National Mediamaker Program
Shining Light on Families Experiencing Homelessness
In one of the most challenging years in recent history, BAVC Media has had the privilege of collaborating with an award-winning team of media makers and Hamilton Families, a nonprofit organization with a mission to end family homlessness in the Bay Area. BAVC Media commissioned six award-winning alum from the MediaMaker Fellowship to create a series of video and audio documentaries about Bay Area families.
BAVC Media Announces 2021 MediaMaker Fellows
One of the Longest Standing, Top-tier Programs in the Country for Investing in Diverse Emerging Documentary Filmmakers, Celebrates its New 2021 Fellows
An Interview with Niema Jordan
We are thrilled to announce Niema Jordan as Co-Director of our MediaMaker Fellowship! Niema is a storyteller from Oakland, California. She is an alum of Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism and UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Her film, Oasis, tells the story of a struggling medical clinic that treats underserved populations battling Hepatitis C. Her production credits include The Chosen Life, Fatherless, Bobby Kennedy for President, and Vernon Jordan: Make It Plain. She is currently a story producer and the host of the podcast, Fertility, Mothering, and Other Things. Jordan serves on the board of Oakland Kids First. [...]
BAVC Media Announces New MediaMaker Connect Mentorship Program
In the spirit of building the field, supporting nonfiction filmmakers to complete their projects, and facilitating connections between filmmakers at different stages of their careers, BAVC Media is proud to be able to provide 19 MediaMaker Fellowship alumni, along with 11 emerging filmmakers, with 5-months of one-on-one mentorship. Thanks to a generous award from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, 2020 will be the inaugural year of MediaMaker Connect, a new component of the MediaMaker Fellowship. Between April and September of 2020, 30 filmmakers will receive feedback and counsel from industry professionals addressing their unique challenges from story development to post-production roadblocks. [...]
BAVC Media Announces 2020 MediaMaker Fellows
BAVC Media is thrilled to announce 2020 MediaMaker Fellows and Alumni Grants. A full list of recipients is below. The MediaMaker Fellowship is an artist development program that provides nonfiction filmmakers with critical mentorship, access to industry contacts, structure for workshopping projects in an inclusive and collaborative environment, and career-long relationships with peers. For the 2020 Fellowship, BAVC Media is awarding $8,000 unrestricted funding to 10 diverse filmmakers in addition to an immersive 8-month experience that includes intimate feedback sessions, all-access travel to True/False Film Festival and the International Documentary Association's Getting Real Conference, learning opportunities with seasoned experts in the [...]
BAVC Media Announces the 2019 MediaMaker Fellows
BAVC Media is thrilled to announce the multiplatform documentary makers and projects that will receive the 2019 MediaMaker Fellowship award. A full list of recipients is below. The 2019 MediaMaker Fellows are: Brenda Avila-Hanna, Libertad (Santa Cruz, CA); Brittany Shyne, Seeds (Dayton, OH); Christian Figueroa, Flowers of May (San Francisco, CA); Debra Schaffner, Curse of the Mutant Heirloom (Oakland, CA); Emily Cohen Ibañez, Fruits of Labor (Oakland, CA); Katy Scoggin, Flood (Brooklyn, NY); Lagueria Davis, Black Barbie: A Documentary (Los Angeles, CA); Rashaad Newsome, Get Your 10s (Brooklyn, NY); Taimi Arvidson, Hossain (Brooklyn, NY); Vicky Du, Light of the Setting Sun [...]
Interviews with former Fellows Emelie Mahdavian and Kristina Motwani about 2019 Sundance Special Jury Prize Winner “Midnight Traveler”
When the Taliban puts a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee with his wife and two young daughters. Capturing their uncertain journey, Fazili shows firsthand the dangers facing refugees seeking asylum and the love shared between a family on the run. Emelie Mahdavian was a 2017 BAVC Mediamaker Fellow when “Midnight Traveler” was in production. The film won a Special Jury Prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Emilie, what is your our role/credit on the film? Producer/Writer/Editor How did you come to tell this story? Hassan Fazili and I met through [...]
An Interview with Jacqueline Olive: Director, Producer, & Writer of “Always in Season,” Winner of a Sundance 2019 Special Jury Prize
In the small town of Bladenboro, NC, seventeen-year-old Lennon Lacy, was found hanging from a swing set on August 29, 2014. Despite inconsistencies in the evidence, local officials quickly ruled Lennon’s death a suicide, but his mother, Claudia, believes Lennon was lynched. ALWAYS IN SEASON explores the lingering impact of more than a century of lynching African Americans and connects this form of racial terrorism with racial violence today. At the height of their popularity, lynchings attracted thousands of white men, women, and children spectators. They were public events, complete with souvenirs and photographs. Train seats were even specially reserved [...]
ICYMI: National MediaMaker Fellows Making Waves
Our 2017 National MediaMaker Fellows head to Washington D.C. this month for the 3rd annual Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival, which “celebrates the finest new films inspired by the investigative instinct.” Pausing on this phrase, it struck me just how often the projects that come out of the Fellowship began with a simple question, or a hunch or a scenario that required further investigation. We don’t often identify independent filmmakers as investigators, but I think that a sense of purposeful curiosity is the seed of many stories and a force which shapes the course of production. Every March we welcome [...]
2016 National MediaMaker: Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz
Around 4am on the morning of December 12, 2016, nearly 30 men, women and children were swaddling themselves in their warmest winter shawls, preparing hot beans and hot cocoa, and scooping up candles, toddlers, and guitars to step out into the Central Valley pre-dawn frost to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few miles north, at a hotel in the center of Stockton, two filmmakers had traveled a distance to line up their batteries and SD cards, slip on their coats, and map their way in the dark to the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center to record this ritual. For me. And I, 3,000 miles away, was [...]
