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DocuClub screenings: Off and Running

Still from Off and Running.

We are happy to announce a partnership with Tribeca All Access for our November edition. Our next DocuClub screening will take place on Tuesday, November 25, at 7 p.m, at Tribeca Screening Room (375 Greenwich, at the corner of Franklin Street). Our moderator will be Fernanda Rossi, who is a writer, filmmaker and story consultant. She has worked on over 150 documentaries, fiction scripts and fundraising trailers. She also pens the columns “Ask the Doc Doctor” for Release Print and “The Doc Doctor’s Clinic” for DER, the Documentary Educational Resources. She is the author of Trailer Mechanics: A Guide to Making Your Documentary Fundraising Trailer.

Please join us as we screen Off and Running by Nicole Opper. At her high school, she is known as “the black track star.” In her Brooklyn neighborhood, she’s the adopted daughter of white Jewish lesbians with an older Puerto Rican brother and a younger Korean brother. At home, she is simply Avery, the one who fills the house with joy and laughter. But after recently locating her birth mother in Texas, Avery finds herself entrenched in the search for her roots, and growing increasingly alienated from her adoptive family. The documentary follows Avery to the brink of adulthood, exploring the strength of family bonds and the lengths some people must go to become themselves.

Director Nicole Opper’s most recent project was producing the five-part documentary series LSS for Here! Networks, America’s premium gay television network. Her documentary short, Song of Hannah, is distributed by The National Center for Jewish Film. She also line-produced Macky Alston’s The Killer Within, and associate-produced Peter Miller’s Sacco and Vanzetti. Off and Running, Opper’s feature-length debut, is a co-production of ITVS, with support from The Foundation for Jewish Culture, The National Black Programming Consortium and The Puffin Foundation.

Sharese Bullock is Off and Running’s Producer. She is Strategic Partnerships and Marketing Manager at global youth media network Listen Up! She has led service and international education programs, including filmmaking exchanges for young producers throughout the United Kingdom with the “Experiment in International Living” (2005, 2006) and India with Adobe Youth Voices (2006). Bullock also led the outreach and distribution for “Youth Speak Out on Education” (PBS, 2004) and Beyond Borders (Independent Film Channel/Peabody Award, 2006). She serves on the board of directors for the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and the Advisory Board for the University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia at Temple University.

Jacob Akira Okada serves as Cinematographer/Associate Producer. He directed and shot the documentary Curtis, about the journey of a gay African American man living with AIDS and surviving through art. The film received an honorable mention at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and screened at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. The short also aired on the PBS series Reel New York.

Executive Producer Macky Alston is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose works include Hard Road Home (premiered SXSW 2007, aired on PBS’ Independent Lens 2008), The Killer Within (premiered Toronto International Film Festival 2006, aired on Discovery Channel 2007), and Questioning Faith (premiered Full Frame Film Festival and Hot Docs International Film Festival and aired on HBO/Cinemax 2002).

Sandra Itkoff, Executive Producer, has been creating and producing award-winning documentary films for over thirteen years and has won such distinguished awards as the duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award. Presently, she is producing Heat Wave: An Unnatural Disaster, with director Judith Helfand. She worked on Prisoner of Paradise for Alliance Atlantis and PBS, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to: docuclub@artsengine.net.

Admission is free to current DocuClub members and $5 for non-members.

Membership is an annual $40, which includes free admission to all DocuClub events. To join or renew, please go to:

www.artsengine.net/store/#tools_consul

Tribeca All Access (TAA), a program of the Tribeca Film Institute, provides a forum where high-level film industry executives can meet with a diverse and exceptionally talented group of U.S.-based filmmakers. The core of the program begins with an intense six days of panels, meetings, and networking opportunities during the Tribeca Film Festival. At the conclusion of those six days, juried awards totaling $60,000 will be presented. The 2009 program will take place April 20 - 25.

Entering into its sixth year, Tribeca All Access serves as an unrivaled platform for emerging and established filmmakers from traditionally under-represented communities in the film industry to advance their careers and potentially find funding and exposure for their feature length screenplay or documentary work-in-progress. Program alumni are eligible for year-round support through TAA OnTrack which offers educational panels and workshops; TFI hosted presentation screenings; promotional support for completed films; and the use of digital filmmaking and editing equipment.