Chicken & Egg Films, the organization that champions women and gender-expansive documentary filmmakers with funding, mentorship, and access, today announced its 2025 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees. Nine feature documentary film projects, directed or co-directed by first- or second-time directors, will each receive year-long mentorship and a $40,000 grant, to be put towards production. Additionally, four projects will each receive a $10,000 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist grant.

“We are extremely proud to be supporting this diverse group of talented filmmakers as we embark on a year-long journey to advance their projects by helping them navigate craft, industry access, career development, and beyond,” said Kiyoko McCrae, Program Director at Chicken & Egg Films. She continued, “This year’s projects are anchored in themes of home: what it means to nurture and protect one’s community, as well as what it means to survive and thrive in the face of displacement. In our increasingly fraught and fragmented world, these projects inspire us to reflect on the question, “what is home?””

Home can mean creating a new sense of belonging, as in Patrick G. Lee’s Untitled KQT Project about a pair of trans public figures in Seoul, Korea, building their chosen family; or finding your way in a place that’s wholly new, as in Cherine Karam’s Dépôt-Vente about a Beirut thrift shop that embodies the hometown Karam left behind. Several films also hone in on the singularity of place, such as Resita Cox’s Basketball Heaven, which portraits Kinston, North Carolina, the town that has produced the greatest number of NBA players in the world; as well as Natalie Baszile and Hyacinth Parker’s Harvest and Cody Stickel’s A Texas Son, both of which explore big dreams and intimate relationships informed by the unique alchemy of the South. 

The cohort also includes stories about honoring family and strong lineages of resistance. In INDÍGENA, Siku Allooloo illuminates a rich history of Taíno endurance by retracing her mother’s work in the Red Power Movement; and in Grace Pimentel Simbulan’s Letters From the Revolution, the filmmaker documents the five-decade civil war in the Philippines through the lens of her parents’ archival letters. 

Rounding out the 2025 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees are Aurora Brachman’s Dear You, about a woman trapped in the US asylum system for a decade after escaping an abusive marriage; and Fiona Guy Hall and Milton Guillén’s My Skin and I, a hybrid doc about an exiled Nicaraguan music producer living in Berlin with a dangerous creative obsession.

Among the 13 filmmaking teams receiving funding are directors hailing from Lebanon, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Norway, Syria, Iran, Sweden, Canada, the UK, and the US. They represent a range of backgrounds in the documentary field and beyond: Natalie Baszile is a prolific writer whose novel Queen Sugar was adapted for television and co-produced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey for OWN, and is co-directing Harvest with her daughter Hyacinth Parker; Siku Allooloo (INDÍGENA) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work has been featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial; Cherine Karam (Dépôt-Vente)and Milton Guillén (My Skin and I) are cultural and film festival workers respectively; and Patrick G. Lee (Untitled KQT Project) is a community organizer who’s previously worked at the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance. The cohort also comprises Emmy-Award winners Resita Cox (Basketball Heaven) and Aurora Brachman (Dear You). Brachman will premiere her Chicken & Egg Films-supported short film Hold Me Close at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Past participants of the (Egg)celerator Lab include Jessica Kingdon, director of Oscar-nominated and Tribeca Film Festival Award-winning Ascension; Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, directors of Oscar nominated Writing With Fire, which was also the recipient of the Sundance Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary competition; Viv Li, whose short film Across the Waters received the Lights On Women’s Worth Award at Cannes Film Festival 2024; Isabel Castro, whose film Mija premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2022 and who returns to Sundance in 2025 with new film Selena y los Dinos; and Jude Chehab, whose film Q won the Tribeca Film Festival’s Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. 

The 2025 (Egg)celerator Lab projects and filmmakers are: 

A Texas Son Director: Cody Stickels (US) Producer: Chelsea Moore A loving portrait from a transgender son to his father as their lives intersect with mental health, identity, and masculinity over a ten-year journey.

Basketball Heaven Director: Resita Cox (US) Producer: Crystal Isaac A portrait of the love, struggle, and triumph found in Kinston, North Carolina—the town that has produced the greatest number of NBA players in the world.

Dear You Director/Producer: Aurora Brachman (US) Producer: Khaula Malik After escaping an abusive marriage and fleeing to the US, a woman finds herself trapped in the US asylum system for a decade.

Dépôt-Vente  Director/Producer: Cherine Karam (LEBANON, US) Producers: Ashley J. Smith, Mario Adamson Co-Producer: Clara Harris After moving to a new country for love, a filmmaker creates a loving portrait of a Beirut thrift shop that embodies the spirit of her home in Lebanon.

Harvest  Directors: Natalie Baszile (US), Hyacinth Parker (US) Producers: Trevite Willis, Dawn Porter The Nelsons aspire to be the USA’s biggest farmers, but after two years of poor harvests, the new year holds as much uncertainty as opportunity. 

INDÍGENA Director: Siku Allooloo (CANADA) Co-Producer: Jessica Hallenbeck A filmmaker retraces her mother’s work as an activist and journalist in the Red Power Movement, bringing to light 500 years of Taíno resistance and igniting her own journey of reclamation.

Letters From the Revolution Director: Grace Pimentel Simbulan (PHILIPPINES) Producer: Jewel Maranan Against the backdrop of five decades of civil war in the Philippines, a filmmaker traces her parents’ story of love, family, and survival through an archive of their letters. 

My Skin and I Co-Directors/Producers: Fiona Guy Hall (US), Milton Guillén (NICARAGUA) Co-Producers: May Odeh, Zorana Mušikić An exiled Nicaraguan music producer living in Berlin pursues a dangerous creative obsession that he fears conflicts with the needs of his family.

Untitled KQT Project   Director/Producer: Patrick G. Lee (US) Two openly trans public figures in Seoul, Korea, nurture a chosen family of nightlife performers as they confront societal surveillance, biological relatives, and internalized fears.

The 2025 (Egg)celerator Lab finalist projects and filmmakers are: 

Autumn of the Patriarch Director: Anna Shishova-Bogolubova (NORWAY) Producer: Torstein Grude Co-Producer: Iikka Vehkalahti An exploration of the survival strategies of people living inside the modern Russian dictatorship—a formidable force of mass murder—through personal experiences of deep fear and loss of integrity as well as of freedom. 

House No. 7 Director: Rama Abdi (SYRIA) Producer: Hazar Yazji As three women try to gain independence in a complex post-war Syria, they forge a physical space for their realities to exist in a rented house.

I am an Olive Tree Director: Yasaman Sharifmanesh (IRAN, SWEDEN) Producer: Erika Malmgren, Kristofer Henell Amid geopolitical turmoil in a Syrian refugee camp, a resilient 50-year-old Kurdish woman unites her community, embodying resistance and the pursuit of democracy.

Project M A female revolutionary leads a global fight against one of the world’s most misogynistic regimes. Additional information about this project is currently confidential.