Announcing the 2017 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Grantees

We’re thrilled to announce our 2017 grant recipients for the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, along with our partners at Gucci and Oath Foundation (formerly AOL Charitable Foundation). Eight feature-length documentary film projects that highlight and humanize critical domestic and international social issues have been selected. This year, more than half of the supported projects will spotlight the lives of women and youth around the globe, and highlight the ways these dedicated and inspiring individuals are working to improve their communities, their futures and the world.

New this year, in addition to funding production and post-production of select projects, Oath Foundation will support impact distribution and strategy campaign work for two projects (93Queen and Untitled Jennifer Laude Documentary), guaranteeing those projects attain maximum reach and achieve social change. Creative impact agency Picture Motion will execute the impact work for these selected projects.

2017 Recipients of the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund

93Queen Directed and Produced by Paula Eiselt. Produced by Heidi Reinberg and Adam Bolt. follows a group of tenacious women who are shattering the glass ceiling in their Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood by creating the first all-female volunteer EMS corps in NYC.

Crime + Punishment (Working Title) Directed and Produced by Stephen Maing.  Co-produced by Ross Tuttle. Amidst a landmark lawsuit over illegal policing quotas, intimately observes the real lives and struggles of a group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and the young minorities they are pressured to arrest and summons in New York City. 
 

Laila at the Bridge  Directed by Elissa Sylvia Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei. Produced by Ina Fichman. Having witnessed her brother’s 25-year battle with drug addiction, former child bride Laila devotes her life to treating heroin-addicted men and women in Kabul. As foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan and international aid dries up, Laila struggles to prevail over a crisis of addiction and a corrupt government in a country on the verge of collapse.

The Feeling of Being Watched Directed and Produced by Assia Boundaoui. Produced by Jessica Devaney. When a filmmaker investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community.

The Interpreter Directed by Andrés Caballero and Sofian Khan. Afghan and Iraqi military interpreters serve as a crucial bridge between American soldiers and local nationals.  But as a result of their work with the U.S., many have become targets.  In the chaotic aftermath of war, these loyal allies now struggle to find safety for themselves and their families.

No Women No Revolution Directed by Antonia Kilian. Produced by Sefinaz Mohamad, Anna Markovski and Anja Vrdlovec. Against the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War, 20-year-old Hala is fighting not only for the liberation from IS, but also for the liberation of patriarchal and traditional structures, even inside her own family.
 

Untitled Jennifer Laude Documentary Directed and Produced by PJ Raval. Produced by Marty Syjuco, Lisa Valencia-Svensson and Kara Magnsanoc-Alikpala. Grassroots activists in the Philippines are spurred into action when a local transgender woman is found dead in a motel room with a 19-year-old U.S. marine as the leading suspect. As they demand answers and a just trial, hidden histories of U.S. colonization come bubbling to the surface.

Writing with Fire Directed and Produced by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas.  In one of the most socially oppressive and patriarchal states of India emerges a newspaper run entirely by rural women belonging to the Dalit or ‘untouchable’ community. Meera, its popular political reporter, decides to magnify the local paper’s impact with an audacious move - to transform from print to a digital news agency. Working in media dark villages, mocked and discouraged, this is the story of a visionary woman's feisty spirit in building what will probably be the world’s first digital news agency run entirely by rural Dalit women.