Chicken & Egg Films News!

C&E Delegation at CPH:DOX, welcoming two new board members, and more!

Dear community,

CPH:DOX kicked off this week, and we’re thrilled to be back in Copenhagen with a first time-ever formal Chicken & Egg Films Delegation. Comprising all our 2025 CEA Award filmmakers as well as a mighty contingent of staff and board members, the Delegation will take on a jam-packed schedule! We can’t wait to share back our learnings and experiences.

Read on to learn more about what’s on the docket at CPH, meet two new board members, see our 2026 EL filmmakers’ smiling faces at our winter retreat, meet Mickey, this month’s spotlight film, celebrate Women’s History Month with our friends at POV, and more.

Thanks for reading!

Screenings: Two supported films will make their World Premieres: Here the Silence is Heard by Gabriela Pena and Picho García and All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea by Jeanie Finlay. Plus, Jaripeo, To Hold a Mountain, and Maite Alberdi’s A Child of My Own will also screen during the fest.

Talks: Program Director Kiyoko McCrae will speak about how C&E assesses program applications as a panelist on Position, Privilege, and the Epistemic Power of the Gaze: Towards Narrative Positionality, Anupama Srinivasan will deliver the closing Keynote about the artist’s role in creating more just and imaginative futures, and Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig will participate in the panel Constructing Your Own Cinematic Language.

Celebrations: We’ll also host a special gathering to celebrate our 2025 Chicken & Egg Award filmmakers, all of whom will be meeting with industry throughout the fest to discuss their projects.

Meet our new Board Members

We’re thrilled to welcome two new leaders to our Board of Directors, and we thank them for offering their time, ideas, expertise, and beyond to help advance the organization’s mission.

Pictured: Board Member Darley Tom

Darley Tom
Darley is Managing Partner at Maverick Collective. A connector at heart, she brings nearly 20 years of cross-sector experience designing purpose-driven initiatives that bring people together to drive meaningful change. → Read more

Pictured: Board Member Christie Marchese

Christie Marchese
Christie is founder and CEO of Kinema and EVP of Entertainment Partnerships at Publicis Media. She founded Picture Motion, co-authored The Distribution Playbook, and serves on The Redford Center board. → Read more

Community keeps us warm at the 2026 EL retreat

Pictured: EL 2026 cohort filmmakers, staff, and consultants

In February, we gathered for our (Egg)celerator Lab winter retreat, held in Canada for the first time. It was a joyful, productive week with our filmmaker cohort, where a series of creative feedback sessions led to breakthroughs big and small. Community matters more than ever, and we’re proud to keep nurturing spaces where documentary filmmakers can grow together.

PLUS: Could this be you next year? We’re accepting applications for the 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab through April 29, 2026!

Pictured: Mickey still

“García delivers a formally daring and emotionally intimate work shaped by sustained collaboration. Challenging cinematic conventions and expanding the language of trans representation, the film asserts trans cinema as both aesthetic innovation and political transformation. ” —Cinema Tropical

Filmed over the course of a decade, Mickey follows Mickey Cundapí, a trans multidisciplinary artist navigating her transition in the conservative city of Mazatlán, Mexico. Directed by multi-award winning trans Mexican filmmaker Dano García, the film pushes against documentary convention to tell a vibrant story in its own terms. Dano and Mickey, who met as roommates in Mexico City, revisit Cundapi’s family home videos and media diaries while staging artistic reenactments that trace a shared journey of gender transition, memory, and resilience.

Mickey will have its World Premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival on March 13. Check out the trailer and grab your tickets here.

March Community Highlights

Pictured: Cutting Through Rocks still

✦ The Oscars take place this Sunday! We’re rooting hard for Sara Khaki and Mohammedreza Eyni’s Cutting Through Rocks and Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton’s The Devil Is Busy.
✦ Laura Poitras will be the Special Guest at the opening of the VdR–Industry programme 2026 at this year’s Visions du Réel in April.
✦ Viv Li’s Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest will have its US Premiere at New Directors/New Films in April.

Click below for more of this month's community shout outs.

Celebrating Women’s History Month with POV’s special collection

We’re proud to co-present POV’s Women’s History Month Collection featuring stories of women whose leadership, creativity, and fearlessness light up the screen. The lineup includes C&E-supported films Twice Colonized, Is There Anybody Out There?, and Sol in the Garden alongside other works from around the world that are sure to spark reflection, dialogue—and of course, celebration!

✦ “In a media system dominated by private markets, what kinds of civic infrastructure are necessary to serve the public interest—and... what constitutes the public interest?” In new Shorenstein Center report Reclaiming the Public Interest?, Jax Deluca advocates for co-creation in public media and shares how this approach might expand institutional capacity, redistribute agency, and link local institutions, independent creators, and civic life.

✦ “The documentary community… they are not the canary in the coal mine, they’re the lion in the coal mine.” For The Creative Independent, Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton discuss building the discipline of trust, how they leverage their platforms to make change, and their take on top problems and solutions in the doc ecosystem right now.

✦ “Long before ‘impact production’ became a formalized industry term, Isabel and Gabriel were… pioneers of the form, architecting a model that prioritized human connection over traditional box office metrics.” Distribution Advocates share a new case study on the successful independent non-theatrical release of Isabel Rodas and Gabriel Páez’s Vengo volviendo in 2016.

✦ “Despite what the media says, THIS IS NOT A DONE DEAL.” #BlockTheMerger, a campaign led by the Future Film Coalition, shares how the Warner Bros. Discovery-Paramount merger would concentrate control over content libraries, TV networks, streaming platforms, and the pipelines for content development, production, and distribution–and offers ways to take action against the transaction.

Please consider supporting our work to champion the storytellers and stories our world needs, now and forever.

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Film spotlight: Mickey

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