AFS Alumni Get Cinereach Grants

The Cinereach Foundation has already awarded over $2.5 million to 40-plus projects in its brief 3-year history. Fortunately, a couple of projects with AFS connections are among those on their summer grant announcement list:

PJ Raval’s Untitled Gay Retiree Documentary will follow several LGBTQ seniors navigating “the adventures, challenges and surprises of their ‘golden years’ in LGBTQ-friendly retirement communities.” The film was also a 2009 TFPF recipient, gaining PJ his third grant from AFS – the first two for TRINIDAD, his award-winning doc he co-directed with Jay Hodges. This just keeps the good news rolling for PJ – he was voted “Best Emergent Local Filmmaker” in the 2009 Austin Chronicle Best of Austin awards earlier this month.

David Redmon & Ashley Sabin’s feature doc NOAH’S ARC examines “Russian and US modeling scouts scouring Siberian landscapes in search of teen girls to become models in Tokyo.” David & Ashley are incredibly prolific documentarians (their films include MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA, KAMP KATRINA, INTIMIDAD, and their most recent, INVISIBLE GIRLFRIEND, which screened at AFS as a Doc-in-Progress in 2008) and are now incredibly prolific distributors, as well. Their DVD label Carnivalesque Films puts out some of the best fiction and non-fiction films from the festival circuit (upcoming titles include Alex Karpovsky’s WOODPECKER, an AFS Narratives-in-Progress alum and Tom Quinn’s Slamdance-winning THE NEW YEAR PARADE).

Both films will receive grants between $15-25,000 from Cinereach. Over 600 projects from 70 countries applied (and here I thought 240+ TFPF entries were a lot to deal with).

Congrats to PJ, David & Ashley. Can’t wait to see these films!

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