelerator Projects:
Traces of Home
Filmmaker Colette Ghunim takes her parents to find the ancestral
homes in Mexico and Palestine that they had fled from decades earlier.
While filling in the missing pieces of her identity, the journeys unravel
the trauma of displacement that passed down through generations.
Tres Fridas
Two artists paralyzed by spinal injuries discover a shared
connection to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and decide to recreate
her painting, Dos Fridas, using themselves as models. This sparks
a five-year artistic journey as the two women join forces with a
photographer to transform iconic works of art into portrayals of
contemporary people with disabilities. The film highlights a unique
creative process as they devise ways to authenticate disability as
part of the human experience.
SOURCE: KARTEMQUIN
