Menu
 

Past
Grantees

Kayla Farrish, Spectacle, BAAD!/Pepatián Dance Your Future, 2018.

3
inCombined Artistic Fields
886
inDance
27
inFilm and Video
1,354
inFilm/Video & New Media
713
inLiterature
3
inMedia
298
inMisc
606
inMulti-disciplinary
704
inMusic
6
inTechnology Centered Arts
990
inTheater
1,066
inVisual Arts
1
inVisual Arts, Multi-disciplinary

The Wooster Group

2022
Theater
New York City
Arts Organization Grants
$42,000
A flexible two-year grant totaling $42,000 ($21,000 per year) to The Wooster Group in recognition of its ongoing support of early career artists residing in the five boroughs of New York City.
Theater

Zeitgeist

2022
Music
Minnesota
Arts Organization Grants
$48,000
A flexible two-year grant totaling $48,000 ($24,000 per year) to Zeitgeist in recognition of its ongoing support of early career artists residing in Minnesota.
Music

Suha Araj

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Suha Araj (she, her, hers) creates films that explore the displacement of immigrant communities. The Cup Reader, a comedy shot in Palestine about a fortune teller and her matchmaking abilities, screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and was awarded the Next Great Filmmaker Award at the Berkshire International Film Festival and Baghdad International Film Festival. Araj has received support for her work from the Sundance Film Festival, Torino Film Lab, Independent Filmmaker Project, Berlinale Talent Project Market, Center for Asian American Media and Cine Qua Non Lab. She is the 2018 recipient of Tribeca/Chanel Through Her Lens production funding for her film Rosa, which tells the story of a woman who begins a business to ship undocumented immigrants to their home countries for burial. The film won the Best Short Narrative Award and the Lionsgate/STARZ Short Film Award at BlackStar Film Festival, and the Best Short Narrative Award at the Woodstock Film Festival. She is a 2021 Creative Capital Grantee for her feature film Khsara (Pickled) and a Warner Media 150 Fellow for her feature comedy/thriller, Bowling Green Massacre.

 

Project Statement

Khsara (Pickled) is a feature-length comedy film set in the Palestinian diaspora about women who don’t get married “in time.” Nearing the ripe age of 30, astrophysicist Nisreen will expire if not wed. She struggles to find her own path between her old-world Palestinian roots and the modern reality in which she lives, while her global family actively interferes, for better or worse. This film shows what happens when a Palestinian-American discovers that love is more important than marriage.

Film/Video & New Media
A woman with long brown hair stands in a field in front of rolling hills.

Photo by Kris Rumman.

Sisa Bueno

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Originally from New York City, Sisa Bueno (she, her, hers; pronoun flexible) is a traveling film and multimedia maker dedicated to making inaccessible stories more accessible to audiences. She studied film production and interactive technologies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The NBC Network named Bueno a 2013 Latino Innovator for her upcoming documentary To the Mountains (in post-production) about decolonization in Bolivia. She has completed a short film for AJ+ related to the same subject. Bueno is a recipient of the ITVS-PBS Diversity Development grant and ITVS Open Call, Hot Docs CrossCurrents grant, Bay Area Video Coalition MediaMaker fellowship, Points North Institute North Star Fellowship, and the IDA Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund for her current work in progress, For Venida, For Kalief (in production).

 

Project Statement

A late mother’s poetry echoes a movement for criminal justice reform for her son in For Venida, For Kalief. This lyrical film is an intentional departure from current storytelling approaches, focusing on personhood to inspire and reimagine a new kind of legacy for Kalief Browder. The film presents Venida’s words as poetic cinema, showcasing the full spectrum of everyday life for people of color in New York City, reveling in lyrical moments of Black and Brown joy and spirituality, as well as constant police surveillance, struggle, and activism. The film explores the concept of legacy and personhood, lyrically weaving together the deeply personal emotions of Venida’s poems with the community activism that emerged in the aftermath of Kalief’s death.

