WILMINGTON — Over a dozen individuals will receive funding to help fulfill their film projects, thanks to the Cucalorus Film Foundation, a nonprofit that oversees the local festival every November.
Thirteen filmmakers — with projects not exceeding $250,000 budgets — have been awarded financial support from the Filmed in NC Fund. The $11,000 evenly distributed to grantees was made possible through Cucalorus’ partnership with the NC Film Office and a gift from Artless Media in conjunction with The Magnifying Glass.
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Projects are supported with funds ranging from $500 to $3,000 per project.
The 2022 tranche of money is supporting narrative, documentary and experimental film projects, specifically in support of female and non-binary identifying, African American and Latinx filmmakers.
The Filmed in NC program launched in 2015 with an effort to increase independent production activity and support works of emerging artists that could benefit outside the major studio system.
The 2022 grant recipients are as follows:
- “May the Lord Watch” — documentary feature by Holland Gallagher, that recounts the rise, breakup and reunion of rap group, Little Brother
- “Quiet as It’s Kept” — documentary feature by Sarah Sloan, follows choreographer Kevin Lee-Y Green as he produces a dance performance in his rural hometown, capturing his experiences with Blackess, sexual trauma and southern culture
- “North on Thurmond” — documentary feature by Ivan Weiss and Cagney Gentry that tells the history of a neighborhood through personal remembrances and the sights and sounds of its streets
- “Bloom” — documentary feature by Elizabeth Miller-Derstine that follows four doulas and the mothers they advocate for. It questions why a country that values personal freedom limits how parents exercise it at birth
- “Gabriela” — short narrative by Evelyn Lorena, that focuses on a young, undocumented Guatemalan woman that dreams of joining the country club swim team in the American South
- “Keepsake” — narrative feature by Tiffany Albright, is about a photographer that finds herself at the heart of a sinister ritual when hired to document a family hike for the last people to see her sister alive
- “The Making of the Nuevo South” — a television series by Rodrigo Dorfman that explores Southern history from the perspective of the Latino immigrant experience
- “The Corner Gas Station” — short narrative by Ashley Maria and Kate E. Hinshaw, centers on the weekly “kid switch,” common with divorced parents
- “Teflon Body Rot” — an experimental film by Kate E. Hinshaw, explores the human cost of an industry that poisoned the water in coastal Carolina
- “What Happened to Ottie B. Graham?” — a narrative feature by Aileen Lassister, is the journey to find the gaps in history in the life of the filmmaker’s great-grandmother
- “Long Drive to Yadkin” — narrative feature by Parrish Stikeleather that recounts the story of a recently widowed Bible salesman on a journey to reconnect with his estranged son
- “Carousel” — experimental, stop-motion animation by Justin Lacy, set to three original songs about a bee, a beekeeper and pollinator caught in a loop
- “Fading Ink” — short narrative by Tylen Watts, is about a memorial shirt printer that comes to terms with the vulnerability of fatherhood
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