Each filmmaker submitted an application that was judged by a selection committee that included professional filmmakers and entertainment industry executives. Judith James, chair of the WIF/GM Alliance, says "We congratulate each of these women for the initiative, drive and creativity that will help them establish and further their careers in film and television... The business and creative foundation provided to grant winners does open doors and benefits both the new talent and the industry."The "2007 WIF-GM Acceleration Grant for Emerging Filmmakers" winners are:
Jamie Taucher, Sedona, Ariz. — A graduate from Prescott College where she earned a B.A. in studies in globalization with an emphasis in eco-psychology.
Julia Kots, New York, N.Y. — Kots, originally from the Ukraine, is currently an M.F.A. candidate in the film program at Columbia University's School for the Arts.
Connie M. Florez, Honolulu, Hawaii — Florez has been working in the Hawaii film and television industry for 10 years. Her documentary "The Glades Project," about the shift in attitude and behavior toward the native Hawaiian cultural identity of Mahus/trans-gendered community during the '60s, '70s and '80s, won multiple awards. Florez currently serves as a lecturer and instructor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa-Academy for Creative Media, where she teaches cinematic and digital narrative production, and also serves as director of Film Programming for the Honolulu Gay and Lesbian Cultural Foundation/Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival.
Joyce Lee, San Francisco, Calif. — Lee has dedicated her craft to telling stories and exploring the themes of the immigrant experience through recanting her own experiences as an Asian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. when she was a child at the end of the 1960s. Her production company, Rising Chimera Productions, is based in San Francisco.
Mabel Valdiviezo, San Francisco, Calif. — Valdiviezo has been making documentary, narrative and experimental films for nearly 10 years and recently produced a segment for KQED's SPARK arts series, profiling Chilean playwright Carlos Baron and Nobel Prize-winning poet and political figure Pablo Neruda. Her company Haiku Films is based in San Francisco.
