In August of this year, Governor Richardson announced a call for proposals for the New Visions/New Mexico contract award program. Now in its fourth year, the program has annually awarded a total of $160,000 (up to $20,000 per project) to local filmmakers to help fund their original narrative, documentary, animation and experimental films. The program is open to all filmmakers in the state and awards can be used toward the completion of existing projects or the development of new ones. In exchange for funding, applicants are required to provide a service to the state as part of their contract, such as training other New Mexicans in the industry or providing mentorship, public screenings or lectures free of charge to state residents. Panavision is once again partnering with the NM Film Office to provide the use of two motion picture camera package rentals (HD, 16 mm or 35mm) at no charge for two of our winning filmmakers. The 2009 New Visions deadline was October 16th. Award winners will be announced Monday, November 30th and contract work will begin in early 2010. Good luck to all who applied!

NOVEMBER 14, 2009: In honor of American Indian Heritage Month, the NM Film Office provided a free public showcase of locally made short films to celebrate the creative contributions of our Native American filmmakers in New Mexico. To see the the slate of 2009 films and view the press release, click here.

NOVEMBER 3-8, 2009: The NM Film Office conducted three free public screenings of the winning films from our 2009 NM Filmmakers Showcase in Roswell, Carlsbad and Las Cruces this month. Click here for press release with list of our seven (7) winning films from 2009.

NM FILMMAKERS PRESS 10/21/09: New Visions/New Mexico 2006 winner Ilana Lapid, who completed her short film “RED MESA” this year, was awarded Best Short Film in the13th Annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Fest this weekend. See press release for details. Congratulations Ilana!

NM FILMMAKERS PRESS 9/12/09: New Visions/New Mexico 2007 winners Paul Glickman and Tamarind King, creators of the short film animation "EL SALON MEXICO" received the Sylvia Award for best animated film at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival. Paul and Tamarind’s film also won top honors for Best Independent Animation in the 2009 Independents’ Film Festival. See press release for details: Congratulations Paul and Tamarind!

NM FILMMAKERS PRESS 2009: New Visions/New Mexico 2006 winner Debra Anderson, who directed and produced the documentary “SPLIT ESTATE”, premiered her film at DocuWeeks 2009 in New York and Los Angeles this summer. It was televised worldwide on Planet Green in October of this year, and will be screened in several film festivals around the nation in the coming months. Congratulations, Deb!

NM FILMMAKERS PRESS 2009: New Visions/New Mexico 2007 winner Larry Blackhorse Lowe, who wrote and directed the short film, “SHIMASANI” held its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this Spring and the Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival this summer. Congratulations, Blackhorse!

2008

We are pleased to announce the awardees, alternates, and finalists for the 2008 New Visions/New Mexico Contract Awards. Special thanks to all entrants for their participation this year.

AWARDEES

FINALISTS

Click here to view press release

If you would like to pick up your DVD sample or supporting materials contact Rochelle Bussey at 505-476-5604 or rochelle@nmfilm.com before December 15, 2008. All applications, supporting materials and DVD’s will be destroyed after December 15, 2008.

2007 NV Winners

SPLIT ESTATE
Directed by Debra Anderson
SPLIT ESTATE follows an unfolding conflict in the Rocky Mountains at present day. As officials in Washington call for more domestic gas and oil production, citizens all over the West find themselves in the path of a new drilling boom.

MI VOZ; ONE COMMUNTY, MANY VOICES
Directed by Marcos Baca
For more information: email: mbaca@ydinm.org
MI VOZ; ONE COMMUNTY, MANY VOICES is a free YDI after-school program that involves middle school youth in all aspects of filmmaking. Subjects include: directing, scripting, acting and operating sound and video equipment. Through a series of lectures and hands on trainings, youth gain important developmental skills in problem solving, critical thinking and work ethic. Other benefits include: improving self-confidence, fostering creativity and teaching a means of expression.

THE PURPLE HAT
Directed by Gregory Doucette
THE PURPLE HAT starring James Eckhouse is a short film based on a story by Pulitzer Prize winning author Eudora Welty.

EL SALON MEXICO
Directed by Paul Glickman and Tamarind King
For more information: email: pglickman@earthlink.net; 505-438-8461; web: www.pglickman.com
EL SALON MEXICO - Set the to music of Aaron Copland’s classical composition of the same name, this children’s animation illustrates the story of Antonito, his burro and rooster as they sneak out one night to experience a fiesta for the first time. Never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined what would happen to them that night.

