TFI Media Arts Fellowships Provide Cash, Confidence

Nothing gets a bunch of indie filmmakers out to a party like the promise of food, booze, and money. And though everyone at Tuesday night’s shindig in honor of the Tribeca Film Institute's 2008 Media Arts Fellowships got to partake of the plentiful wine and hors d’oeuvres laid out at the New York Academy of Art, it was a select 22 of the film, video, and multimedia artists in attendance who found themselves on the receiving end of the Media Arts grants, which are handed out by the Tribeca Film Institute and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal skipped the edibles and headed straight for the podium upon her arrival at the event, proceeding to tell the crowd that the nearly $1 million in grants given out this year represent an investment in the film community’s future. Notables such as legendary documentarian Albert Maysles were on hand as well to cheer on the newly cash-infused emerging talents. “The money’s great, the money is really important,” noted director Braden King (pictured), one of the 2008 Media Arts Fellows. “But honestly, I think anybody who works as an artist spends so much time in his or her own little hole, privately pursuing some quixotic project, that what winds up being even more meaningful than the money is the acknowledgment, the pat on the back that a grant like this represents. It’s like, all of a sudden there are people telling you that what you’re working on is worth something. It’s not just a crazy idea.”

King, for his part, is planning to put his Rockefeller banknotes to use furthering the development of his feature, HERE; other projects range from Judith Helfand’s documentary Heat Wave: An Unnatural Disaster to Naomi Uman’s series of four 16 mm films, The Ukrainian Time Machine and Joe Davis’ installation of a lightning-powered lighthouse. Now that’s one crazy idea whose time has come.