The Arts Engine organization just celebrated its 10th anniversary. In its quest to expand its scope in promoting and supporting social-issue media, the organization announced today that it is expanding its services to include DocuClub, the 14-year-old program dedicated to nurturing works-in-progress.
DocuClub was founded in ‘94 by filmmaker Susan Kaplan and the model was to show works-in-progress in feedback-based screenings where the filmmaker could take in critique and advice from peers and, sometimes, find financial backing for his or her project. Past films screened at DocuClub include Born Into Brothels (an Academy Award recipient for Best Documentary), The Boys of Baraka and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Katy Chevigny, co-founder and executive director of Arts Engine and principle of Big Mouth Films, says that DocuClub “has been instrumental to the evolution of documentary film over the past decade. Arts Engine is excited to build on its legacy and introduce even more documentary filmmakers to this indispensable resource.” Her film Innocent Until Proven Guilty screened at DocuClub back in 1998.
Arts Engine also announced that it’s re-launching its fiscal sponsorship program, which has provided services for over fifty feature-length nonfiction films, including My Kid Could Paint That, Favela Rising and The Trials of Darryl Hunt
Felix Endara has recently joined Arts Engine and will head up the new iteration of DocuClub. He says that a major goal is to bridge the technological and generational divide between filmmakers brought up on long-form work and newer media-makers who have avenues of production and distribution that didn’t exist a few years ago.
The first screening for ‘08 will be Prodigal Sons, a film by Kimberly Reed. Reed was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2007. The screening will be held Thursday, April 3 at Goldcrest Post in the West Village.
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Tags: Arts Engine, Big Mouth Films, DocuClub, Katy Chevigny