Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and the R&M Lang Foundation announced today that two films have been selected to receive a total of $15,000 CAD in production funds from the CrossCurrents International Doc Fund Short/Experimental/Interactive Strand, which aims to support documentaries from emerging filmmakers working within communities whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented or marginalized.
The two chosen films are The Old Wound (D: Rika Tarigan I Indonesia) and In Zainab’s Heaven (D: Ali Mehdi I Pakistan).
"The strength of this year’s applicants to the short/experimental/interactive stream made it impossible to select just one grantee," said Heidi Tao Yang, Hot Docs Director of Funds & Labs. "Thanks to the generosity of the R&M Lang Foundation, we were able to choose two projects, and taken together they exemplify the thrilling breadth of the documentary form. Whether an animated personal essay from Indonesia or a vérité portrait of an ethnic minority in Pakistan, these grantees represent the revelatory possibilities of shortform non-fiction."
Established in November of 2013 by the R&M Lang Foundation, the CrossCurrents International Doc Fund has since provided a total of $95,000 CAD in grants to support 11 international short, experimental or interactive doc projects from eight countries.
Fourteen shortlisted projects from 11 countries were considered by the CrossCurrents International Doc Fund Committee, which included: Robert Lang (president and executive producer, Kensington Communications), Sara Elgamel (filmmaker, Sarathecamel Productions Limited), Hot Docs Industry (Julian Carrington, Distribution Manager & Industry Funds Programmer).
THE OLD WOUND
Director: Rika Tarigan
Producer: Billy Tarigan
Production company: TiganTigan Studio
Country: Indonesia
Tired to hear her mother's constant advice to get married soon, a woman contemplates her identity and the meaning of being a woman by tracing her "old wound."
IN ZAINAB'S HEAVEN
Director/Producer: Ali Mehdi
Production company: FilmKhana
Country: Pakistan
A Hazara film director follows a gravestone maker, a water girl and a man who buried his limb, as their daily lives unfold in a graveyard.