Press

Cinereach Presents Reach Out Awards to 2011 Reach Film Fellows

FOR RELEASE ON:
April 14, 2011
Contact: Reva Goldberg
[email protected]
212.727.3224 x111

CINEREACH PRESENTS REACH OUT AWARDS TO 2011 REACH FILM FELLOWS

Four emerging filmmakers complete the Reach Film Fellowship
with festival-ready short films and bonus grant funds.

www.cinereach.org
cinereach.org/the-reach-film-fellowship/fellows-recipients

(New York, NY – April 14, 2011) – Cinereach, a not-for-profit film foundation and production company, hosted its fourth “Reach Out” event yesterday. The event marked the culmination of the 2011 Reach Film Fellowship for emerging filmmakers making vital, artful short films.

Cinereach screened films by outgoing fellows Matt Bockelman, Nick Paley, Kaz Phillips Safer and Nancy Schwartzman at Sunshine Cinema on Houston Street, and presented each Fellow with a Reach Out Award and a bonus grant of $1,000 to put towards his or her film’s festival campaign.

“Matt, Nancy, Kaz and Nick brought a lot of talent, vision and experience into the program with them,” said Cinereach’s Reva Goldberg, who runs the fellowship. They could have made their films on their own if they had to, but our goal was to create a safe and supportive space where they could comfortably take creative risks and get as much mileage as possible out of the experience. We couldn’t be more proud of the resulting films.”

A unique and intensive program that spans September through April, the Reach Film Fellowship provides a $5,000 grant, production support, personalized mentorship, and industry exposure as a springboard to a professional career in film. The four participants are selected through an open application process and, once accepted, have access to the Cinereach staff and a community of highly invested colleagues as they take their short films from concept to completion.

One-on-one mentorship from working independent filmmakers is a key aspect of the program. Each fellow is assigned a mentor with a background complimentary to the fellow’s goals. The pairs meet to check in at critical points throughout pre-production, production, post-production and beyond.

This year’s mentors included producer/director/editor Francisco Bello (Salim Baba, War Don Don); producer Karin Chien (The Exploding Girl, Circumstance), director Marshall Curry (Street Fight, Racing Dreams) and producer Jay Van Hoy (Old Joy, Cold Weather).

The fellows also had access to advice from industry insiders such as Tribeca Film Institute’s Ryan Harrington and Tamir Muhammad, Ingrid Kopp of Shooting People, and author, producer and film critic Kim Adelman, during workshops on topics such as crowd funding, social media, festival strategy, post-production workflow and pitching. The Fellows had unlimited access to consulting producers Angela Tucker (Pushing the Elephant, Deadline) and Susan Leber (Toe to Toe, Down to the Bone), and to post-production consultant Jeff Marcello (Toe to Toe, Planet B-Boy).

The 2011 Reach Film Fellows and Films are:

Fellow: Matt Bockelman
Mentor: Marshall Curry
Film: You Have the Right to an Attorney (nonfiction) enters the daily grind of two young public defenders in the South Bronx as they strive to resolve hundreds of client cases in a system they consider fundamentally broken.

Fellow: Nick Paley
Mentor: Jay Van Hoy
Film: In Open House (fiction) a young man visits his grandparents and is the first in his family to realize the pair of them should no longer be living on their own.

Fellow: Nancy Schwartzman
Mentor: Francisco Bello
Film: xoxosms (nonfiction) follows the courtship of a young couple that falls in love via Skype, chat and Facebook and relocates to be together.

Fellow: Kaz Phillips Safer
Mentor: Karin Chien
Film: Jolly Friends Forever More (fiction) tells the story of a homeless man who is befriended by a mysterious little girl that seems to appear and disappear at will.

Recent Reach Film Fellowship alumni highlights include the broadcast premiere of 2010 Fellow Anthony Morrison’s Bye, a short documentary about a toddler just diagnosed with autism. The film aired on PBS’s P.O.V. in July and, following that, screened in competition at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Nadia Hallgren’s short doc Love Lockdown (RFF 2010), about a young Bronx woman who communicates with her imprisoned fiancé via shout-outs on a late-night radio show, premiered at the 2011 SXSW film festival. Gabriel Long’s The Drawing (RFF 2010) premiered at NewFest last year and will be playing at the Inside Out Film Festival in May.

Cinereach Ltd.

Cinereach is a not-for-profit film production company and foundation that champions vital stories, artfully told. Created and led by young philanthropists, entrepreneurs and filmmakers, Cinereach empowers fiction and nonfiction filmmakers from all over the world through its Grants & Awards, the Reach Film Fellowship and Productions; and through partnerships with the Sundance Institute and others. Since 2006, Cinereach has disbursed over $4.5 million in grant funds to more than 90 projects at the intersection of engaging storytelling, visual artistry and vital subject matter.

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