Chanel’s Through Her Lens Program Supports Women Filmmakers for the Fifth Year
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Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program is back for its fifth year with a new roster of advisers and participants.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Catherine Keener are some of the actresses involved in Through Her Lens, which links five pairs of budding women filmmakers whose projects have been selected for potential funding, with Hollywood vets. For three days, the filmmakers will gather in New York City for one-on-one master classes, then a jury of industry experts will pick one film to finance in full, while the other four teams will receive partial funding to bring their works to fruition.
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“This program’s impact is undeniable — many projects supported by Through Her Lens premiere at prominent film festivals around the world, and the creators go on to write, direct and produce award-winning films and series,” said executive director of the Tribeca Film Institute Amy Hobby.
And indeed, past main recipients have achieved noteworthy successes after being part of the program. A.V. Rockwell’s “Feathers” was acquired by Fox Searchlight after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Nikyatu Jusu’s drama short “Suicide by Sunlight” premiered at Sundance this year.
To celebrate this year’s event, which runs from November 4-6, Chanel created two videos with actresses who have recently gone behind the camera in directorial roles: Yara Shahidi and Phoebe Tonkin. In these short pieces, they provide personal experiences and insight about their careers.
“My dream role actually hasn’t changed since I was 10,” Shahidi says in one scene, seated on a stool beneath a boom mic. “I’ve always said two things: I want to be a superhero or a sociopath.”
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