The Sundance Institute announced yesterday that they are awarding grants to 23 nonfiction film projects that will receive financial and creative support from the Sundance Documentary Film Program (DFP). One of the projects is directed by POV alum, Bernardo Ruiz, who co-produced Alex Rivera’s The Sixth Section (POV 2003) and worked on the first installment of our online-only series POV’s Borders in 2002.
Ruiz is the founder of SubCine, an artist-run and artist-owned collective of Latino film and video makers, and the New York-based production company Quiet Pictures. His project is entitled Gardens of Paradise and is described as “a series of interconnected stories illuminate the challenges facing the residents of Mexicali, a Mexican border city.” (You can hear Ruiz talk about the project on Art on Air with Will Corwin in a May 2009 interview via this streaming MP3 file.)
Former DFP grantees include a number of POV filmmakers including Eric Metzgar, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor (New Muslim Cool), Ido Haar (9 Star Hotel), Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country) and Natalia Almada for her film, El General, which is premiering on POV in 2010. Last week, Almada received the IDA’s 2009 Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award.
Congratulations to Almada and Ruiz on their award and grant!
Find out about the other 22 grantees at the Sundance Institute website.