
Announcement of our First Doc Film Grantee and Awardee Docket!
This year at Kindle these are the questions we’re seeking to answer as we focus our giving entirely within the broad field of documentary. We’ve always been passionate and committed to documentary and have supported several groundbreaking feature films over the years. This year we’re looking at this medium of doc film in all its creative and possible permutations and all our grantmaking will go towards this wide field in 2015.
For us it’s always been important to support those people and projects that are making beautiful and even controversial dents in public conversation and policy. Documentary makers of all kinds have a specific insight into the stories that need telling and we are psyched to present our first docket that exemplifies the true breadth and power that documentary has to offer.
Ranging from feature length documentary films to fantastical music videos. From slicing up current events with rap and humour to experimental and even esoteric short-form films. From the change-making power of first person narratives and the grassroots to the creation of new doc media to support social change. This group of storytellers bursts open the doors for discovery, reflection and radical action.
All grants are made possible through the Kindle Project Fund of the Common Counsel Foundation and all awards are made possible through the Kindle Project LLC.
Vuslat Karan is a filmmaker living in Istanbul with BFA in Film and Television from Marmara University. Her short films Tangled (2011) and Scorpion (2010) debuted at !f istanbul film festival. She also wrote and directed a documentary-narrative hybrid short Uprooting From the City (2006) about the urban transformation, gentrification and relocation of the Romany neighborhoods in Istanbul.
Burcu Melekoglu works as a director and editor in Istanbul. She received a BSE in Systems Engineering from University of Pennsylvania and MA from UCLA School of Film and Television. Previously she worked as an assistant director in commercials, TV and film projects in LA. Short Documentary Work: My First Second Home (2006, Philadelphia IGLF Festival, Chicago Reeling Festival, Girl Fest Hawaii, Poppy Jasper, Out for Reel), Reiki (2002), Bamako (2000).
We are currently developing a number of cinematic propositions that deal with issues as wide ranging as war and genocide through to environmental destruction and species extinction.
We are really excited to be using a grant from Kindle to help take these projects into a production phase.
A fusion of biting satire, rigorous academic research, anarchic home-made costuming, and deftly-performed rap rhyming, Juice Rap News is a cult success story of the interwebs which quickly garnered a loyal online following, racking up over 12 million views over 30 episodes, and featuring cameos with icons and influential figures such as Julian Assange, Noam Chomsky, Normal Finkelstein and Senator Scott Ludlam.
The hard-hitting and hilarious news show broadcasts free on YouTube and is created by Giordano Nanni and Hugo Farrant, who combine their skills of philosophy, historical perspective, comedy and rap together into a unique and addictive brew. The team are now working on Season 4 of the series, and are looking forward to opening more people’s eyes to the truth of the show’s slogan: History Is Happening.
Purely issue-based communications have a limited ability to reach and move people, and there seems to be an endless stream of issues to be addressed. ReStory attempts to address the shortcomings of the un-contextualized, siloed, issue-based communications. ReSTORY drops down a level to grasp and map the menu of cultural assumptions that are at the root of nearly all issues we currently face. Oriented within the illuminated landscape of predominantly unspoken and unacknowledged assumptions, the “reSTORY activist” is radically empowered, armed with unprecedented context and perspective.
Also, we're happy to announce our latest Makers Muse recipient, Grant C. Dull of ZZK Records!
We happened upon ZZK Records recently and knew they simply had to be included in our artists line up this year. With sounds and movements from the south, Grant and his team are welcome members of our 2015 Makers Muse group!
ZZK Records was born out of a passion for music and a camaraderie that forms when a group of people are all moving towards a similar goal through the art of creation and excitement, movement and dance.
What started as a weekly dance party focused on local emerging sounds from Argentina, has turned into something nothing short of a movement. The club night quickly turned into a record label and artist collective, the world becoming it’s stage. 7 years later the ZZK crew has performed in more than 150 cities on 5 continents, the label has started to branch out of Argentina and sign artists from across the region and a documentary films arm of the label has started to take shape, with it’s 1st project, The Nu LatAm Sound currently in development.
ZZK Director Grant C. Dull first moved to Buenos Aires in 1999 and then moved back 3 more times after doing language and humanitarian work around the world. From Texas via California, culture and music and adventure are what drives him and in ZZK it manifested all together. With a team of 2 Argentine DJ partners and ever growing group of artists spanning music, design, illustration, video and photography, Grant set out to tell the ZZK story to the world.
The label is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to keep the project moving forward.