AMC Networks today announced the latest lineup from its “Future of Film” initiative, which partners with independent film festivals across the country to showcase the next generation of emerging talent. In partnership with Athena Film Festival, the Future of Film: Athena Rising Stars is a curated collection of short films elevating women’s leadership and advancing inclusion on screen. Streaming exclusively on AMC+ beginning March 14, the collection is available for one month in celebration of Women’s History Month, joining the streamer’s Featured Collection: Women Who Dare, which also spotlights women-led stories across series, films and documentaries.
The partnership also includes the first-ever “AMC Athena Emerging Writers Fellowship” awarding a $10,000 grant to a screenwriter working on a women-centered television project. This year’s winner is Kaci Hamilton (A Jamaica in Alaska) who, in addition to receiving the grant, will have the unique experience of joining the writers’ room for AMC’s acclaimed series, Dark Winds.
About the Short Films Featured in the Future of Film: Athena Rising Stars Collection:
Elegy for A Glacier
Director: Stephanie Falkeis
A glaciologist returns to her small hometown on an assignment to assess the health of the local glacier for its prospective use as a ski resort, and finds herself confronted by her estranged mother, an ecological activist in the community, who will stop at nothing to save the glacier from destruction.
OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage
Director: Clare Major
Whitney Bradshaw photographs women mid-scream in cathartic group sessions where long-silenced stories conjure rage, sorrow, and joy. An activist and sexual abuse survivor, Whitney uses art to fuel action for women’s rights, culminating in a grassroots fight for abortion access in Ohio.
Desync
Director: Minerva Navasca
Ana, a young Filipina filmmaker, shoots a re-enactment of a fight she once had with her mother – a fight brought on by mutual refusals to communicate. Spurred on by the obsessive need for perfection, Ana “fixes” the fight by rewriting every veiled insult into a chance for forgiveness. As her perfect story diverges further from the reality of what happened, she begins to realize what her mom has been trying to say all along.
Sol in the Garden
Directors: Débora Souza Silva, Emily Cohen Ibañez
After 16 years of incarceration, Sol is released from prison, when she discovers that coming into her own freedom can be as challenging as living behind bars. Through a community gardening collective of formerly incarcerated horticulturalists in East Oakland, Sol strives to recover her humanity and sense of self.
Colorado
Directors: Pilar Gómez and Sandra Gallego
The personal circumstances of Carmen, a 74-year-old woman, lead her to force a meeting with an old friend, Ángeles, whom she has not seen for 30 years.
