For the first time in Staten Island, New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) presents the Women Filmmakers: Immigrant Stories Screening Series — a free screening series of work by women filmmakers focusing on the immigrant experience throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Filmmakers will be available for a Q&A and refreshments will be available after the screening.
Program:
Las Mananitas
12 mins, directed by Gabriella Moses
Once upon a time there lived Ana Isabel, a young girl tempted to lose her virginity the night of her Quinceañera, that is, until an unexpected visit from the Virgin Mary in a frying pan gives her some food for thought…
Gabriella A. Moses is a director and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her thesis film Las Mañanitas was screened at numerous festivals including NYU’s First Run Film Festival where it won Best Ensemble Cast, Production Design and Score and the Katra Film Fest Series where it won Best Film. Moses was selected by the Hispanic Coalition of NY as one of their 2015 Rising Latino Stars. She also served as a Shadow Director for the 2015 ABC Diversity Showcase. Her feature film script for Leche was a Semi-Finalist for the Latino Screenwriting Project sponsored by the Sundance Institute. Moses has just completed two shorts for 2016 festival submissions: Sticky Fingers and Leche. Sticky Fingers premiered at the Frameline Film Festival and Leche premiered at San Antonio’s CineFestival. Leche is currently in development as her directorial debut feature and was accepted into the 2016 Sundance Creative Producer Labs and the 2017 NYWIFT’s “From Script to Pre-Production” Workshop. Moses plans to begin principal photography in late 2017.
Georgian Bread
20 mins, directed by Katie Orjonikidze-Casey
Legendary Georgian actor Kakhi Kavsadze plays George, an immigrant, who despite his age and distance from his country, tries to work hard and keep up with his traditions and dignity. The story takes place in Brooklyn, in a city with its own set of rules, where we find young businessman Michael struggling to keep his bakery business going. Even thought he deeply loves and respects George, he has the opportunity to swap his cozy little Georgian bakery for a sushi place that will be more profitable for his business. In the globalization era, this story demonstrates that people of different generations, cultures, and languages can still have a love and understanding for each other.
Katie Orjonikidze-Casey is an award-winning director, writer and producer. She got her Master’s in Journalism back in her country, Georgia, at Tbilisi State University, and has been a political reporter over 10 years. When she came to the USA, she started writing stories about immigrants, and publishing them in various magazines and newspapers. At the same time she attended directing and producing classes at NYU and later received a BA in Art, majoring in Film Production at Brooklyn College. Orjonikidze-Casey’s credits include a number of short films based on true immigrant stories. Her film The Parrot was screened at 8 international film festivals. She was awarded an “Emerging Female Director Award” from NYWIFT for the film Nana. She has also received a Royal Reel award at the Canada International Film Festival and her films have been screened at Cannes and Berlinale Film Festivals. Orjonikidze-Casey is in pre-production on her new film The Return.
Grandma Lumen’s Filipino Purple Yam Pudding
10 mins, directed by Caroline Shin
Ube halaya (sometimes spelled “halayang”) is a Filipino dessert made from boiled and mashed purple yam. And it’s one of Grandma Lumen’s absolute favorite Filipino foods. So even after she left the Philippines to become a public school teacher in the Bronx, she never forgot her uncle’s ube halaya recipe in the 40+ years she’s lived in New York.
Caroline Shin is a food and culture journalist, telling stories via video, photo, and text. She was a video producer at New York Magazine before officially launching her baby, Cooking with Granny (CWG), in 2015, and has since developed fun food pop-ups with immigrant grannies who, as in the web series, tell rich, cultural stories as they cook their favorite family recipes. CWG has been featured on NBC, Food & Wine, the Apollo Theater, among others. For Shin, CWG is about immigrant representation in food media both in front of and behind the camera, celebration of women’s contributions to food, and the understanding that from hamburgers to Korean barbecue, immigrants have made America delicious. This proud Queens girl holds an M.S. from Columbia Journalism School and a B.A. from Brown University. As a volunteer and member of the Young Professionals Board of Womankind, she helps immigrant women get out of and recover from violence.
Date: Thursday, June 7, 2018
Time: 7 PM
Venue: Conference House 7455 Hylan Blvd Staten Island, NY, 10307
FREE
A Special Thanks to City Council Member Joe Borelli for support of the Cultural Immigrant Initiative.
7455 Hylan Blvd Staten Island NY 10307
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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
