Dena Greenbaum (Blues), Danielle Russell (Bridging the Gap), Jules Monteyne (I Go to War...), Lindsay Mann (DP, Skip Rocks), Brendon McQueen (Skip Rocks) - Photo by Andrea Fischman

Cinereach’s second annual Reach Film Fellowship program officially kicked off Monday, when we welcomed Brendon McQueen, Danielle Russell, Dena Greenbaum and Jules Monteyne to the program. They spent two days with us, doing workshops with the program’s advisors to get them started on their film projects. From this point, they will be paired up with their Mentors, prep, shoot and edit their short films.

Monday and Tuesday’s Presenters included Steve Garfinkel (of RFF sponsor Kodak), indie producers Susan Leber (Down to the Bone, Adrift in Manhattan) and Jeremy Kipp Walker (Half Nelson, Sugar), documentary director Edet Belzberg (Children Underground, The Recruiter), screenwriter/filmmaker Afia Nathaniel, director/actor Paola Mendoza (Still Standing, Autumn’s Eyes) and director/cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Summer of Sam) gave their time generously and provided some welcome coaching. Cinereach staffers got to be flies on the wall in all those sessions (sometimes getting to participate when numbers were needed). Fractured Atlas is the fiscal sponsor to all our Fellows’ projects, and also came by to answer questions.

Each Fellow’s Mentor was also announced this week: Brendon’s Skip Rocks will benefit from the guidance of So Yong Kim (In Between Days, Treeless Mountain); Danielle’s Bridging the Gap will have Renee Bishop (of Savannah, GA’s Farmer’s Almanac TV) on its team; Dena Greenbaum’s Blues will benefit from Jeremy Kipp Walker’s (Half Nelson, Maria Full of Grace) expertise; and Nicole Kassell (The Woodsman) will work with Jules on I Go to War with Everything that Doesn’t Make Sense in a Bathtub.

We’ll track the progress of the Fellowship here on this blog, invite Fellows, Mentors, Advisors and Cinereach staff to blog, and also offer you some more detailed descriptions, photos and video of what the Fellows are experiencing so the wider Cinereach community can benefit as well. Subscribe to RSS feed to stay on top of the action!