Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access Program Chooses Majority Female Lead Projects in 2014

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The Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access program seeks to support and promote screenwriters and directors from “diverse backgrounds” and this year seven of the eleven films under the Tribeca All Access umbrella are directed or co-directed by women.

TAA is evenly split between documentaries and “narrative” projects, five on each side, but this year one extra project has earned “mentorship and support” in the marketplace from the program.

“Jean of the Joneses,” Written and Directed by Stella Meghie; Produced by Amos Adetuyi. Jean is a girl from a dysfunctional family of Jamaican women who have happily sent all the men in their lives running for the past 30 years. She’s on the brink of following in the family tradition until the day her estranged grandfather dies on her doorstep.

Other descriptions, courtesy the TAA website:

“Falcon Lake,” Written by Sara Seligman and Thomas Bond; Directed by Sara Seligman; Produced by Christopher Mack and Van Johnson. Ester runs a bed-and-breakfast near the USA/Mexico border with her overbearing mother, Teresa.  They save the money they earn, hoping to leave this town that is filled with memories of violence and fallen family members.  One day, two drug runners invade their home.  The women are faced with a choice, one that is further complicated by a terrifying secret the women share.

“Out of State,” Directed and Produced by Ciara L. Lacy; Produced by Beau J.K. Bassett. The film follows a group of roughly 100 native Hawaiian inmates practicing hula, a native Hawaiian dance form, as a means of maintaining their cultural heritage and working to rehabilitate themselves and their relationships with their families.

“The Unafraid,” Directed and Produced by Heather Courtney and Anayansi Prado. In a conference room in an Atlanta office building, a quiet revolution takes place every Sunday when a group of teenagers and 20-somethings gather to do something Georgia has banned them from doing — attend a college class.

Congratulations to all the accepted Tribeca All Access projects, who will each receive a $15,000 grant. You can read more about the individual projects here.

(Image via Shutterstock, story via IndieWire.)


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Susana Polo
Susana Polo thought she'd get her Creative Writing degree from Oberlin, work a crap job, and fake it until she made it into comics. Instead she stumbled into a great job: founding and running this very website (she's Editor at Large now, very fancy). She's spoken at events like Geek Girl Con, New York Comic Con, and Comic Book City Con, wants to get a Batwoman tattoo and write a graphic novel, and one of her canine teeth is in backwards.