2009 Recipients

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The Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci have announced the recipients selected for the 2009 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, which provides finishing finances to feature length documentary projects that highlight critical issues of social importance from around the world. In the second year of the fund, seven projects have been selected from over 350 submissions from 41 countries to receive a total of $100,000.

The projects were selected by a committee consisting of Dan Cogan, Abigail Disney, Philip Gourevitch, Julia Ormond and Sam Pollard, who selected the recipients from finalists determined after an extensive review process, administered by TFI.

The projects selected for funding are:

Untitled Tanzania Project

Elinyisia Mosha - Director, Producer

USA

Untitled Tanzania Project follows several characters in order to explore the impact and progress of foreign direct investment on Tanzania over the last ten years since massive privatization measures were enacted.

 

Pequeñas Voces (aka Born Under Fire)

Jairo Eduardo Carrillo - Director, Producer

Jaguar Taller Digital – Producer

Colombia

Website

 

Born Under Fire is an animated documentary which is based on interviews and drawings of displaced children who have grown up in the middle of violence and chaos in Colombia. The film illustrates these children’s perception of reality.

 

Enemies of the People

Rob Lemkin - Director, Producer

Thet sambath - Director, Producer

Sandra Whipham - Executive Producer

UK, Cambodia

Enemies of the People follows a young journalist, whose family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, as he spends a decade making friends with the men and women who directed and perpetrated the Killing Fields. With ground-breaking accounts from the notorious Brother Number Two and the grassroots killers, he discovers a new and terrifying explanation for the genocide.

 

Growing Small

Jyllian Gunther - Director, Producer, DP

Jack Lechner - Executive Producer

USA

Website

Growing Small witnesses one community's arduous and idealistic endeavor to found its own public school. The film chronicles the 1st and 4th year of the Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School (BCAM) in an attempt re-invent urban education in their community of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

 

Made in India

Rebecca Haimowitz - Director, Co-Producer

Vaishali Sinha - Director, Co-Producer

Erin Heidenreich – Executive Producer

USA, India

Website

Made in India traces the human experiences behind the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate mothers. Intimate stories of infertile Americans and Indian surrogates reveal complex relationships between global economics, families in crisis, and personal choice.

 

Marathon Boy

Gemma Atwal - Director, Producer

matt norman - Producer

alan hayling – Executive Producer

UK

Marathon Boy tells the story of a small boy from the slums of India who became a global phenomenon when he ran 65km non-stop and entered the record books as the world’s youngest marathon runner. Over a period of more than three years, a compelling human story emerges, full of moral dilemma, dramatic twists, and ethical and legal debate.

 

The Promise of Freedom

Beth Murphy - Director, Producer

Sean Flynn - Co-Producer

USA

Website

The Promise of Freedom tells a story of betrayal, honor, and sacrifice in the midst of war, as a young American fights to save tens of thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the U.S. to help build Iraq.

 

Download the full press release.