Tribeca unveils All Access projects

Ten film-makers with unfinished projects were selected out of 560 submissions alongside one additional project through TAA’s six-year partnership with the Canadian Film Centre. TAA will present the 11 projects – six narratives and five documentaries – at a three-day career development programme from Apr 22-24.

TAA will support each project with an initial $15,000 grant as well as year-round support and resources for film-makers to advance their projects toward completion. 

Director of documentary programming Ryan Harrington and director of feature programming Tamir Muhammad programme the work-in-progress selections by emerging and established film-makers from statistically underrepresented communities.

Two projects will be selected as recipients of the juried Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Awards, which will provide a $10,000 grant to one documentary and one feature project. The programme will culminate with the TAA 10th Anniversary Celebration on Apr 26.

Additionally, this year Tribeca Film Institute will launch the TFI Professional Partnership, which will partner leading companies with a pool of film-makers seeking ways to translate their skills into other areas such as television, web, marketing and education.

The TFI Professional Partnership will kick off with a professional development panel during the festival. After the panel each partnering company will select at least two grantees for further one-on-one development and consideration for their business needs. Partnering companies include NBC Universal and Warner Bros.

Five grants will be awarded to documentary projects in various stages (all synopses provided by Tribeca):

Long Year Begin
Dir-pdr Malika Zouhali-Worrall and David Osit
An icy vault in the Arctic Circle safely stores seeds from around the world, but there is no such vault for humans or nations. Long Year Begin offers a poetic meditation on humanity’s perpetual quest for self-preservation.

Roots & Webs
Dir Sara Dosa
Pdr Josh Penn
Amid the bustling frontier world of Oregon’s matsutake mushroom camps, an unexpected father-son pair endures a tumultuous mushroom-hunting season. They grapple with wounds from Southeast Asian wars, attempting to find the high-priced mushroom before snowfall. An odyssey into the woods, into the memory of war and survival, Roots & Webs tells a story of family from enigmatic woodland realm.

(T)Error
Dirs-pdrs Lyric R Cabral and David F Sutcliffe
(T)Error captures the spectacular unraveling of an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation, and the dramatic aftermath that occurs when the target of the investigation realizes that a government informant is setting him up.

Time Is Illmatic
Dir-pdr One9
Pdr Erik Parker
A feature-length documentary film told through the lens of rapper Nas and his bluesman father Olu Dara, Time Is Illmatic deconstructs Nas’ indelible rap album Illmatic and the socio-economic and cultural conditions that inspired the landmark work and gave voice to a generation.

Unveiling Shirin
Dir-pdr Nariman Hamed
Pdrs Victorien and Anna Lena Vaney
A feature length documentary film about the artist and film-maker Shirin Neshat that takes us inside Shirin’s world and explores her life and work. It is the story of her life and challenges as a female Iranian artist living in exile.

Five grants will be awarded to narrative projects in various stages:

If You Stay, Written
Dir-pdr Roja Gashtilli
Wr-dir Julia Lerman
Iranian-born, American-bred Elham “Ellie” Amiri runs out of patience with her All-American lover and America when neither seems to want to commit to her. Coming of age meets coming to America in this moving and imaginative comedy about youth, identity and sexual politics in NYC.

Khoya
Wr-dir Sami Khan
Pdr Karen Shaw
EP Guneet Monga
After the death of his adopted mother, a Canadian man travels to rural India desperately searching for the birth family he’s never known and seeking to unravel the mystery surrounding his adoption.

The Lobbyists
Dir-pdr Terence Nance
Pdrs Andrew Corkin, Chanelle Pearson and James Bartlett
A conman with no past and a former CIA agent join forces to “lobby” politicians by blackmailing them into voting for progressive legislation.

Obvious Child
Wr-dir Gillian Robespierre
Pdr Elisabeth Holm
In this subversive romantic comedy about growing up without regret, 27 year-old emerging comic Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) gets dumped, fired, pregnant, and has the best worst Valentine’s Day of her life.

Papaw Easy
Wr-dir Martha Stephens
Wr Karrie Crouse
Pdr Brett Potter
Under the watchful eye of his vain, ‘Modern Christian’ uncle, a shy young boy forges an unlikely partnership with a foul-mouthed, down and out playboy.

The narrative project selected to participate from the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is:

Combarde
Wr-dir Boris Rodriguez
Pdr Anne-Marie Gelinas and Concepcion Taboada
A union organiser in Mexico loses his job and joins a band of corrupt detectives planning to kidnap the company’s owner.