Film/Video & New Media
Portrait of Sisa Bueno.

Coffee House Press

2021
Literature
Minnesota
Arts Organization Grants
$20,000

Support for leadership transition at arts organization working with early career artists.

Literature

Tommy Franklin

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video
$30,000

Tommy Franklin (he/him/his) is a filmmaker, writer, producer, creator of Weapon of Choice Podcast, and Founder of Special Menu Productions. Franklin is a 2020 Sundance Short Documentary Film Fund Grantee, 2020 Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow, 2020 Saint Paul Neighborhood Network New Angle Fellow, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council 2020 Next Step Awardee, and was a finalist for the 2021 Sundance Institute Episodic Lab. He collaborates in philanthropic and grassroots organizing communities to produce content he believes in, indiscriminate of form or medium. As a survivor of incarceration (born in prison and having served time as an adult), Franklin’s creative work radically reimagines power structures across issues while advocating for criminal legal reform and visions for Black liberation.

 

Project Statement

You Don’t Know My Name follows a filmmaker’s search for the identity of his incarcerated mother, from whom he was separated at birth. As he uncovers deep ancestral bloodlines and moves closer to this life-altering truth, he must navigate his way through systems designed to keep him in the dark. In the making of this film, Franklin has spent time with incarcerated mothers who have given birth in prison. These conversations hold up mirrors of wonderment, curiosity, and hope for all parties involved—and offer openings into the haunting and complicated world of prison and post-prison life.

Film/Video & New Media
Headshot of Tommy Franklin, 37 year old Black man with black afro-ish hair, wearing a light brown jacket and black shirt.

Sarah Friedland

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Sarah Friedland (she, her, hers) is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Through hybrid, narrative, and experimental filmmaking, multi-channel video installation, and site-specific live dance performance, she stages and scripts bodies and cameras in concert with one another to elucidate and distill the undetected, embodied patterns of social life and the body politic. Her work has been screened, installed, and performed across film, art, and dance venues including New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Ann Arbor Film Festival, BAMcinématek, Performa19 Biennial, Sharjah Art Foundation, the American Dance Festival, and Mubi, among many others. She is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Film/Video and a Pina Bausch Fellow for Dance and Choreography.

 

Project Statement

A coming of (old) age film, Familiar Touch follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in an assisted living facility as she contends with her own desires and conflicting self-narratives amidst her cognitive impairment. The protagonist Ruth experiences herself primarily as a twenty-something woman, without losing the selves and experiences of her sixty intervening years. A feature-length narrative film, Familiar Touch centers the embodiment and physical experiences of the elder facility’s residents and staff, reflecting and challenging our socio-cultural mores regarding aging (ageism) and independence, the work of caregivers, and collective living.

Film/Video & New Media
portrait of Sarah Friedland, smiling and looking down to the camera

Photo by Matteo Bellomo.

Adrian Garcia Gomez

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Adrian Garcia Gomez (he, him, his) is an interdisciplinary artist working in film/video, photography, and illustration. His artwork, which is largely autobiographical and often performative, explores the intersections of race, immigration, gender, spirituality, and sexuality. His films have screened at festivals around the world and at cultural institutions including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, LA Filmforum and the Roxie Theater, San Francisco. His videos are distributed by Video Data Bank and Collectif Jeune Cinéma. He studied photography and non-western art history in San Francisco, 16mm filmmaking in Mexico City, and video in New York City. Gomez migrated to California from Mexico with his mother when she was six months pregnant with him. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

 

Project Statement

Las Catas is an experimental animation exploring femininity and the gender binary through a queer Latinx lens. The video, structured around a speculative meeting between the filmmaker and astrologer Walter Mercado, weaves together original and appropriated footage to create short vignettes in order to bring to light our complex relationship with gender and the rich realities and possibilities that have always existed within our culture.

Film/Video & New Media
Adrian Garcia Gomez, black and white image of Mexican-American artist looking straight at the camera with trees receding behind him.

