Chicken & Egg Films announced today the newest grantees of Project: Hatched, a program designed to support directors as they develop and launch strategic impact campaigns. Ten films will receive $30,000 each toward their completion funding and impact campaigns.

The ten grantee films are: Black Box Diaries, Black Snow, Commuted, La Lucha, Malqueridas, Songs From The Hole, There Was, There Was Not, UNION, Yintah, and Your Fat Friend.

Chicken & Egg Films believes all documentaries, all stories, have the potential to ignite empathy, learning, and action. The Project: Hatched 2024 filmmaking teams showcase innovative, creative new approaches to meeting audiences where they are and inspiring engagement and impact through their stories. In this moment of distribution crisis, both Chicken & Egg Films and the 2024 cohort are rethinking how to define success when it comes to changemaking. It is now more possible–and more meaningful–than ever before to go deep rather than wide in strategizing impact campaigns. In some cases, that means prioritizing reaching smaller but more intimately-affected audiences, organizing screenings with, by, and for community, and seeding partnerships that illuminate and enrich the themes at play within a film.

As part of the international impact campaign for Your Fat Friend, director Jeanie Finlay is prompting cinema and theater venues everywhere to consider seat size as an access issue, asking them to review, measure, and publish the seating they offer in order to make those spaces more welcoming and accessible for fat bodies, forever. Both Contessa Gayles’ Songs From The Hole and Nailah Jefferson’s Commuted were finalists at the first-ever Sing Sing Film Festival hosted at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, among an audience of incarcerated people, New York state corrections officials, and outside guests. Yintah, directed by Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, and Michael Toledano, is now screening on Netflix and offers viewers a supporter toolkit with actions to support the Wet’suwet’en people as they assert sovereignty and challenge the construction of multiple pipelines by large fossil fuel companies. 

This is the first project to be supported by Chicken & Egg Films for filmmakers Tana Gilbert (Malqueridas), Alina Simone (Black Snow), Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, and Michael Toledano (Yintah), and Shiori Ito (Black Box Diaries). Brett Story (Union), Nailah Jefferson (Commuted), and Jeanie Finlay (Your Fat Friend) are Chicken & Egg Award recipients. Contessa Gayles’ Songs From The Hole was supported with an (Egg)celerator Lab Grant, and Emily Mkrtichian (There Was, There Was Not) was supported via an (Egg)celerator Lab finalist grant in 2021. Violeta Ayala (La Lucha) previously received support through our Research & Development Grant in 2023.

“This year’s Project: Hatched recipients highlight the work of incredible people from all walks of life working to create cultural and social change, said Program Director Kiyoko McCrae. “The impact campaigns of these films offer a diversity of strategies and approaches that honor the brave voices and leadership of the inspiring change agents featured in their films. In these trying times, as distribution continues to be a challenge for independent films, these projects are also pushing our field to think creatively about how to reach target audiences.”

From 2019 to 2023, Project: Hatched has supported 37 short and feature-length films. Filmmakers in this program have used their documentaries to advocate for policy reform, build and support community, and engage targeted influencers in critical conversation. Recent grantees include Peabody nominee Storm Lake, directed by Beth Levison and Jerry Risius; PAY OR DIE, directed by Rachael Dyer and Scott Alexander Ruderman; BEBA, directed by Rebecca Huntt; and Belly of the Beast, directed by Erika Cohn.

This program is generously supported by The New York Community Trust. 

The Project: Hatched 2024 grantees are:  Note: The locations named in parentheses next to the films titles indicate the filmmakers’ nationalities and/or countries of origin.

Black Box Diaries (JAPAN) Director/Producer: Shiori Ito  Producers: Eric Nyari, Hanna Aqvilin Executive Impact Producers - Danielle Turkov Wilson, Amy Shepherd Impact Producer - Ugne Pilkionyte Director Shiori Ito investigates her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender, which became a landmark case in Japan.

Premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2024; Winner, SIFF Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision; Winner, Human:Rights Award at CPH:DOX 2024; Honorable mention, Golden Gate Award at San Francisco International Film Festival; Audience Award at New Zealand International Festival; Audience Award at Sarajevo Film Festival; Best International Documentary Film and Audience Award at Zurich FIlm Festival; The Unforgettables at Cinema Eye Honors Awards

Black Snow (US) Director: Alina Simone Producer: Kirstine Barfod When citizen journalist Natalia Zubkova uncovers an environmental catastrophe unfolding in her remote Siberian city, she becomes the target of a massive government disinformation campaign.

