JT3 Artist Award Recipients 2009
In our inaugural year, we presented ourselves with a challenge worthy of our namesake – to create and launch an awards program that seeks artists who embody not just creative talent, not just persistence in the face of obstacles, but are also generous of spirit and good of heart. We were thrilled when we saw the caliber of the artists applying to our program, and knew our panel of film/tv professionals would have a hard time choosing who should receive cash grants. With the generous donations we received over the past year, we were able to provide cash grants to five of our talented applicants.
Bridget Palardy
JT3 Artist Award of Distinction, $2,500
Excerpt from Personal Essay
“I was a dancer and choreographer…before I became a filmmaker. Initially, I was drawn to the movement on a film set: dollies gliding, steadicams waltzing, and actors smartly choreographed within the frame. After working in the film and video industry, I have grown to see a bigger dance: a collision of mediums, collaboration of people, and an experience shared between audience and story. It is this fleeting dance which continues to inspire and move me as a filmmaker.”
Biography
Bridget Palardy is a filmmaker and former choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY. This year she premiered her first solo project, Middletown B-Boys, at the Chicago Hip Hop Film Festival. This documentary, begun over four years ago, is a portrait of the vibrant break dancing community in Middletown, CT.
Two other films that Bridget has contributed to have also hit the festival circuit this year: The Better Half (Director of Photography, official selection at SXSW Film Festival, Marfa Film Festival, and LA Shorts Fest) and The Distance Between the Apple and the Tree (Co-Director, official selection at BEND Film Festival, Best New Filmmaker at Del Ray Film Festival.) Bridget currently freelances as a video director and editor in the New York area under the production moniker, Sharkaa Films. Her first fictional short, Spark,is a high school movie set in the future. Written and directed by Bridget, this film was recently shot in Brooklyn, and is now in post-production.
Screenplay
Spark - In a stifling future, restless teens rebel against an overprotective society.
Movie
Middletown B-Boys - There are two break-dancing crews in Middletown, CT: One is run by a Christian church, and the other is headed by Buddhist passionate about the culture of hip hop.
Nikyatu Jusu
JT3 Artist Award, $1, 500
Excerpt from personal essay
“Memorizing ubiquitous filmmaking models and regurgitating them – is easy. But the true revolutionaries – the filmmaking talents that make waves are the ones who create their own structure- their own rules. I want to make films that must be made. I want to be honest, …and never be paralyzed by inaction.”
Biography
Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu is an MFA candidate at New York University's graduate film program. Her second short film, African Booty Scratcher garnered her a Director's Guild Honorable Mention and an HBO Short Film Award. Presently, Nikyatu is in post production on her thesis film, Say Grace Before Drowning; the screenplay has already earned her a Spike Lee Scholarship and a Princess Grace Foundation-US Graduate Film Scholarship. Because she has a preoccupation with foreigners, marginalized populations and the contradictory nature of humanity, these themes permeate her work.
Screenplay
Say Grace Before Drowning - After meeting her African Refugee mother for the first time in six years, 8 year old Hawa is forced to co-exist with a woman teetering on the brink of insanity.
Movie
African Booty Scratcher - Prom nears and things seem to be spiraling out of control for typically composed Isatu. West African tradition conflicts with American idealism as Isatu is forced to reassess her alliances.
Wendy James
JT3 Artist Award, $1,000
Excerpt from personal essay
“I was rehearsing with two actresses for a scene from a Mike Leigh film, Secrets and Lies. In the scene, Cynthia Purley, a low-income white woman in England, meets her daughter that she gave up for adoption, Hortenze Cumberbatch, who turns out to be a black woman….I decided to work with my actresses…by rehearsing them separately…..on presentation day, they (saw) each other for the first time in their lives. The actress who played Cynthia cried…it was the most powerful moment I felt I created, as a director. I realized this is where my heart was, I truly cared about the actors and the scene, and what came out was almost magic.”
Biography
Wendy James is a 2nd year MFA candidate at Columbia University's School of the Arts. She has been pursuing filmmaking for the past four years as a writer/ director. Her hope is to create films that reflect the issues facing black working class communities throughout the world. She is currently in pre-production for two short films, 'Drome, and Chump, as requirements for her MFA degree. James plans to travel to Panama in the upcoming year to shoot a narrative film about the awareness of black racial identity.
Screenplay
BedStuy Project - Kahlil, 17, has been given a camera to tell the story of his life as a dropout growing up in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. Will he be able to find a job and help support his family?
Movie
LaTonya - Tonya, 15, chooses to lose her virginity to her best friend. Little does she know, the experience will not be what she expected. (side note – LaTonya is currently in competition at several film festivals, and will not be viewable online in order to remain in qualification)
Chioke Nassor
JT3 Artist Award, $500
Excerpt from Personal Essay
“I have made no sacrifices for film.
I mean, I’ve been dumped, fired, and evicted because of choices I’ve made to support my filmmaking, but nothing I would call a sacrifice. (I’ve also gotten to travel the world, meet my best friends, and support myself from filmmaking, so I feel like it’s a double-edged sword.)”
Biography
Chioke Nassor is a writer/director for film and television. He’s directed and co-written short films starring Steve Buscemi, Gina Gershon, Kieran Culkin, and Tom DiCillo. Currently, Chioke is finishing the post-production on a tour documentary he directed about the band TV on the Radio. Mr. Nassor is also a writer and director for the web series “Titsburg!” (titsburgcomedy.com).
Chioke holds a b.f.a. from New York University in film and television with a minor in political science (but only because it makes him sound smart.)
Screenplay
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Based on the Pulitzer Prize finalist novel of the same name, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, follows the true life of Dave Eggers struggles to take care of his 8 year old brother after losing both parents to cancer when he was 20.
Movie
Breakup - Most movies focus on the beginning or end of relationships, but the middle is the best part
Andrew Brotzman
JT3 Artist Award, $500
Excerpt from Personal Essay
“It was upon deciding to enroll (in Columbia’s MFA film program)that I knew I had committed myself, mind and body, to the profession, and that I would not stop until my work had played itself out, and I felt my ideas had been expressed properly, whatever that may mean.”
Biography
Andrew Brotzman is the director of “My Mom and Dad”, winner of the Global Anarchy award for Best Short in its category at Slamdance 2006, and “Darjeeling,” which played in Slamdance’s 2007 Anarchy competition. In 2008 he was a national finalist in the Disney & ABC’s DGA Directing Fellowship Program. He is also the producer of “Small Collection,” an official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and winner of the Best Narrative Short award at the Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson, Mississippi. “Small Collection” has also played at the Palm Springs, Woodstock, Raindance UK, Cleveland, Boston, and AFI Dallas Film festivals.
He served as assistant to directors Scott McGeehee and David Siegel on their Searchlight picture “Bee Season” from February 2005 to February 2006, and was the director’s assistant on “Book of Love, the 2004 Sundance Film Festival dramatic-competition entry. He received his B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia University in 2003 and is currently an M.F.A. directing candidate at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, with graduation expected in May of 2010.
Screenplay
Nor’easter - A young, struggling priest encourages a family to declare a long-missing son dead but after they do, the boy returns, alive and well, tearing their island community apart.
Movie
My Mom and Dad - A childless couple discovers a puppy abandoned in their back yard and realize they love it just as much as they do each other
