The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) announced May 14 the ten documentaries selected for the 2012 Independent Filmmaker Labs, IFP’s  annual year-long fellowship for first-time feature directors.  The creative teams of the selected films, chosen from a national pool of 200 submissions, join the 8^th edition of the Labs taking place May 14-19 in New York City.

There are 2 days left in the labs, check out the full list of films from this edition:

Alias Ruby Blade

Alias Ruby Blade is the story of Kirsty Sword Gusmão, former First Lady of Timor-Leste. An aspiring documentary filmmaker, Kirsty instead became a courier for the Timorese resistance movement in Jakarta code named Ruby Blade. Through correspondence, she fell in love with the imprisoned resistance leader Xanana Gusmão. Together they nurtured the tumultuous birth of the world’s newest nation. Fellows: Alex Meiller (Director), Tanya Ager Meillier (Producer). Brooklyn, NY

Big Joy Project: The Adventures of James Broughton 

Told by his angel at age 3 that he’ll be a poet of Big Joy, James Broughton pioneers experimental filmmaking and poetry readings in San Francisco, leading to the Beat Movement.  Jungian analysis forces him to marriage with children, but his heart hurts until he meets a male student 35 years his junior – his soulmate for 25 productive years.

Fellows: Stephen Silha (Director/Producer), Eric Slade (Director/Producer), Dawn Logsdon (Editor). Vashon, WA

For Thousands of Miles

For Thousands of Miles is a story about Larry, a young man split between two lives; tethered to a stranger who still spent their days alone on an open road, a stranger who spoke like he spoke; who looked like he looked; a stranger who still missed the things Larry now found to be without residence. Fellows: Mike Ambs (Director, Writer); Erica Hampton (Production Manager). North Hollywood, CA

The Last Wild Mountain

The Last Wild Mountain follows the inception of rock climbing in 1950s America through stories of the unusual characters who started it. Their world is based on risk-taking and antidisestablishmentarianism, but as their Utopia grows up and so do they, their existence is challenged by growth, reality, and a diminishing landscape.  How long can this world last? Fellows: Oakley Anderson-Moore (Director/Writer), Alexander Reinhard (Producer). Los Angeles, CA

Lucky

Lucky Torres is heir to a South Bronx boulevard of broken promises – untouched by the hope of urban renewal – teetering on a tightrope between dreams and despair. One of millions of Americans living on the brink of invisibility, Lucky’s desperate search for a way out ultimately leads to a search within in this candid portrait of fame, survival and family.

Fellows: Laura Checkoway (Director/Producer), Neyda Martinez (Producer). Brooklyn, NY

Our Nixon

Throughout Nixon’s presidency, three White House aides obsessively filmed their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. This unique archive, created by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, then filed and forgotten. Our Nixon uses this footage to create an intimate, complex portrait of the Nixon presidency. Fellows: Penny Lane (Director/Producer), Brian Frye (Director). Claryville, NY; Kentucky.

Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border

Purgatorio is a travelogue made up of episodes from the border. Murder victims, to children, drug-addicts, grieving mothers, Samaritans, journalists, pastors, police officers, a whole universe of characters and landscapes is skillfully woven together to show us how the US-Mexico border, and in fact all borders, are born from the deepest flaws of human nature. Fellows: Rodrigo Reyes (Director/Producer), Justin Chin (Director of Photography), Manuel Tsingaris (Editor). Merced, CA

Survival Prayer

Survival Prayer is a lyrical journey that celebrates the lifeways of a remote indigenous community against the backdrop of cultural loss and natural calamity. Following individual food harvesters as they gather and prepare for the winter, the film bears witness to a sacred relationship between individuals and the land that sustains them. Fellows: Benjamin Greené (Director/Producer), P. Corwin Lamm (Editor); Michael Beharie (Composer). Bellingham, WA

These Birds Walk

These Birds Walk is about common people who soar in a time of crisis while navigating the gritty reality of their daily lives in Pakistan. Omar, a poor runaway boy, plans his escape from a foundation in hopes to finally return home. A reluctant ambulance driver, Asad, navigates the difficult streets of Karachi, transporting the sick and dead to their fated destinations. Their two lives come together through a dying humanitarian upon whom so much of their daily lives depend. Fellows: Bassam Tariq (Director/Producer), Omar Mullick (Director/Producer), Valentina Canavesio (Producer). Brooklyn, NY.

Where God Likes to Be

The film follows three young American Indians from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana through the course of one summer as they are faced with the choice to either leave the reservation for the first time in their lives or stay and struggle with life there.

Fellows: Nicolas Hudak (Director/Writer), Anna Hudak (Producer/Writer). Berlin, Germany

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