The Forgiveness of Blood
Director: Joshua Marston
Fiction | Supported through Cinereach Productions & Winter 2009 Grantee
Festival Screening Information – Contemporary World Cinema

In The Forgiveness of Blood, the lives of a teenage boy and his younger sister are thrown into turmoil after a killing in a dispute over land draws their northern Albanian family into a blood feud.

Girl Model
Directors: David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
Nonfiction | Summer 2009 & Summer 2010 Grantee
Festival Screening Information – Real to Reel – World Premiere

Girl Model follows U.S. and Russian model scouts who travel through remote Siberian villages looking for thirteen to fifteen year old girls suitable for modeling jobs in Japan. This poetic film brings viewers into a modeling industry rife with mirrors, images, facades, and uncertainty. It is difficult to know who these young girls can trust and where the industry takes them when their eyes are covered.

Habibi
Director: Susan Youssef
Fiction |Winter 2009 Grantee
Festival Screening Information – Discovery – International & North American Premiere

Habibi, a story of forbidden love, is the first fiction feature set in Gaza in over 15 years. Two students in the West Bank are forced to return home to Gaza, where their love defies tradition. To reach his lover, Qays grafittis poetry across town.

The Patron Saints
Directors: Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky
Nonfiction | Winter 2009 & Winter 2011 Grantee
Festival Screening Information – Canada First – World Premiere

The Patron Saints is a disquieting and hyperrealistic glimpse into life at a nursing home. Bound by the candid confessions of a recently disabled resident, the film weaves haunting images, scenes and stories from within the institution walls. Sidestepping conventional documentary methods for a heightened cinematic approach to storytelling, the film employs lyrical realism and black humor in its charged portrait of fading bodies and minds.

Pariah
Director: Dee Rees
Fiction | Winter 2009 & Winter 2010 Grantee
Festival Screening Information – Discovery

When forced to choose between losing her best friend or destroying her family, a Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and endures heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Porfirio
Director: Alejandro Landes
Fiction | Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute 2011
Festival Screening Information – Visions – International & North American Premiere

Confined to a universe that stretches only from bed to wheelchair, Porfirio – a man in diapers who sells call time on his cell phone in a faraway city on the outskirts of the Colombian Amazon – dreams that he can fly.

Joshua Marston's The Forgiveness of Blood

We’re thrilled to announce that Cinereach Productions’ The Forgivness of Blood has been acquired by Sundance Selects!

Joshua Marston’s (Maria Full of Grace) film, follows Nik, an energetic 17-year-old in his last year of high school in Northern Albania. Embarking on his first romance with a girl in his class, he plans to open his own internet cafe after graduation. His sister, Rudina, is a bright, mature fifteen-year-old who aspires to go to college. When a local land dispute results in their father Mark being accused of murder, the family is drawn into a deadly blood feud. The rules of the Kanun, a centuries-old Albanian code of law, force Nik, his 7 year old brother and the other male members of his family into virtual house arrest. With Mark hiding in the mountains and Nik unable to leave the house, the family must rely on Rudina, who has to leave school and take over Mark’s business in order to provide for them. While Rudina flourishes in her newfound responsibility, Nik’s frustration and anger at his isolation drive him to try to end the feud, even though it may cost him his life.

The Forgiveness of Blood, written by Marston and Andamion Murataj, was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The film is a Journeyman production co-financed by Cinereach Productions, Artists Public Domain and Fandango Portobello.

The Forgiveness of Blood
The lives of a teenage boy and his younger sister are thrown into turmoil after a killing in a dispute over land draws their northern Albanian family into a blood feud.

Winter 2009 Cinereach Grantee, and supported through Cinereach Productions
Writers: Joshua Marston & Andamion Murataj
Director: Joshua Marston
Producer: Paul Mezey

In Competition – Berlinale Screening Information

HERE
On assignment to create a new, more accurate satellite survey of Armenia, an American cartographer forms a powerful bond with an Armenian expatriate and art photographer.

Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
Writers: Braden King & Dani Valent
Director: Braden King
Producers: Jay Van Hoy & Lars Knudsen

In Panorama – Berlinale Screening Information

Photo Courtesy of Sebastian Mlynarski

On the Ice
On the snow-covered Arctic tundra, two teenagers try to get away with murder.

Winter 2010 Cinereach Grantee, and supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
Writer/Director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
Producers: Cara Marcous & Lynette Howell

In Generation 14plus – Berlinale Screening Information

Photo Courtesy of Kirsten Johnson

Yelling to the Sky
As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O’Hara is left to fend for herself in a neighborhood where her survival is uncertain.

Supported through The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute
Writer/Director: Victoria Mahoney
Producers: Billy Mulligan, Ged Dickersin, Diane Houslin, Victoria Mahoney

In Competition – Berlinale Screening Information

Gasland by Josh Fox
This fest will mark the D.C. premiere of Gasland by Josh Fox. The film chronicles Fox’s 24-state journey to investigate the consequences of natural gas drilling. It received support from the Sundance Reach Fund (part of the Cinereach Project at the Sundance Institute), won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and just took home the Artistic Vision Award at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Screening information:
FREE SCREENING
Date: 3/16/10 7:00pm
Venue: Carnegie Institution for Science, Elihu Root Auditorium, 1530 P St., NW
A discussion with filmmaker Josh Fox follows screening.

The Road Ahead: The First Green Long March by Cinereach Productions
The first feature documentary from Cinereach’s in-house production arm, The Road Ahead: The First Green Long March is a meditative portrait of the growing student environmental movement amongst Chinese College students. Directed by Ryan Wong and produced by Cinereach’s Michael Raisler, The film is an official selection of the Hamptons, Connecticut and Cleveland Film Festivals.

Screening information:
FREE SCREENING
Date: 3/23/10 12:00pm
Venue: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Ronald Reagan Building, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, Sixth Floor Auditorium, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
The film will be introduced by Jennifer L. Turner of the China Environment Forum, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.