New Mexico Film Office Announces Winners of
New Visions/New Mexico 2009
November 30, 2009
Contact: (505) 476-5611
SANTA FE – NM Film Office Director Lisa Strout and NM Filmmakers Program Director Trish Lopez today announced the eleven winners of the 2009 New Visions/New Mexico Contract Awards. Now in its fourth year, the program annually provides awards to local filmmakers to help fund their original narrative, documentary, animation and experimental films. This year's winners are listed below:
Animation
Frederick Aragon
Coyote Tales: Dark is My Light
Animation Alternate: Kate Brown, "Rosaruby Seeks and Finds"
Documentary
Narrative Alternate: Mary Holyoke, "The Donor"
This year the NM Film Office is pleased to continue its relationship with Panavision, a major supplier of cameras and lenses for the film industry world-wide. They will once again provide the use of two motion picture camera packages (HD, 16 mm or 35mm) at no charge to the winners. Those names with asterisks (*) noted will each receive one of the packages.
In exchange for their New Visions award, winners are required to provide a range of service to the state as part of their contract. They will begin their contract work in early 2010. If any winners are unable fulfill their contracts, awards will be granted to the alternates in that category.
Our 2009 selection panel reviewed each New Visions proposal based on a number of criteria, including the artistic quality of the project, the applicant's demonstrated ability and creativity, managerial and fiscal competence, and the quality of proposed service offered to the state. Panelist names and biographies are listed below:
Gene Grant
From 2005 to present, Grant has served as the host of "New Mexico In Focus", a moderate weekly public affairs program on Albuquerque PBS affiliate, KNME. He is a contributor for Variety magazine and a columnist for Albuquerque, the Magazine. In his career he has served various organizations as a columnist, contributing reporter, board member, sales and marketing executive, Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of Economic Development, and as a business liaison for Congresswoman Heather Wilson. Grant attended: Boston University and Framingham State College for his Masters degrees.
Lance Maurer
Born, raised and educated in New Mexico, Maurer worked as a Mechanical Engineer with Goodrich Aerospace, and as a self-employed contractor between 1997 and 2007. Since then, he became the founder and CEO of Cinnafilm, Inc. – a New Mexican company dedicated to changing the global landscape of digital image processing through innovative and affordable parallel-processing solutions. Prior to launching Cinnafilm, Maurer also wrote, directed, and produced three independent films and one music video: "American Alien" (2001 feature, 16mm), "The Legend of Aerreus Kane" (2002 short, 16mm), "Army Men" (2007 short, DV), and "Love Crash Heal by Soular" (2008 music video, HD).
Barbara Martinez Jitner
Martinez-Jitner is the President of El Norte Productions and the Executive Producer of the film "Bordertown" starring Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas. "Bordertown" is based on Martinez-Jitner's real life experiences posing as a factory worker to uncover the dark world of grueling poverty, abuse, and murder in Juarez for her critically acclaimed documentary "La Frontera/The Border." She is the first Latina ever to be nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy as an Executive Producer/Writer/Director of a television miniseries, "American Family – Journey of Dreams". She also wrote, produced and directed, "Behind the Mask" a documentary based on the life of Joaquin Murrieta, for the History Channel. She lives in both Santa Fe and Los Angeles and is currently developing several feature films for Gregory Nava, including "Zapata" for Disney, and "Tattooed Soldier" for HBO.
Patricia McInroy
A former New Visions/New Mexico contract recipient, Tricia has had her experimental work screened at numerous film festivals around the country and currently teaches in Albuquerque. She also serves as a volunteer photography instructor for youth who are incarcerated through the Fresh Eyes program.
TJ Nabors
A former NM resident, Nabors is a senior surfacer at DreamWorks Animation in Los Angeles, where she has worked both in visual development and in production of various projects including "Shrek 2", "Shrek the Third", and "Shrek the Halls", a holiday special for ABC. While living in Santa Fe, she served as the Rudd Endowed Chair in Animation at the Moving Image Arts Department, College of Santa Fe. After partnering in the award-winning interactive studio, Animism, LLC, Nabors served first as Technical Director, then as Art Director at Vinton (now LAIKA) Studios for five years, working in both nationally broadcast commercials and longer form projects. She creates work in a variety of mediums, has designed, art directed and executed interactive media, broadcast, short film, and features, as well as collaborated in theatrical works. Her personal interactive work has won numerous awards; and honors that have been awarded to projects in which Nabors has contributed include Emmy, Clio and Annie awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination.
For a wealth of information about other events conducted by the NM Filmmakers Program and the NM Film Office, please visit www.nmfilm.com. Congratulations to all of our 2009 winners!
