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Filmmaking

IFP Minnesota is proud to announce the winners of the 2009 McKnight Filmmaking competition!

The 2009 Filmmaking Fellows are ROLF BELGUM AND MARK WOJAHN:

Rolf Belgum received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Visual Art at the University of Minnesota and his Master of Fine Arts Degree in filmmaking from The University of California at San Diego. His film Driver 23 is the lowest budget film ever purchased by a major network and aired on the Sundance Channel from 2001-2003.  His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Village Voice, Art In America, and Bomb magazine. Belgum was selected as one of five feature length filmmakers for the 2000 Whitney Biennial along with Errol Morris and Harmony Kornine.  His most recent film, She Unfolds by Day, won Grand Jury Prize at Cinevegas in 2008 and was described in Variety as “fluid, dreamy and beautiful.”  She Unfolds by Day has played at festivals around the world and been translated into Spanish and Polish.  Robert Kohler listed it as one of the best films of 2008 in World Cinema In L.A. and Beyond. 

Mark Wojahn began his film education at a teen workshop at Film in the Cities in the 1980s, attended the Minneapolis School of Art and Design and finished with a degree in Art History with a Film Studies minor, at the University of Minnesota. Mark sees "film and activism as means for building and connecting with community, for raising personal collective awareness, and for exploring the realms of consciousness and humanity." Reviews of Mark's work have been published in periodicals such as Mother Jones, City Pages, Star Tribune, and the New Art Examiner. Awards include 2004 Best Film of the Twin Cities, (City Pages), 2003 Artist of the Year, (City Pages), 2002 Jerome Foundation Media Arts Grant, and much more. Some of his films include What America Needs: from Sea to Shining Sea, 2003; What America Needs: An Interior Expedition, 1995. His most recent film, Trampoline, a documentary feature about a South Minneapolis family with four teenagers, will be sent to festivals in the fall of 2009.

Three panelists selected the 2009 Fellows from 49 applicants:

Robb Moss
Robb Moss's film, "Secrecy," (directed with Peter Galison--about the vast world of government secrecy in the US) premiered in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival. It then showed in more than forty festivals, on two-dozen theatrical screens, and broadcast on the Sundance Channel. Moss's "The Same River Twice" premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for a 2004 Independent Spirit award, was broadcast on the Sundance Channel, and played theatrically in more than eighty cities across North America. He has thrice served as a creative adviser for the Sundance Institute documentary labs, is the past board chair and president of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, is currently on the Board of Directors of ITVS, and has taught filmmaking at Harvard University for the past twenty years.

Caroline Libresco
Since 2001, Caroline Libresco has been Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, where she is one of the core team setting the Festival's programmatic direction, selects features in all sections focusing on documentary and international work, oversees international outreach, and acts as conduit between artists and industry. Prior to joining Sundance, she was a funding and communications executive for the Independent Television Service (ITVS), a producer of dozens of documentaries annually for PBS. Currently she serves as a consultant to Harvard Kennedy School's Social Change Film Forum and is the U.S. Delegate for Zurich Film Festival. On the production side, Caroline produced the feature documentary, SUNSET STORY, which aired on PBS’s “Independent Lens,” won the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Audience Award and jury prizes at the Tribeca and Miami Film Festivals.

Randy Redroad
Randy Redroad began making films and music in the early nineties. In 1994, he was chosen as the first ever Native American participant in the Sundance Filmmaker's Lab and received the prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship. Randy's feature film debut THE DOE BOY premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker's Award. The film collected fourteen other festival awards and a nomination for the IFP/Gotham Open Palm Award. Randy co-produced and edited OUT OF THE BLUE, a film about life and football, directed by Michael Hoffman, and the recently completed IBID, which premiered at SXSW and is distributed for home video by Indieflix. Randy has just finished shooting and editing FAMILY: THE FIRST CIRCLE, a feature documentary about the personal and political sides of the foster care system, for longtime collaborator Heather Rae, producer of the Oscar Nominated FROZEN RIVER.

About the McKnight Artists Fellowships for Filmmakers

IFP Minnesota and The McKnight Foundation will award two $25,000 fellowships to Minnesota filmmakers in 2009. The Fellows are selected by a panel of jurors who are film artists and professionals from outside Minnesota. Jurors look for consistent artistic excellence and merit, clarity and uniqueness of vision, professional quality in the technical aspects of production, and for demonstrable, sustained growth in the artist's career. Additionally, jurors consider the artist's ability to present his/her application for the fellowship in an articulate and professional manner.

McKnight Filmmaking Fellows
2004 Melody Gilbert, Eric Tretbar
2005 David Eberhardt, Scott Coleman Miller
2006 John Hime, Tom Schroeder
2007 Emily Goldberg, Jon Springer
2008 Hisham Bizri, Gabriel Cheifetz
2009 Rolf Belgum, Mark Wojahn

For information about the 2008 and 2007 McKnight Filmmaking Fellows, click here.