Concordia Studio Announces Filmmaker Fellows For 2024

Valerie Complex
·6 min read
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The Concordia Fellowship provides crucial financial and professional support to diverse non-fiction storytellers in sixth class. Concordia Studio, the company behind the acclaimed Emmy-winning documentary film, STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, directed by founder Davis Guggenheim, is awarding four filmmakers the Concordia Fellowship for 2024.

As the artist development program housed within Concordia Studio, the Concordia Fellowship aims to elevate the creative and professional career of each selected filmmaker through significant financial awards and a professional program to accelerate the creative development of a new non-fiction project. The program helps its Fellows build sustainable careers, offering foundational mentorships with veteran talent, industry executives, as well as exclusive access to Concordia’s production and studio facilities. Year-round virtual and in-person programming includes guest visits and masterclasses with renowned filmmakers and industry talent such as Sheila Nevins, Lisa Cortes, Liz Garbus, Julie Goldman, and executives at Participant Media, Magnolia Pictures, Sundance Institute, NEON, and Impact Partners.

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Concordia Fellows are cinematic voices presenting diverse perspectives from across the United States. Each Fellow has been chosen for their proven ability to tell stories that must be told. The 2024 Concordia Fellows are Rita Baghdadi, Edward Buckles, Jr., Lindsey Dryden, and Twiggy Pucci Garçon.

“Individually, each of these filmmakers is noted for insightful storytelling and unique visual voice,” says Rahdi Taylor, EVP of The Concordia Fellowship. “Taken together, and with our Fellowship alumni, they demonstrate that diverse filmmakers can bring their cultural and community commitments to their work, and given opportunity, summon critical or commercial success for their industry partners.”

In its sixth year, The Concordia Fellowship, founded by Guggenheim and led by Taylor and VP Jess Kwan, has celebrated enormous success from its filmmaker Fellows, garnering recognition at the Emmys, the Peabodys, the duPont-Columbia Awards, the Academy Awards and prestigious film festivals around the globe. Fellows have inked deals with distributors including Amazon Studios, HBO, Onyx/Disney, Disney+, Hulu and more. Fellowship projects have received further support from Sundance Institute, Sloan Foundation, Impact Partners, Anonymous Content, Sandbox Films, Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and Catapult Film Fund. Projects that received Concordia Fellowship support in its earliest stages include Academy Award nominee Time (directed by Garrett Bradley), Peabody winner Aftershock (co-directed by Paula Eiselt), and Critics Choice nominee Burden of Proof (directed by Cynthia Hill).
The full list of Fellows and Alumni can be found below.

2024 FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

Rita Baghdadi
Rita Baghdadi (she/her) is an award-winning Moroccan-American documentary filmmaker known for the intimacy of her character-driven films. She recently directed Finding the Light, part of an anthology series premiering on Disney+ in 2024. Her documentary Sirens (2022, Sundance) was acquired by Oscilloscope and won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest. Rita’s previous films include My Country No More (2019, Independent Lens), and City Rising (2017, Emmy for Best Social Issue Film). Her directorial work has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca, Netflix, HBO, Catapult Film Fund, Chicken & Egg, Film Independent and the IDA. She is a 2023 Sundance Momentum Fellow and made DOC NYC’s 40 under 40 list in 2022. Rita is a co-founder of the production company Lady & Bird Films. She is a 2024 Concordia Fellow.

Edward Buckles, Jr.
Edward “Buck” Buckles, Jr. (he/him) is a proud son of New Orleans. In 2023, he was selected for the 2023 USA BAFTA Breakthrough list. In 2022, his debut documentary Katrina Babies (HBO Max) premiered at Tribeca and was the August digital cover of TIME magazine. The film won the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director and was nominated for Best Feature at the International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. He seeks innovative ways to share the stories of Black communities that would otherwise be lost in the passing of time and has a commitment to the youth in New Orleans, to the arts community, and to being a platform for the culture of the city. He is a 2024 Concordia Fellow.

Lindsey Dryden
Lindsey Dryden (she/her) is based in Austin and directed the feature documentary Lost and Sound (2012, SXSW), which was nominated Best Female-Directed Film at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Her documentary shorts include the upcoming diptych The Callers and The Listeners and Close Your Eyes and Look At Me (2009, True/False). Lindsey is an Emmy-winning producer, a Sundance Institute Documentary Producers Lab Fellow, and has been mentored by BAFTA/BFI Flare and The National Film & Television School. Lindsey is a proud member of QueerDoc, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and BAFTA, and co-founder of FWD-Doc (Filmmakers with Disabilities), advancing documentary filmmakers in the D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent community. She is a 2024 Concordia Fellow.

Twiggy Pucci Garçon
Twiggy Pucci Garçon (she/they) is a proud non-binary member of the LGBTQ+ and ballroom communities and is the International Mother for the Legendary International House of Comme des Garçons. Twiggy made her directorial debut with the festival award-winning MnM (2023, CPH:DOX). Twiggy was the co-writer and a participant in Kiki (2016, Sundance), and was also a featured subject in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ The OUT List (2013, HBO). Twiggy served as a consultant and runway choreographer on Ryan Murphy’s Emmy nominated hit FX series, Pose, and sits on the Board of Directors for Doc Society. They are a 2024 Concordia Fellow.

ACTIVE FELLOWS
Giselle Bailey (The Legend Of The Underground)
Jarrod Cann (Good White People)
Maria Agui Carter (Rebel)
Alice Gu (Really Good Rejects, The Donut King)
Tracy Jarrett (Victim/Suspect, The Fire That Took Her)
Shalini Kantayya (Tiktok, Boom, Coded Bias) Smriti Mundhra (The Romantics, Indian Matchmaking)
Cinque Northern (Angola Do You Hear Us?)
Anayansi Prado (The Unafraid, Paraiso For Sale)

ALUMNI FELLOWS

Joshua Altman (Couples Therapy, Wildcat)
Garrett Bradley (Naomi Osaka, Time)
Isabel Castro (Mija, Darlin)
Ben-Alex Dupris (Chumash Powered, Sweetheart Dancers)
Paula Eiselt (After G-D, Aftershock)
Nadia Hallgren (Civil: Ben Crump, Becoming)
Cynthia Hill (Burden of Proof, What Happened Brittany Murphy?)
Jon Kasbe (The Deep End, Sophia)
Bing Liu (All These Sons, Minding The Gap)
Elizabeth Lo (Stray, Hotel 22)
Edwin Martinez (Personal Statement, To Be Heard)
Omar Mullick (Flight/Risk, These Birds Walk)
Brent Palmer (Piece By Piece, Lies Closed This School)
Heather Rae (Fancy Dance, Frozen River)
Randy Redroad (The Infiltrators, The Doe Boy)
Christine Turner (The Barber of Little Rock, The 1619 Project)
Dominique Ulloa (We Need To Talk About Cosby, Surviving R. Kelly)
Jeff Unay (The Cage Fighter, Free to Play)

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