Points North Institute Names Artists Programs Recipients Ahead Of 19th Camden International Film Festival
EXCLUSIVE: An announcement today from the Points North Institute will provide a major career boost to a diverse group of documentary filmmakers.
The institute, which puts on the prestigious Camden International Film Festival in mid-September, revealed the filmmakers and projects chosen for four of its 2023 Artists Programs. In the week leading up to the festival in coastal Maine, the filmmaker fellows announced today will participate in “mentor-led workshops and feedback screenings, which culminate in a series of 400+ industry meetings taking place both in person and online,” according to a release from the Points North Institute. “These programs will support a combined 22 independent film projects in development being produced across 17 countries.” Scroll for the full list of selected projects.
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The four Artists Programs in question are the Points North Fellowship, North Star Fellowship, LEF/CIFF Fellowship, and 4th World Media Lab. Three quarters of the supported projects announced today are directed by filmmakers of color “and 77% [are] directed or co-directed by women or non-binary filmmakers,” the institute noted in its release. “More than 40% of supported projects are made by filmmakers from the Global South.”
“Despite the ongoing turbulence in our industry, the filmmakers participating in this year’s Artist Programs clearly reflect the vibrancy of the documentary form and the growth of independent documentary as a global artistic movement,” said Sean Flynn, program director and co-founder of the Points North Institute. “As democratic institutions and freedom of expression come under pressure, and as mainstream media continue to reflect narrow and distorted slices of reality, it’s more important than ever that we support independent artists whose work offers new ways of seeing the world and relating to one another.”
Points North’s Artist Programs are designed to connect filmmakers with mentors, funders, and potential collaborators, “using the 19th annual Camden International Film Festival (September 14-25) as a platform to build a community of support, nurture the careers of emerging nonfiction storytellers, and help them develop a stronger artistic voice.”
Along with the Artist Programs produced and curated by Points North, the institute will welcome additional fellowship cohorts to this year’s festival, according to a release: The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) will bring the 2023-24 class of seven BAVC MediaMaker Fellows to CIFF for their first convening; American Film Showcase, a cultural exchange and filmmaker training initiative at USC, will attend the festival with a cohort of eight filmmaker alumni from around the world, all of whom are developing feature documentaries; POV and Chicken & Egg Pictures will attend the festival with their Shorts Co-Production Fund Fellows; and Hot Docs will attend the festival with a delegation of Canadian filmmakers for professional development and networking.
The three projects selected for Points North’s inaugural Diane Weyermann Fellowship, which includes a $100,000 grant and 18 months of mentorship, will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Points North Institute was established in 2016 as “the launching pad for the next generation of nonfiction storytellers. Building on the success of the Camden International Film Festival, the Points North Institute’s mission is to bring together a unique, interdisciplinary community of filmmakers, artists, journalists, industry leaders, and audiences, forming a creative hub on the coast of Maine where new stories and talent are discovered, collaborations are born, and the future of nonfiction media is shaped.”
The 2023 Points North Fellows are:
A DISTANT CALL
Directed by Andrea Suwito; Produced by Finbar Somers
As Indonesia increasingly persecutes LGBTQ+ people, an ancient way of life that celebrates five different genders survives on the island of Sulawesi. Their last remaining leaders must make a critical decision: conform and risk their culture’s extinction, or refuse and be ostracized by society.
LETTERS FROM HOME
Directed by Xin Fang & Chenyu Kou; Produced by Xin Fang & Nicole Tsien
Yearning for a family reconciliation after living in America for a decade, but lying ahead is a series of tragedies: imprisoned parents, an Alzheimer’s grandmother, and a global power shift. In a flinching journey of knowing who my parents are and my hometown, I write a letter to my father.
MILPA
Directed by Efraín Mojica & Rebecca Zweig; Produced by Sarah Strunin, Efrain Mojica, & Rebecca Zweig
Milpa is a documentary feature that moves through the cross-section of queer identity and mass migration as experienced through a rural rodeo in Michoacán, Mexico.
MY FIRST BRUSH WITH INFINITY
Directed by Alex Westfall; Produced by Tavi Gevinson
In this intergenerational portrait of the artist as a young woman in formation, director Alex Westfall excavates, interprets, and re-envisions photographer Francesca Woodman’s life.
NATCHEZ
Directed by Suzannah Herbert; Produced by Darcy McKinnon
Natchez is a feature documentary that explores history and memory in the American South.
SECOND WORLD SECOND SEX
Directed by Mila Turajlić; Produced by Carine Chichkowsky
Dubbed “the greatest consciousness-raising event in history,” the first UN Women’s conference in Mexico City in 1975 becomes a lens for recovering the forgotten history of transnational organizing among women in the last half-century.
WOMEN OF MY LIFE
Directed and Produced by Zahraa Ghandour; Co-Produced by Hanna Markkanen
Born in the home of a Baghdad midwife, actor/director Zahraa witnessed violence against women from early on. In a dreamy journey today, she interrogates the past in search of a lost girl, confronts lifelong fears and nightmares, and works with other women to imagine a better future.
The 2023 North Star Fellows are:
ARTIFICIAL CLOUDS
Directed by Josefina Buschmann; Produced by Daniela Camino
An artificial intelligence wanders among minerals and electronic ruins in search of its terrestrial body.
mother, you have not died yet. but you will. and when you do, you will finally be alive again.
