Malditas
Work in progress
Supported by South Shorts Grant & Residency 2021
Synopsis:
Two Filipinx cousins, three years apart, meet in a rural Florida cemetery, and grapple with what remains of their hometown dreams after the loss of one of their fathers during the pandemic. “Malditas'' is a short documentary that combines interviews, archive and verite footage to explore the tension between losing a parent in a highly Catholic Filipino community, the foreverness of childhood and the possibilities of growing deeper in faith through grief while in the most conservative county in North Florida.
Filmmakers:
Bree Nieves
Director
Bree Nieves (b. Oklahoma) is an emerging independent documentary and fiction director and producer. Raised between the deep south and NYC — her work weaves narrative, doc, and experimental modalities together — addressing motifs of faith, catholicism, racialized misperceptions, queerness, familial relationships, southern culture, and the asian and black diaspora in the United States. She is a 2021 Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) and Asian American Documentary (A-DOC) Non-Fiction Fellow and a 2021 CAAM + NOVAC, Asian American Filmmakers in the South Fellow, a 2021 Unlock Her Potential Mentee, and a 2021 ""Opacity"" Flaherty Seminar Fellow. Her direct mentor for the CAAM + ADOC fellowship is the acclaimed documentary director, Steve Maing, Crime + Punishment on Hulu (Sundance, 2018) She is a Digital Production Coordinator at PBS's American Documentary POV series, America's longest running showcase for independent nonfiction films, and previously has worked as an Associate Producer with Soledad O'Brien. She has worked with Jigsaw Productions, Story Syndicate, The Academy Awards, Netflix, The Rachael Ray show, and on NBC/ABC morning shows. She will serve as a Juror for the 42nd News and Documentary Emmy Awards."