Natalie Gee

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Natalie Gee (she, her, hers) was made in England, assembled in Australia, and directly imported to NYC. She’s a filmmaker and festival programmer based in Brooklyn. Her shorts have premiered at Oscar-qualifying festivals in the U.S. and overseas. Most recently, she wrote and directed Waves, a dance narrative starring Lily Baldwin. Her experimental short Queendom was featured on NoBudge and nominated for Best Experimental film at the Miami Short Film Festival. Gee shadowed Oscar-nominated director Steph Green on HBO’s The Deuce with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal. She’s a programmer for Santa Barbara, HollyShorts, and Aesthetica film festivals and has curated feminist film nights at the Brooklyn Museum. She’s previously been on the screening committee for the Telluride Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Hamptons International Film Festival.

 

Project Statement

Buried is a hybrid narrative and experimental film exploring the physical and the surreal experiences surrounding work burnout, grief, and rage. The lyrical story, to be shot on 16mm, follows a winemaker plagued by stress and sickness who is convinced her vineyard is being poisoned until a sinister presence reveals the truth around her chaotic and mysterious illness. With bold scores and physical soundscapes, Gee’s intimate approach to stylized terrains explore how difficult it is to channel self-compassion when we push ourselves to exhaustion.

Film/Video & New Media
A portrait of Natalie Gee, smiling at the camera.

Ash Goh Hua

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Ash Goh Hua (any pronouns) is a filmmaker and cultural worker from Singapore, based in New York. They create documentary and experimental-based work informed by the politics of abolition and autonomy. Often utilizing archives and anachronistic formats (Super8, VHS), Hua’s films show different imaginings of the possibilities of liberated futures. They have been supported by programs and fellowships from the Sundance Institute, Jacob Burns Flim Center Creative Culture, NeXt Doc, IF/Then, and NYFA. Their films have screened and won awards at film festivals internationally and have been distributed by PBS and Third World Newsreel. Hua is also a Common Notions collective member.

 

Project Statement

The Feeling of Being Close to You 能靠近你的感觉 documents an attempt at healing the trauma of touch between mother and child. Driven by a pure desire for intimacy, Hua talks openly with his mother for the first time about the intergenerational trauma and abuse within their lives. Using present-day phone conversations juxtaposed with archival VHS footage, this act of filmmaking becomes a vessel to reconnect with past selves and re-write once cyclical destinies, thus generating new possibilities of living and relating.

Film/Video & New Media
Ash Goh Hua, an Asian femme, wearing a olive green puffer jacket and gazing into the camera.

Photo by Kristie Chua.

Joua Lee Grande

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Joua Lee Grande (she, her, hers) is a Minneapolis-based filmmaker determined to shed light on underrepresented experiences and truths. She has produced various short documentaries and is currently in development for her first feature, Spirited. Grande is currently a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a MediaJustice Network Fellow. She was a 2019 Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow through Kartemquin Films and previously worked as a news editor at WCCO TV 4 News. Grande is a part of various film networks, including the Asian American Documentary Network and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. She spent the past four years shaping media education programs at the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network and has developed and taught media and arts programming at institutions across Minnesota.

 

Project Statement

Joua Lee Grande is working on Spirited, a feature-length documentary about her journey as an Americanized, agnostic Hmong American woman exploring her people’s spiritual practice after being told by various shamans that she is destined to become a shaman. A dive into the second generation’s experience trying to save this ancient practice while making it their own, the film explores various shaman’s experiences in modern-day America. It explores how this spiritual practice exists in multi-racial families, diverse communities, the first generation with out and proud LGBTQ+ community members, and women coming into their power in a patriarchal culture.

Film/Video & New Media
Joua Lee Grande, a Hmong-American woman wearing a blazer with Hmong designs sewn on the shoulders and arms smiling at the camera.

