The 2015 Tribeca All Access Alumni Grantees Are Announced

The names are in! Today we’re announcing the 2015 Tribeca All Access® Alumni recipients! 

Tribeca All Access® supports its alumni by offering microgrants of up to $10,000 each. Alumni can apply for support in various capacities, from finishing funds for their current TAA-supported project to a new feature-length project, short film, episodic television and web-based project, or outreach and audience engagement, marketing, events, and festival or project-related travel. Tribeca All Access® Alumni grants are part of Tribeca Film Institute’s ongoing effort to support our grantees throughout their careers.

The 2015 Tribeca All Access® Alumni recipients are: 

BLACK IS BLUE: Scripted; Feature; Support for Development. Directed by Cheryl Dunye; Produced by Marc Smolowitz. BLACK IS BLUE is a chilling dramatic tale inspired by the 2013 murder­ suicide of a transwoman who shot and killed a transman before turning the gun on herself. Set against the backdrop of the current tech boom of San Francisco Bay Area, the film follows two trans people in present day Oakland who struggle to find home in their bodies and home in the ever changing landscape of the early 21st century. 

ELNORA: Scripted; Short; Support for Development & Production. Written and Directed by Kira Akerman; Produced by Josh Penn. ELNORA is the story of a young woman’s path to connecting to her voice through a life-changing relationship with an older woman and a rural landscape. 

KIVALINA: Documentary; Feature; Support for Post-Production. Directed and Produced by Gina Abatemarco; Produced by Anne Takahashi. KIVALINA is a rare and cinematic portrait of life lived on a disappearing Arctic island from the perspective one of the last surviving Eskimo cultures.  

LITTLE WHITE LIE: Documentary; Feature; Support for film’s Impact Campaign. Directed by Lacey Schwartz. LITTLE WHITE LIE tells Lacey Schwartz's story of growing up in a typical white middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity — that is until she discovers that her biological father is actually a black man with whom her mother had an affair.

OUR LIFE WILL BE OURS: Scripted; Featured; Support for Post-Production. Directed, Produced, and Written by Charles Birns; Produced by Krista Parris. Sidney and Lucinda are having a baby; it has, for three months, been growing inside Genevieve, the hired surrogate carrier. Over one long weekend, Sidney and Genevieve acknowledge their attraction and must navigate its life-and-death consequences. 

OUT OF STATE: Documentary; Feature; Support for Production. Directed by Ciara Lacy; Produced by Beau Bassett; Executive Produced by Terry Leonard. OUT OF STATE follows a group of roughly 100 native Hawaiian inmates practicing hula, a native Hawaiian dance form, as a means of maintaining their cultural heritage and working to rehabilitate themselves and their relationships with their families. 

WAJIB: Scripted; Feature; Support for Development. Directed by Annemarie Jacir; Produced by Ossama Bawardi. In WAJIB Shadi has returned to his hometown of Nazareth after years abroad to help his father hand-deliver his sister’s wedding invitations, as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together going house-to-house to deliver the invitations, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives. 

Find out more about the Tribeca All Access Alumni Grants.