Meet Our 2018 TAA Grantees

Ten projects have been selected for our 15th Annual Tribeca All Access® program. Hailing from 7 different cities, these projects tackle a range of themes from coming-of-age with growing immediacy and access to technology, to the effect the current administration has had on all different races, ages and regions.

"As demonstrated by the 2018 grantees, Tribeca All Access® continues to be a torchbearer for bold projects that experiment with storytelling and navigate culturally relevant topics with courage and grace. TFI is proud to be an early funder of so many TAA stories created by, about, and for communities that historically have been pushed to the margins. At a time when truths are called into question, we are thrilled to amplify authentic voices from across the U.S., whose echoes will be felt far and wide." - Amy Hobby, TFI Executive Director

Here are the this year's grantees (8 of which have female directors!)...

SCRIPTED

"[Having worked at Tribeca several years ago and seen the process from the inside,] this is a full circle moment for me. I feel ready to take on this project, and excited to step up the challenge and spotlight that TAA provides. I think this industry is finally ready to look at Africa/ns in a way that hasn't happened before, and my years working towards this level have enabled me to sharpen my tools in order to present the clearest and most creative of my ideas yet. I'm eager to have TAA as an ally on this journey!" - Ekwa Msangi of Farewell Amor

After 17 years in exile, Walter’s wife and daughter are reunited with him in the U.S., now absolute strangers.  They struggle to overcome the personal and political hurdles between them, sacrificing the lives they built while separated and need to rely on the muscle memory of Angolan dance to rediscover each other.
Director, Screenwriter, Producer: Ekwa Msangi
Producer: Huriyyah Muhammad
 

After cutting her ties to responsibility and romance, a reckless train hopper on a nightmarish ride must confront the cost of freedom.
Director, Co-Screenwriter: Natalia Leite
Co-Screenwriter: Liz Armstrong
 

In the era of chill, where the goal is to “live your best life” for your followers, two young lovers are torn apart. Twenty year-olds Zoe and Oscar fight for love, sex and connection in the age of Instagram.
Director, Screenwriter: Francesca Mirabella
Co-Producer: Ilana Rossein



When Malik’s single mother confiscates the speaker he uses to dance on the subway, he reinvents himself as the “man of the house” to earn her respect. As he fights a looming eviction from their South Bronx home, the call of his passion for dancing becomes too strong to ignore.
Director, Screenwriter: Joel Vargas
Producer: Alyssa Villegas
 

We Strangers follows Rayelle "Ray" Martin, who is a commercial cleaner for a company that sends her to clean foreclosed homes and commercial spaces. While on the job, she meets a dentist who invites her to become his personal housekeeper for a substantial amount of money. Ray accepts the job, and she unwittingly enters a whole new world of the rich Northwest Indiana elite.
Director, Screenwriter: Anu Valia
Producer: Rachel Nederveld

DOCUMENTARY

“Receiving the financial and mentoring support from Tribeca All Access® validates my credibility as an emerging filmmaker and shines a worldwide spotlight on the issues being told in my film. My dream of reaching global audiences to inspire change and spark conversation about the human costs of immigrant labor in construction is becoming a tangible reality.” - Chelsea Hernandez of Building the American Dream

BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM
In the shadow of Texas’s lucrative building boom, immigrant workers are on a downward spiral to poverty, illness, and death. Building the American Dream explores intimate stories from the frontlines of the construction industry, as undocumented immigrants fight for their basic rights.
Director, Producer: Chelsea Hernandez
Producers: Marisol Medrano and Mario Troncoso
 

As the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present, Always in Season follows both the relatives of the perpetrators and the victims who are seeking justice in the midst of heated national debates surrounding the value of black lives.
Director, Producer, Writer: Jacqueline Olive
Produced by: Ann Bennett
 

Midnight Traveler follows a family of Afghan filmmakers on the run from the Taliban. Told from filmmaker Hassan Fazili’s first-person perspective, their story provides unprecedented access into the complex refugee crisis with the West.
Director: Hassan Fazili
Producer: Emelie Mahdavian
 

In a Florida town where hardship and struggle have afflicted generations, hopes for the future are concentrated on the young. Pahokee is a poetic observation that follows four youth ascending from heartbreak and relishing in the joyous rites of passage that serve as their send-off from the only town they call home.
Directors, Producers: Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan
Producer: Maida Lynn
Co-Producer: PJ Raval
 

Unbowed is the untold life story of an iconic seventy-year-old revolutionary. Surviving a lifetime of resistance, torture and prisoner exchanges, she restarts her life in the aftermath of a political deportation.
Directed and Produced by Nehad Khader