Travis Gutiérrez Senger

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Travis Gutiérrez Senger (he, him, his) is a Mexican-American director, writer, and producer. His debut feature, Desert Cathedral, starring Lee Tergesen and Chaske Spencer, was released in 2016. His documentary short, White Lines and the Fever, about legendary Puerto Rican deejay Junebug, won awards at the Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW in 2010. He is currently directing ASCO: Without Permission, a feature documentary about the avant-garde art collective ASCO, executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.

 

Project Statement

ASCO: Without Permission profiles the extraordinary an East Los Angeles based Chicano artist collective, active from 1972 to 1987. ASCO merged art and activism and challenged Latinx representation in the art world, politics, and Hollywood through their incendiary performance art, photography, video, and muralism. ASCO: Without Permission examines the importance of their subversive and wildly spirited work and how it serves as a framework for Latinx representation in today’s cultural landscape. Through formal invention and the creation of original works with the next generation of artists, along with ASCO’s incredible archive and interviews, the documentary provides a call to action while celebrating a group that was far ahead of its time.

Film/Video & New Media
Travis Gutiérrez Senger directing on set.

Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich (she, her, hers) is a filmmaker and artist who has presented projects in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami, Florida, and extensively in the five boroughs of New York City. Her work has screened at the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, and at the New Orleans Film Festival, Doclisboa, and Blackstar Film Festivals. She has been featured in Essence Magazine, Studio Museum’s Studio Magazine, ARC Magazine, BOMBLOG, Guernica Magazine, and Small Axe journal, among others. She was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and is the recipient of a 2020 San Francisco Film Society Rainin Grant, a 2019 Rema Hort Mann Award, a 2019 UNDO fellowship, a 2015 TFI ESPN Future Filmmaker Award and a 2014 Princess Grace Award.

 

Project Statement

Madame Negritude is the true story of Suzanne Roussi Césaire, the rebellious Martiniquan writer and wife of the Caribbean poet and politician Aimé Césaire. The Césaires were formative members of the group of writers, artists, and philosophers involved in the black power Négritude movement. The couple and their contemporaries led the rejection of colonialism and the rise of African and Caribbean independence movements. Negritude made an impact on how the black people viewed themselves. For fifty years, the impact of writer and activist Suzanne Césaire on influential works of art and political movements has been overshadowed by the political stardom of her husband. This film will break the silence about the important contributions of Suzanne Césaire’s life and work.

Film/Video & New Media
Headshot of Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich.

Tahiel Jimenez Medina

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video
$30,000

Tahiel Jimenez Medina (he, him his; they, them, theirs) is a Colombian first-generation immigrant director. He tells stories in dedication to migrant mamas. His films about immigrant and Colombian culture are catalysts for decolonization, remembering and healing ancestral wounds, infusing themes of survival, memory and dreams with hauntingly evocative imagery. Medina has presented his films at national and international film festivals—and in local parking lots—for his community to gather and dream of new worlds. His recent awards include Twin Cities Public Television’s 2020 Project, The Next Step Grant, the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and Saint Paul Neighborhood Network’s New Angle Fellowship.

 

Project Statement

My Mama Can’t Swim is a short narrative film about the fragile and inseparable spiritual bond between an immigrant mother and her son. The film moves between memories that scarred their relationship and a magical pond where they hold one another’s vulnerable hearts afloat.

Film/Video & New Media
Tahiel Jimenez Medina, 20-something Latino masculine presenting person smiles with a camera on their hands.

Photo by Tinker Yan.

Raven Johnson

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Artist Development
$7,000

Liberian-American filmmaker Raven Johnson’s (she/her/hers) work deals with the realities of Black experiences in White spaces. Originally from Minnesota, she graduated with her MFA from NYU’s Tisch Graduate Film program and was recently named filmmaker-in-residence at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. Johnson is a 2021 Jerome Emerging Artist-in-Residence at the Anderson Center at Tower View and was recipient of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival’s Cinéfondation Residence in Paris. In 2017, Johnson was named one of AT&T’s Emerging Filmmakers for her short film, TWEEN. She is currently developing her first feature film, Ruby: Portrait of a Black Teen in an American Suburb (working title).

