Women Filmmakers: Immigrant Stories 2017 – Shorts Program

Women Filmmakers: Immigrant Stories 2017 – Shorts Program

For a third season, New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) presents the Women Filmmakers: Immigrant Stories — a free screening series of work by women filmmakers focusing on the immigrant experience throughout the five boroughs of New York City. This series showcases a themed exhibition of short and feature-length films. Join us for the opening night screening of short films featuring: Gabriella A. Moses’ Las Mañanitas, Easmanie Michel’s Minutes to Say Hi, Diane Weipert’s Niñera and Alice Neff’s Poisonberry.

Date: Monday, February 27th, 2017

Time: 6:30PM

Location: Maspeth Town Hall, 53-37 72nd Street, Maspeth NY 11378

From Manhattan: Take the 7, M, F train (towards Flushing) then take the Q18, Q47 bus.

From Brooklyn or Queens: Take the F, G train to the Q47 or Q59 bus. In Queens, the library is convenient to the Q18, Q47, Q58, or Q59 bus.

Screening followed by a Q&A and reception with the filmmakers.

Free Admission. RSVP in advance to reserve seats.

Las Mañanitas
Gabriella A. Moses (Director, Writer)
2013, 12:00

Once upon a time there lived Ana Isabel, a young girl tempted to lose her virginity the night of her Quinceañera, that is, until an unexpected visit from the Virgin Mary in a frying pan gives her some food for thought…

Gabriella A. Moses is a director and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her thesis film Las Mañanitas was screened at numerous festivals including NYU’s First Run Film Festival where it won Best Ensemble Cast, Production Design and Score and the Katra Film Fest Series where it won Best Film. Moses was selected by the Hispanic Coalition of NY as one of their 2015 Rising Latino Stars. She also served as a Shadow Director for the 2015 ABC Diversity Showcase. Her feature film script for Leche was a Semi-Finalist for the Latino Screenwriting Project sponsored by the Sundance Institute. Moses has just completed two shorts for 2016 festival submissions: Sticky Fingers and Leche. Sticky Fingers premiered at the Frameline Film Festival and Leche premiered at San Antonio’s CineFestival. Leche is currently in development as her directorial debut feature and was accepted into the 2016 Sundance Creative Producer Labs and the 2017 NYWIFT’s “From Script to Pre-Production” Workshop. Moses plans to begin principal photography in late 2017.

Minutes to Say Hi
Easmanie Michel (Director, Writer)
2015, 4:13

Minutes to Say Hi, is a story about a Haitian girl, Maggie, who finds herself transitioning to womanhood shortly after she and her father attempt to establish themselves in Brooklyn, NY while Maggie’s mother is left behind in Haiti. In a nonlinear, recollective narrative the story moves fluidly through time revisiting significant moments in Maggie and her Papa’s early experience of adjusting to their new life, as well as to the glaring absence of Maggie’s mother. 

Easmanie Michel is a Brooklyn based filmmaker who has worked continuously in the film and television industry since 2004. Michel has worked on films including The Transporter, Hoot and Miami Vice. Television projects include Miami Ink and Burn Notice. She has produced and directed several short films, including Minutes to Say Hi. Michel is working on her debut feature film Caroline’s Wedding which is an adaptation of a short story by the Haitian-American MacArthur Fellow Edwidge Danticat. The screenplay was a finalist for the NYU Fusion Film Festival and it participated in Sundance NYC Women’s Financing Intensive in April of 2016. Michel has a Master’s Degree in Cinema Studies from New York University.


Niñera
Diane Weipert (Director, Writer)
2015, 18:05

Niñera looks at the bitter ironies many nannies face, raising the children of strangers for a living while their own children are left to virtually raise themselves.

Diane Weipert has worked in film for over a decade. Her screenwriting debut, Solo Dios Sabe (starring Diego Luna and Alica Braga), premiered in the World Cinema Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006. She has collaborated on feature film projects with Eddie Izzard, Michelle Rodriguez, and Peter Bratt, among others. Weipert’s short Niñera was one of nine films selected to tour with 2017 Lunafest. Her award-winning radio piece, The Living Room, was named best story of 2015 by Wired and The Atlantic. Weipert is a three-time resident of the San Francisco Film Society’s Film House, where she is in development on her feature, Boyle Heights. She came of age in Spain and Latin America and is bilingual in English and Spanish.


Poisonberry
Alice Neff (Director)
2013, 12:00

Poisonberry is a short fiction film about an Asian-American child whose estranged father kidnaps her from her loving, yet reckless young mother. Minnie finds she has to make do on her own as best she can with her complicated love for her mother and her father’s ultimate abandonment. Poisonberry is about a child who turns a corner after tasting first-hand the plight of struggling adults. The film’s title is inspired by a quote from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: “…because children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison…”

Alice Neff, the daughter of Korean immigrants, Neff left her hometown Ovilla, Texas to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While immersed in the world of science, biotech, and the dot-com era, she began to write and make films. Neff’s films have been seen at the Atlanta Film Festival, Provincetown International Film Festival, Korean American Film Festival NY and the Anthology Film Archives. She is currently in development on a feature film titled The Plains. 

Special Thanks
NYC Council Member Elizabeth Crowley