Premiered at CPH:DOX 2024, Winner of the F:ACT Award for Best Investigative Documentary; Winner of the Sustainable Future Award at Sydney International Film Festival 2024

Commuted (US) Director: Nailah Jefferson Producer: Darcy McKinnon When Danielle Metz’s triple-life sentence is commuted, she returns to her life and family in this powerful portrait of the journey to find purpose and love while confronting the lingering wounds of incarceration. 

Winner, Best Documentary Award and Best Louisiana Documentary Award, New Orleans Film Festival

La Lucha (BOLIVIA, US, AUSTRALIA) Director/Producer: Violeta Ayala Producers: Dan Fallshaw, Redelia Shaw Impact Producer: Rilda Paco Distribution Systems: Yasmeen Hitti A group of Bolivians with disabilities make a grueling trek across the Andes in an inspiring protest for their human rights.

Premiered at BlackStar 2023; NYWIFT Award for Excellence in Directing for Violeta Ayala 2024; Winner, Walkley Award for Best Cinematography; Winner, DW Doc Dispatch Award, Sheffield International Documentary Festival

Malqueridas (CHILE, GERMANY) Director: Tana Gilbert Producer: Paola Castillo Villagrán, Dirk Manthey Impact Producer: Alejandra Díaz Scharager, Paola Castillo Villagrán, Joaquín Díaz An intimate portrait of motherhood in prison, told through images recorded with banned cell phones.

Premiered and won the Grand Prize for Best Film at Venice Settimana Internazionale della Critica, Italy 2023; Best Technical Contribution Mario Serandrei Award and Special Mention for Editing Valentina Pedicini Award - Authors under 40 at Venice Settimana Internazionale della Critica, Italy 2023; Audience Award winner and Special Jury Mention at Valdivia International Film Festival 2023

Songs From The Hole (US) Director/Producer: Contessa Gayles Producers: richie reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe Impact Producers: richie reseda, James "JJ'88" Jacobs An incarcerated musician struggles for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary visual album composed behind bars.

Premiered at SXSW 2024, Winner, SXSW Audience Award: Visions; Winner, Best Feature Documentary Grand Jury Prize at BlackStar Film Festival 2024; Winner, Spirit of Paul Robeson Award at Newark Black Film Festival 2024 Audience Award: Visions at SXSW 2024; Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary at BlackStar Film Festival 2024; Jury Prize: Spirit of Paul Robeson Award at Newark Black Film Festival 2024; Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary at Indie Street Film Festival 2024; Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary at Fist Up Film Festival 2024; Jury Prize: Excellence in Criminal Justice Storytelling at Sing Sing Film Festival 2024; Jury Special Mention - Best Feature Documentary at New Orleans Festival 2024; Audience Award: Best Feature Documentary at New Orleans Festival 2024; Audience Award: Best Feature Documentary at Buffalo International Festival 2024

There Was, There Was Not (ARMENIA, US) Director/Producer: Emily Mkrtichian Producer: Brock Williams, Mara Adina Titled after the first line of Armenian fairy tales, this film tells the collective myth of a homeland lost forever through the stories of four women resisting that loss.

Premiered at True/False Film Fest 2024; Winner, FIPRESCI Prize and Special Mention in the Regional Competition at 2024 Golden Apricot Film Festival; Winner, Best Documentary Feature at Tacoma Film Festival 2024

UNION (US, CANADA) Directors/Producers: Brett Story, Stephen Maing Producers: Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, Martin DiCicco Impact Producers: Eliza Licht, Alice Quinlin, Javier Rivera DeBruin Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embarks on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York.

Premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2024, Winner, U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change; Winner, Albie Award, Maysles Documentary Center; Winner, Change Award, Adelaide Film Festival; Winner, Best Canadian Pitch Prize from Hot Docs Pitch Forum 2022

Yintah (CANADA) Directors/Producers: Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano Producer: Bob Moore Over more than a decade, leaders of the Wet’suwet’en nation defend their sovereignty by reoccupying and protecting their ancestral lands from several of the largest fossil fuel companies on earth.

Premiered at True/False 2024; Winner of Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature and Audience Award; Special Jury Mentions for Elevate Award and Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at DOXA; Finalist, Social Justice Award at Lane Doc Fest

Your Fat Friend (UK/US) Director/Producer: Jeanie Finlay  Consulting Producer: Suzanne Alizart The story of writer Aubrey Gordon’s irrepressible rise offers a unique lens on fatness, family, the complexities of change, and the deep, messy feelings we all hold about our bodies.

Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2023; Funded by Field Of Vision, BFI Doc Society and Broadway Cinema; Audience Award winner at Sheffield Doc/Fest and St Louis Film Festival; Grierson Award shortlisted for Best Cinema Documentary