 

Project Statement

Ruby: Portrait of a Black Teen in an American Suburb (working title) is a coming-of-age tale about Ruby, a 16-year-old, second-generation Liberian immigrant living in a predominately white suburb outside of Minneapolis. Set in the summer of 2020 during the racial justice protest over the murder of George Floyd and at the height of Covid-19 pandemic, Ruby must deal with her immigrant parents’ impending divorce and the breakup with her closest friend.

Film/Video & New Media
Raven Johnson, a thirty-one year old, Black woman with glasses standing in front of a colorful wall mural.

Photo by Raven Jackson.

Effy Kawira

2021
Film/Video & New Media
Minnesota
Minnesota Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Kenyan native Effy Kawira (she, her, hers) began producing short films and music videos, leading her to directing and writing films. Her propulsive passion for storytelling is the driving force behind every project, and her versatility the key to adapting and collaborating with a diverse range of creatives. Kawira is dedicated to telling the stories of those who may feel voiceless and unheard. She seeks to execute content that mesmerizes the audience and aims propel the change for more representation of various communities in the media.

 

Project Statement

Apartment 208 follows the story of Isabelle Ibrahim: a young, bright-eyed, passionate yet guarded 23-year-old photographer on her search for a fresh start after a series of unfortunate mishaps in her life. She moves into an apartment of her own, marking a new beginning in her adulthood and her journey of self-love and independence. During a long day of moving, Isabelle has a fated encounter with her neighbor from the unit above, 26-year-old Ahmad, a kind and mild-mannered young military soldier. The two end up in a whirlwind of romance, and their relationship progresses rather quickly. However, it all comes to an abrupt end when Ahmad is murdered.

Film/Video & New Media
Effy Kawira, 27 year old Kenyan director and writer.

Photo by Bobby Rogers.

Nadav Kurtz

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Nadav Kurtz (he, him, his) is an Israeli/Japanese/American filmmaker and editor born in Israel and raised in Europe and the United States. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, True/False Film Fest, Sheffield Doc Fest and more, and has been showcased by the Criterion Channel, POV, and the New York Times’ Op-Docs. His directorial debut, Paraíso, won Best Documentary Short at multiple international festivals and was short-listed for an Academy Award. His direction of 35 short accounts of immigration won him three Gold Pencil awards at The One Show. Kurtz was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and was a Points North Fellow at the 2021 Camden International Film Festival. He is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

 

Project Statement

When Omar was six years old, his father Sam produced Street Thief—a fictional feature film about a burglar. Only weeks before the film’s premiere, Sam was arrested for an armed robbery and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Now twenty-two, Omar struggles under the weight of his father’s long absence, while Sam, still incarcerated, hopes to reach Omar through a creative collaboration on a screenplay. Through Kurtz’s intimate relationship with Omar’s family—whom he met while editing Street Thief—this hybrid documentary draws on a wealth of personal archival, behind-the-scenes footage, and 16mm dailies from the film Sam produced before his arrest. It follows Omar’s coming of age as he seeks freedom from his past, reckoning and reconciling on the way to healing his relationship with his father.

 

Film/Video & New Media
Nadav Kurtz, an Asian/Jewish male filmmaker, smiling at camera.

Photo by Nolis Anderson.

Eunice Lau

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

As a descendant of immigrants displaced by conflict, Eunice Lau (she, her, hers) is drawn to stories about the journey of the immigrant and the profundity of hyphenated identities. It’s this inheritance that makes her cognizant of injustice and makes her storytelling personal. Her feature documentary Accept the Call, set in Minnesota’s Somali community, explores the impact of injustice and intergenerational trauma. It aired on PBS’ Independent Lens after screening at acclaimed film festivals. Her work has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Woodstock Film Festival, ITVS, Chicken & Egg Pictures, North Point Institute, and YouTube Impact Lab. A Masters of Fine Arts in film graduate from NYU, Lau was born and raised in Singapore and now lives in Queens on Lenape land.