Directed by Advik Beni; Produced by Robert Rice & Nehal Vyas
In a post-apartheid Indian township in Durban—still fraught with violence—Lishana tends to her dying mother. Using photography to reflect on life and death, past and present, she begins oscillating between the tangible and mystical.
“SOL Y MAR”
Directed by Greko Sklavounos; Produced by Robert Colom & Ale Marie Odriozola
Miami is shrouded in darkness; glimmers of light and laboring bodies in shadow form an abstracted portrait of a city with a precarious future.
SWEET HOME
Directed and Produced by cherry brice jr.
A world-renowned sculptor, who’s been bedding her students, draws down Heaven’s wrath and rage for an underaged boy’s death.
The 2023 LEF/CIFF Fellows are:
BLACK PEARL
Directed by Iyabo Kwayana; Produced by Shaka Jamal
Black Pearl is a sonic and meditative journey into three coastal communities around the globe, the rituals of congregation and communion they practice, the verbal and nonverbal conversations they have with the source that sustains them, the film shares the tensions that arise when this livelihood is threatened.
KARACHI SKY
Directed by Sofian Khan; Produced by Faisal Azam
Memoir meets in memoriam in this personal journey through a filmmaker’s 20-year archive and the relationship that changed the course of his life.
SOFTLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS
Directed by Anna Barsan; Produced by Shannon Fitzpatrick
Following a vibrant community of activists and the creation of Romania’s first museum of LGBTQ+ history, Softly in all directions combines multigenerational stories to reinscribe queer existence into the public record. Forgotten histories entwine with the lives of present-day archivists through a polyphonic saga of political resistance, imagination, and desire.
THE FATE OF HUMAN BEINGS
Directed by Heather Cassano; Produced by Heather Cassano & Emily Hofelich
The Fate of Human Beings uncovers the stories of people with disabilities and mental illnesses who are buried in unnamed graves in mental institution cemeteries across the United States.
UNLESS SOMETHING GOES TERRIBLY WRONG (working title)
Directed by Kaitlyn Schwalje & Alexander Lewis; Produced by Rebecca Stern & Justin Levy
As America’s wastewater system begins to fail, one facility battles crumbling infrastructure, “forever chemicals,” and the misconceptions of an odor-averse public to stay afloat.
The 2023 4th World Media Lab Fellows are:
Paige Bethmann (Project: Remaining Native)
Fritz Bitsoie (Project: Good Mourning)
Ritchie Hemphill (Project: “Tiny”)
Jonathan Luna (Project: Buscando las marcas del asho´ojushi)
Adreanna Rodriguez (Project: “Indigenous Midwifery”)
Loren Waters (Project: “ᏗᏂᏠᎯ ᎤᏪᏯ”)
Paige Bethmann is a director/producer based in Reno, Nevada. Over the last 10 years, Paige has worked in nonfiction television for various digital and broadcast networks such as ESPN, PBS, Vox Media, YouTube Originals, USA, and NBC. Paige is currently a Nia Tero 4th World Fellow, BAVC MediaMaker Fellow, and participant in the Sundance Edit & Story Lab. Her debut feature film, Remaining Native, has also been supported by the American Stories Documentary Fellowship, Tracksmith, Perspective Fund, Sundance Institute, Doc Society, and Running Strong for American Youth.
Fritz Bitsoie, an award-winning Diné/Navajo filmmaker based in Oakland, CA, is known for his film The Trails Before Us. Featured at prestigious festivals like SXSW and SFFILM, it explores culturally significant themes in the modern Native American experience. With a love for sci-fi and martial arts films, Fritz infuses his work with elements from genre cinema. His creative vision has earned him recognition, including the Best Artistic Vision award at Big Sky Doc Film Festival and selection for the Native Film Showcase at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
Ritchie Hemphill grew up on Tsulquate reserve and was raised by his community, the Gwa’sala-’Nakwaxda’xw people. He is currently living on Coast Salish territory on Vancouver Island, Canada. Ritchie is both a filmmaker and a musician, working to create art that is healing for himself and for his people.”
Jonathan Luna: Community organizer, environmental scientist, anthropologist, cultural worker, educator, researcher, farmer. Member of the Beehive Design Collective and Polinizaciones process. Co-founder and member of the environmental arts community association “Jaguos por el Territorio.” Since 2007, has accompanied, created, coordinated, and implemented different processes of wildlife monitoring, ecological restoration, and artistic skills building & direct actions with rural communities impacted by resource extraction projects.
Adreanna Rodriguez is a Lakota/Chicana artist based in Oakland, CA. As a storyteller, her research, writing, and filmmaking revolve around issues of social and climate justice for Indigenous communities, as well as femme stories. While employed at VICE Media, she was a 2022 Ida B. Wells fellow through Type Investigations, where she investigated access to abortion services in Indian Country.
Loren Waters is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe. Loren’s work aims to center environmental knowledge, culture revitalization, and Indigenous futurity through storytelling. She’s worked on projects such as Seasons 1-3 of Reservation Dogs, Fancy Dance (2023), and the Martin Scorsese-directed Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). She recently received the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT Award and the Running Strong Foundation Dreamstarter Environmental Justice Award. She has participated in fellowships such as the 4th World Media Lab, 2021 Warner Media Bootcamp, and the Intercultural Leadership Institute Year 4. Currently, she is in production with a short documentary film titled “ᏗᏂᏠᎯ ᎤᏪᏯ (Meet Me at the Creek).”
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