Last night, in a new partnership with Renew Media, the Tribeca Film Institute awarded its 2008 Media Arts Fellowships at the New York Academy of Art. POV Executive Director Simon Kilmurry and I attended the ceremony honoring the recipients. Among the 20 filmmakers and media artists who were awarded fellowships for their new projects, three were POV alums.
Judith Helfand (The Uprising of ’34, POV 1995 and A Healthy Baby Girl, POV 1997) is developing Heat Wave, a documentary that revisits the 1995 Chicago heat wave that killed 739 people and explores how impoverished urban neighborhoods could be better prepared for extreme weather.
Academy Award-nominee Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country POV 2006 and Flag Wars, POV 2003) is working on Release, which explores the long-term psychological and political repercussions of the U.S. policy of detention and torture.
Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal, POV 2005) received the fellowship for Signs of Life, about the life and work of deaf educator Dr. Virginia McKinney and her fight to keep open the school she founded over 40 years ago.
For a full list of fellowship recipients, see Pamela Cohn’s blog, Still in Motion. And for more information about the Media Arts Fellowships and past honorees, visit the Media Arts Fellowship website.