The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and the Made in NY Media Center by IFP announced the recipients of the Winter 2019 cohort for the fourth year of Made in NY Fellowships, which provide a variety of resources and opportunities for New Yorkers to build and expand their media and creative tech projects. This is the first year the fellowship will have two six-month long cohorts each consisting of six projects. The Made in NY Fellowship program aims to bring together individuals with varied experiences, cultures, and mediums to create impactful work, which is crucial to fostering a diverse media and tech ecosystem in New York City.
With funding from MOME, the program provides resources, networking opportunities, and workspace to catalyze creativity and storytelling in media and creative technology in New York City. The six projects for the Winter 2019 cohort were selected based on the strength and scale of the project as well as uniqueness of subject matter in areas of podcasting, episodic content, documentary filmmaking, and immersive technology.
"The Made in NY Media Center by IFP is proud to be in the fourth year of this critically important partnership with the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment," stated Kia Brooks, Associate Director, Sales & Operations Made in NY Media Center by IFP. "This fellowship provides invaluable resources to boundary breaking media makers and as our new cohort begins, we would like to acknowledge the success of the 2018 cohort, which includes Rivet who launched a prototype of their app and are preparing to end the beta phase of their platform, James Boo who raised his first round of seed funding and expanded his team to eight employees as well as Sarah Keeling, Hope Wilson and Adetoro Makinde who participated in prestigious artist development programs – including IFP's Screen Forward Labs and IFP Week, where they had access to meet and pitch to over 200 industry leaders."
Past Made in NY Fellows include filmmaker Jason DaSilva whose latest project was highlighted in NY Times' Op-Docs this July; and the immersive tech company iNK Stories, whose latest interactive VR series Fire Trap was showcased at the 56th Annual New York Film Festival in September.
Winter 2019 Made in NY Fellowship Recipients
Six projects will receive Made in NY Fellowships for the winter cohort beginning in January 2019 and ending in June 2019. The recipients will receive six months of Incubator membership at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, where they will have access to work in a collaborative environment alongside other artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Fellows will also receive industry specific workshops and mentorship from industry leaders as well as access to networking and industry events.
The winning projects are:
"1001 Breast Cancer Nights" (Chithra Jeyaram)
A web-based mosaic of audio-visual diaries of Indian breast cancer experiences.
Brooklyn Queer Radio (Anddy Egan-Thorpe)
A podcast network following news and people important to the LGBTQIA+ community in Brooklyn and across the globe.
"Cryptids" (Wild Obscura Films)
A sci-fi narrative podcast written by playwright Alexander V. Thompson, directed by Devin Shepherd, and produced by Nora Unkel, Devin Shepherd, and Gabriel Rosenstein.
"Distressed Real Estate" (Jason Stefaniak)
A 5-episode docu-series about spaces that have become stigmatized by violence and how communities either work through that stigma or make it worse.
"The Synanthrope Preserve" (Gal Nissim)
A collection of immersive audio and augmented reality experiences of undomesticated animals throughout New York City.
"A Time Before Kale" (Asha Boston)
A mini-docu series uncovering the history of the black community in Bedford-Stuyvesant while grappling with the vast changes taking place due to gentrification.