Fil-Am wins inaugural NewFilmmakers Los Angeles grant award

LOS ANGELES, USA, December 2 ------ Jim Vendiola, a Filipino-American writer-director, has been chosen to receive the NewNarratives inaugural grant award of NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA). Jim’s Argus was selected to receive the $40,000-grant award from over 200 entries coming from all over the world. Supported by WarnerMedia OneFifty, the NewNarratives artist grant program was established to develop emerging global talents in narrative feature, documentary, animation, and scripted and unscripted series. The awards recipients were selected by a group that included entertainment journalists and members of the LA Film Critics Association.

Argus, described by NewFilmmakers LA as “a subversive, BIPOC, female-driven reimagining of the 1970s neo-noirs,” will be developed by Jim into a feature, thanks to the grant award. Jim’s credits includes several short films, which he wrote and directed. Argus and Homesick, which Jim is developing with the Chicago Film Project, will be his first two feature films. Citing the “incredibly high quality of submissions,” the NewNarratives program decided to give three additional grant awards – to Nora Mariana Salim and Rami Kodeih (up to $50,000), and Gabriela Ortega and Set Hernandez Rongkilyo ($5,000 each). Hernandez Rongkilyo is also a Fil-Am and a producer of PJ Raval’s Call Her Ganda.

NFMLA programming director, Bojana Sandic, and NFMLA co-founder/executive director, Larry Laboe, said in a joint statement, “We’re very proud of the four selected projects and the filmmakers whose visions these funds will support.” “The greatest challenge of this competition was choosing from the overwhelming number of strong, unique, and exciting proposals that we received.”

In our interview via email, Jim said about his roots: “My mom and dad, Vicky and Rufino, came over from the Philippines separately in the late ’70s. They were working in Chicago as a nurse and banker, respectively, when they met at a barbecue (gathering) and eventually married.” “My older brother was born in Chicago shortly thereafter but my younger sister and I were both born in Miami, Florida in the early ’80s after my parents relocated. So my siblings and I are first generation Fil-Am/third culture kids while my mom’s family is originally from Manila and my dad is from Visayas.” “In the early 2000s, we all moved back to the Midwest in a piecemeal fashion, including my parents. I graduated with a BS in Studio Art from Florida State University in ’02, moved to Chicago in ’03, and have been based here ever since.”

Source: rappler.com