FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES:

• McKnight Fellowships:

    • Screenwriting

    • Filmmaking

• Fresh Filmmakers Grant

• MNTV

• Non-IFP Grants & Fellowships

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Filmmaking

IFP Minnesota is proud to announce the winners of the 2010 McKnight Filmmaking competition!

DAWN MIKKELSON
Dawn Mikkelson’s documentaries are used as grassroots organizing tools around the world, from international conferences to house parties, on the topics of globalization, environmental justice, water rights, human rights, and LGBT rights. Her most recent film, The Red Tail (co-directed with Melissa Koch), is the story of a NWA mechanic who loses his job to outsourcing and goes to China to meet his replacement.

DANIEL SCHNEIDKRAUT
Dan Schneidkraut’s films have been reviewed as “uncomfortable to watch,” “sublime yet terrifying,” “disturbing,” “stunningly depraved,” and “the kind of thinky/sadistic exercise that even the dark prince of psychological horror Michael Haneke might find difficult to watch.” He is working on a feature, to be shot on BetaMax, about physical fitness and the obsolescence of traditional masculinity.

These panelists selected the winning Fellows from 38 applications:

Laura Gabbert co-directed and produced the feature length documentary NO IMPACT MAN, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.  Distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories, NO IMPACT MAN opened theatrically in 2009 in more than 30 markets. NO IMPACT MAN will air on Discovery’s soon-to-be-launched Verge Channel in 2010.

Gabbert’s first documentary, THE HEALERS OF 400 PARNASSUS, aired nationally on PBS in 1997 and won a National Educational Media Award.  Gabbert then went on to develop and produce the 1999 Sundance Competition feature film GETTING TO KNOW YOU (dir: Lisanne Skyler), which had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival. In 2003 she directed and produced the critically acclaimed ITVS feature documentary SUNSET STORY (Special Jury Prize, Tribeca Film Festival and Audience Award, Los Angeles Film Festival). It opened theatrically in several markets and was held over for six weeks in New York City. It aired on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2005.

Future narrative projects include STARR BRIGHT, a Joyce Carol Oates adaptation, and HABEAS ON THE GATE, a feature film about the unlikely frienship between a Park Avenue lawyer and his client, a Guantanamo detainee. Gabbert is also in the research phase of a documentary titled THE F WORD about the state of feminism in America today.  She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.

Barry Jenkins is an award-winning writer/director whose feature film debut MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY was released in theaters by IFC Films and hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by A.O. Scott of the NY Times. The picture earned Barry a slot on Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” list before embarking on an international festival tour highlighted by screenings at the Vienna and Toronto International Film Festivals, among others. Recent projects include the shorts TALL ENOUGH  and A YOUNG COUPLE. He is currently developing a feature film with Focus Features.

Mike Plante started working for film festivals in Tucson in 1993, as a projectionist and film programmer for the Arizona Film Festival and later at The Loft Cinema. Plante created the Xeroxed magazine Cinemad in 1998. Produced out of pocket, Cinemad had six printed issues over four years and was distributed worldwide, morphing into a website that continues today at iblamesociety.com. He writes regularly for the periodicals Filmmaker and Razorcake.

Plante started working for the Sundance Film Festival as Presentation Manager in 2001. He served as a Short Film Programmer there from 2002-2006, as New Frontier Consultant for 2006 - 2008, and continues to be an Associate Programmer for the festival. At CineVegas, Plante worked as a Programmer from 2002-2009, serving as Director of Programming the last fest. Plante also produces the Lunchfilm series, where he buys a filmmaker lunch in exchange for a short film to be made for the cost of the lunch.

About the McKnight Artists Fellowships for Filmmakers

IFP Minnesota and The McKnight Foundation will award two $25,000 fellowships to Minnesota filmmakers in 2009. The Fellows are selected by a panel of jurors who are film artists and professionals from outside Minnesota. Jurors look for consistent artistic excellence and merit, clarity and uniqueness of vision, professional quality in the technical aspects of production, and for demonstrable, sustained growth in the artist's career. Additionally, jurors consider the artist's ability to present his/her application for the fellowship in an articulate and professional manner.

McKnight Filmmaking Fellows
2004 Melody Gilbert, Eric Tretbar
2005 David Eberhardt, Scott Coleman Miller
2006 John Hime, Tom Schroeder
2007 Emily Goldberg, Jon Springer
2008 Hisham Bizri, Gabriel Cheifetz
2009 Rolf Belgum, Mark Wojahn