Chris Eigeman's and Eric Morris' "Midnight Sun" has been selected as the recipient of a $15,000 production grant funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, while 20 filmmakers have been named to Film Independent's Fast Track Fellows program.
In the past, that program has helped shepherd films including this year's SXSW award winner "Natural Selection," the Spirit Awards nominee "Amreeka" and Courtney Hunt's "Frozen River," which won an Oscar nomination for Melissa Leo.
"Midnight Sun" is a dramatic film dealing with the World War II initiative in which a group of young scientists and engineers were sent to Los Alamos, New Mexico to help design and build an atomic bomb.
The grant and fellowships were announced on Sunday by Film Independent, which runs the Fast Track program in connection with an annual film financing market of the same name at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Filmmakers chosen as Fast Track fellows will participate in an intensive three-day series of meetings with financier, production companies, agents, managers and other film professionals.
The program also offers year-round support to filmmakers when the festival ends.
The Fast Track fellows will be honored on Sunday night at the Alfred P. Sloan Fellows & Industry Mixer at LAFF.
The following projects and filmmakers will participate in the 2011 Fast Track program:
"AWOL" – Producer Ted Kroeber, Co-writer/Director Deb Shoval. This project is based on a short playing at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival.
"Burn: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit" – Director Tom Putnam, Producer Brenna Sanchez. Both Tom and Brenna are Los Angeles Film Festival alumni.
"Call Me Kuchu" – Director/Producer Malika Zouhali-Worrall, Director Katherine Farifax Wright. "Contract with God" – Writer/Producer Darren Dean, Producers Jonathan Shoemaker, Mark Rabinowitz. Darren won the Audience Award at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated in 2009 for a Film Independent Spirit Award.
"Country Line" – Writer/Director Morgan Stiff, Writer/Producer Tina Mabry
"Left Handed Girl" – Producer Angela Lee, Writer/Directors Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou. Sean won the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival and had 2 films nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2009 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
"Midnight Sun" – Writer/Director Chris Eigeman, Producer Eric Morris. Chris was nominated in 2009 for a Film Independent Spirit Award.
"The Woman Who Feared the Sun" – Writer/Director Javier Fuentes-León
"Xanadu" – Producer Amy Lo, Director Rose Troche