 

Project Statement

Son of the Soil is a documentary film about the exigency of our ecocide told through the story of David Buckel, a lawyer-turned-environmentalist who set himself on fire in the name of climate change. Once celebrated for being a public defender of LGBTQ rights and for creating America’s largest hand-powered compost sites, David’s suicide captures the trauma and impact of climate change on our psyche. By documenting David’s journey as he struggled against the political expedient defunding of his cherished compost site, Lau’s documentary reveals how our profit-driven economy compels politicians to pay lip service to the climate movement. The film is also a love story to the world, capturing the zeal of his protégé Domingo Morales as he expands composting across public housing in NYC.

Film/Video & New Media
An Asian woman filmmaker smiling into the camera, resting her chin in her hand.

Photo by Wong Maye-E.

Sonia Malfa

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video Finalist Award
$5,000

Sonia Malfa (pronoun flexible) is a filmmaker who incorporates her love of the surreal, culture, and nature with a passion for visual poetry and storytelling. Malfa’s short experimental documentary Simone: A Survivor’s Story won a Clio Award, Webby Award (Jury), and was shortlisted at the 1.4 Awards, One Show Awards and Kinsale Shark Awards. It also screened at the Atlanta Film Festival. Her narrative short, Close Your Eyes, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Malfa has been awarded the NYSCA Individual Artist grant and was selected for the DGA/AICP Commercial Director’s Diversity Program. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in American Studies (Gender and Race Relations).

 

Project Statement

Following the death of her father, a young poet seizes the opportunity to escape her controlling mother by embarking on a magical, cross-country journey. It’s Always Sunny is a queer coming-of-age road trip drama of a young, Black woman’s empowering journey of self-discovery. The film creates a distinct cinematic style that blends poetry and narrative drama exploring storytelling beyond genre molds. Co-written by Sonia Malfa and Trae Harris, the film will be Malfa’s feature directorial debut with Trae Harris performing the lead character, Sunflower.

Film/Video & New Media
Sonia Malfa, a Puerto Rican-American who grew up in Buffalo and loves the magic of snow.

Photo by Delphine Diallo.

Dean Colin Marcial

2021
Film/Video & New Media
New York City
New York City Film and Video
$30,000

Dean Colin Marcial (he, him, his) is an international filmmaker working in New York and Manila. His award-winning films have been screened at Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, Sitges Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, and Slamdance. Several of his shorts are Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week selections and featured on VICE, CNN, and Filmmaker Magazine. He co-founded Calavera USA in 2010. This Brooklyn-based production company’s credits include All That I Am (SXSW Special Jury Prize 2013, distributed by Gunpowder & Sky), Fishtail (Tribeca Film Festival 2014, distributed by Netflix), and Yearbook (Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize 2014 and 25+ awards, 125+ festivals). In 2017, he was a recipient of the Tribeca All Access Grant and Tribeca All Access Alumni Grant and shortlisted for the Russo Brothers Fellowship.

 

Project Statement

The Green Guerrillas chronicles the rise and fall of an impassioned eco-terrorist group over an explosive decade in the Philippines. When they were young, they were reckless—and when they grow up, they face off.  Jess, Eddie, and Emilia were best friends, a love triangle, and the leaders of an environmental action group who called themselves The Green Guerrillas. They staged protests and demonstrations by day--and by night, they organized tree-spiking, tree-sitting, and sabotage. At the heart of the film are visionaries whose ideals collide. Their emotions and history run deep. Three people, who long to be together, but keep themselves unrequited. In Tagalog this is called “hugot”—a deeply-felt aching inside your bones and body, a wistful longing for something that may never be.

Film/Video & New Media
A self portrait of Dean Colin Marcial, a thirty-something Filipino filmmaker. Not pictured, his cat Jojo on his lap.