IN PLACE OUT OF TIME
Directed by Erin Hudson
For more information: email: erin@rotaionfilms.com; 505-699-1857; web: www.inplaceoutoftime.com
IN PLACE OUT OF TIME is a poetic portrait documentary about Embree Hale, a life-long resident of Hillsboro, New Mexico, who sold his backhoe and picked up a camera in pursuit of a photographic quest to take a picture of every petroglyph and pictograph in New Mexico.

SHIMASANI
Directed by Blackhorse Lowe
SHIMASANI is set in the late 1920's on the Navajo reservation where teenage Mary Jane spends her life caring for her grandmother and living a traditional lifestyle. After being exposed to a world geography book, she must decide on whether to maintain her traditional life or go out into the larger world.

NOT ONLY JUST COFFEE
Directed by Patricia McInroy
For more information: email: tmcinroy@hotmail.com
NOT ONLY JUST COFFEE is an experimental and personal documentary exploring themes of immigration, death and media along the U.S./Mexico border and beyond. Coffee serves as a centerpiece to understand and connect cultures, histories and people throughout the work.

HEARING VOICES
Directed by Randy Nargi
HEARING VOICES is New Mexico-created half-hour comedy series about Jessi Nolan, a recently-widowed, 30-something voiceover actress who flees Los Angeles for a fresh start in Albuquerque. With her deceased husband's dog Max as her only companion, Jessi starts off her new life in the Duke City. But in an ironic nod to sitcoms of the sixties, Jessi makes the supernatural acquaintance of Gabriel Mountbatten, a classic stage actor of the 1930s.

2006 NV Winners

SPLIT ESTATE
Directed by Debra Anderson
SPLIT ESTATE follows an unfolding conflict in the Rocky Mountains at present day. As officials in Washington call for more domestic gas and oil production, citizens all over the West find themselves in the path of a new drilling boom.

RUDOLFO ANAYA: THE MAGIC OF WORDS
Directed by David E. Ellis
For more information: 818-216-6554
Rudolfo Anaya, New Mexico writer and recipient of the National Medal for the Arts, is the subject of a one-hour documentary that explores his life - from rural poverty and a near-fatal childhood accident to a hard-won success as America's first great Hispanic novelist.

IN DIMMED ENCHANTMENT
Directed by Nina Fonoroff
The filmmaker reflects on her youthful sojourn in New Mexico from 1976 -1978 and her return to Albuquerque--as an artist and teacher--some 25 years later. Through diaries, landscapes, photographs, and Super-8 film from the Albuquerque of the 1970s, the film becomes a meditation on many kinds of 'returns' and the cyclical nature of memory.

ABSENT FATHERS
Directed by Rafael Hernandez
A documentary about boys in Northern New Mexico that have to become men at a young age because they don't have fathers around. The documentary shows the many negative consequences that affect young men without fathers but also the positives that can come out if it.

UNCOVERED
Directed by Matthew Linnell
Through the eyes of a five-year-old boy, we experience a life of freedom and curiosity as it runs headlong into the adult world of boundaries and taboos.

THE RESURRECTION OF HONORE PAGE
Writer/Director, Nancy Holley Hughes, Producer, Eileen Torpey
For more information: email: blackcowgirl@blackcowgirl.com; 505-466-4713; web: www.blackcowgirl.com
A brilliant woman of the cloth experiences a crisis of faith that reaches its zenith in a New Mexico ghost town.

RED MESA
Directed by Ilana Lapid
For more information: email: ilanalapid@gmail.com; 323-445-8070
On a cattle ranch on the US/Mexico border, a young woman's secret love story forces a painful coming of age.

ARCHIPELAGO (phase one)
Directed by Cory Metcalf & David Stout
The Archipelago project is a live cinema installation utilizing simulation techniques to create a complex synthetic eco-system inhabited by evolving artificial life forms. The New Visions award facilitated the creation of software development tools to further the first phase of project production and interactive animation prototypes.

A RACE AGAINST TIME: THE FIGHT TO SAVE NM’S NATIVE LANGUAGES
Directed by Jonathan Sims
This film presents New Mexico's native languages and their communities in a race against time when dealing with language loss and revitalization. This home grown New Mexico documentary explores the situations, issues and emotions that come with language loss in New Mexico's Pueblo communities.

COMMITTING POETRY IN TIMES OF WAR
Directed by Stavros, Executive Producer Eric Sirotkin
This film presents a glance at a community’s response to teachers fired for refusing to censor their students, police brutality at peaceful protests, enforced "free speech zones" and a nation at war abroad and with its people. With its “blood pounding” slam poetry, the film was nominated for Best Documentary in South Africa’s Everglades International Film Festival, COMMITTING POETRY IN TIMES OF WAR won the 2007 Poetry Film of the Year award, and is eventually screening worldwide.