Award-winning
filmmaker will
help celebrate
grads of the doc
program organized by
Kartemquin and the
Community Film Workshop
Kartemquin Films and the Community Film Workshop of Chicago are thrilled to announce award-winning filmmaker Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation, Hooligan Sparrow) will provide the keynote speech at the 2019 Diverse Voices in Docs (DVID) graduation on October 12 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago.
Diverse Voices in Docs (DVID) is a nine-month professional mentorship program for Midwestern documentary filmmakers of color, organized by Kartemquin Films and the Community Film Workshop of Chicago.
This year’s graduation will include exclusive previews of each of the eight in-progress works by the current DVID fellows. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP here.
The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
Saturday, October 12, 5 p.m. | 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637
The 2019 DVID fellows, clockwise from top left: Shiraz Ahmed, Aisha Allen, Joua Lee Grande,
Milton Guillén, Christine Varisse, Cai Thomas, Shawn Taylor, and Sebastián Pinzon-Silvá
Apply now for DVID fellowship
Applications are now open for the 2020 Diverse Voices in Docs fellowship. Eight Midwest filmmakers will be selected from those who apply before the November 1 deadline. Apply here.
2020 will be the eighth year of the successful program, which has helped over 80 documentary filmmakers of color advance their projects through mentorship and skill-sharing since launching in 2013. This is the first year in which $50,000 of grants will be awarded to graduates of the program, with $20,000 going to 2019 fellows, and $30,000 towards DVID alumni.
Past fellows and projects that have participated in the program include:
Bing Liu (Academy Award-nominated director of Minding the Gap);
Kelly Richmond Pope (director of All The Queen’s Horses, winner of the HBO Spotlight Award for Best Documentary at the 2018 Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival); and,
Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (director of Finding Yingying, winner of the 2018 Paley DocPitch, now a Kartemquin co-production due for release in 2020).
Kartemquin will announce the grant recipients on October 1, and the grantees will be celebrated on October 29th at the 2019 Kartemquin Empowering Truth Benefit Luncheon.
“Access to seed funding for in-progress documentary projects is often limited to filmmakers located on the coasts,” says Jolene Pinder, Kartemquin Executive Director. “These grants are designed to build on the momentum of our DVID program and provide crucial support after the nine-month fellowship is over.”
Renewed funding in 2019 for DVID was provided by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Field Foundation of Illinois, and The Chicago Community Trust.
ABOUT NANFU WANG
Nanfu Wang is an Emmy Award-nominated and Peabody-winning filmmaker based in New York City. Wang’s most recent film, One Child Nation, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and was acquired by Amazon Studios. The film exposes the devastating consequences of China’s One-Child Policy through the stories of those who lived through it. | Wang’s feature debut, Hooligan Sparrow, was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and received two Emmy nominations. Since its premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, the doc has won more than 20 awards internationally, including a Peabody Award, a Cinema Eye Honor Award, the George Polk Award, an IDA Documentary Award and an Independent Spirit Award. | Wang’s second feature documentary, I Am Another You, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in 2017, won two special jury awards and opened theatrically in September of that year.
ABOUT KARTEMQUIN FILMS
Sparking democracy through documentary since 1966, Kartemquin is a collaborative center empowering filmmakers who create documentaries that foster a more engaged and just society. | The organization’s films have received four Academy Award nominations and won several major prizes, including six Emmys, four Peabody Awards, multiple Independent Spirit, IDA, PGA and DGA awards, and duPont-Columbia and Robert F. Kennedy journalism awards. Kartemquin is recognized as a leading advocate for independent public media, and has helped hundreds of artists via its filmmaker development programs that help further grow the field, such as KTQ Labs, Diverse Voices in Docs, and the acclaimed KTQ Internship. | Kartemquin is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization based in Chicago. www.kartemquin.com.
ABOUT COMMUNITY FILM WORKSHOP OF CHICAGO
The mission of Community Film Workshop of Chicago (CFWC) is to provide media arts education and production that supports the development of digital media artists in underserved and under-represented communities. CFWC’s programs in film, video, digital media and design are increase access and equity in media, give people of color, youth and women the tools to transform their communities. www.cfwchicago.org.
Send your indie updates to Reel Chicago Editor Dan Patton, dan@reelchicago.com.
