Awards & Fellowships   

The Academy membership invitations 

Every year, The Academy invites a new class of artists and executives to join the Oscar voting body. This year, 529 invitations were sent out, and several of Chicken & Egg’s supported filmmakers received the honor. This class is made up of 42% women, 56% from underrepresented communities, and 53% from countries outside the U.S. If all invitees accept, the membership count will be over 11,000—meaning a more diverse and global voting body! 

Congrats to our supported filmmakers: ✦ Amber Fares ✦ Isabel Castro ✦ Mohammedreza Eyni ✦ Rea Tajiri ✦ Sara Khaki ✦ Shalini Kantayya

Cannes Docs

Held May 14–19 on the French Riviera, the documentary strand of the Cannes Film Festival showcases international nonfiction work in progress, completed films, and industry conversations.

✦ (AlumNest) Tana Gilbert's Burning Daddy won the Transperfect Post Production Award

Tribeca Festival 

Held annually in June across Manhattan, Tribeca celebrates storytelling in all its forms: film, TV, music, podcasts, games, and immersive art. 

✦ Natalie Baszile and Hyacinth Parker’s Harvest received the Albert Maysles Award Special Jury Mention

Sheffield DocFest 

One of the world’s leading documentary festivals, Sheffield brought together filmmakers, industry professionals, and audiences in the UK June 10–15.

✦ Jeanie Finlay’s All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea received a Youth Jury Award Special Mention

Ford Foundation/Just Films

In 2025, $4.8 million was allocated to support artist-driven documentaries that advance justice, equity, and inclusion. Several AlumNest filmmakers' projects were supported:

✦ Brit Fryer is producing two supported projects: The Gardeners and Adam's Apple ✦ Cristina Ibarra's All Other Parts ✦ Dawn Porter's Dance of a Lifetime and Winnie and Nelson ✦ Deann Borshay Liem's Relative Strangers ✦ Lynn Novick's Crime and Punishment in America ✦ Yoruba Richen's Jack Whitten: A Cosmic Soul  

IDA Greatest Docs of the 21st Century

Documentary magazine asked IDA members and contributors to pick the “Greatest Docs of the 21st Century.” This June, they released a Top 25 list as voted on by the community as well as a curated Singular Picks list made up of projects that garnered a single vote across all ballots. 

In the Top 25 list ✦ Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead and Cameraperson

In the Top 25 Singular Picks ✦ Tatiana Huezo’s Tempestad ✦ Mila Turajlić’s The Other Side of Everything

Festivals & Screenings 

✦ Brittany Shyne's Seeds closed its Southern tour on Juneteenth at Violet Crown Dallas in Texas

Baby Doe hits US theaters

Jessica Earnshaw’s Baby Doe has released their trailer ahead of an exciting run of screenings this July:

✦ New York: DCTV (July 10–16)  ✦ Los Angeles: Leammle Glendale and NoHo (July 14 & 15) ✦ Nantucket: Dreamland (July 15) ✦ San Francisco: The Roxie Theater (July 19) 

Streaming 

✦ Amber Fares' Coexistence My Ass! is available for streaming on Kinema ✦ Tatiana Huezo's The Echo is streaming on Mubi ✦ Violet Du Feng's The Dating Game and Maia Lekow and Christopher King's How to Build a Library are part of POV Season 39 

Job well done

✦ Ashley O’Shay launched Black Girl Fumbles With a Camera, a new educational offering for emerging filmmakers. ✦ Jess Devaney has been named the new leader of Perspective Films, an initiative launched by Perspective Fund to provide funding and producing support for culture, narrative, and change-focused documentaries. ✦ Jumana Manna launched Sebastia, an 800m2 work of art commissioned by KORO – Public Art Norway. Named after a Palestinian village and archaeological site, the work explores provenance, memory, and stone as a carrier of histories of struggle, extraction, and preservation.