NEW YORK—The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) today announced a new grant in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation that will fully fund Jeff Reichert (Gerrymandering, Remote Area Medical) and Farihah Zaman’s (Remote Area Medical) feature documentary This Time Next Year, a project that tracks the resilience of Long Beach Island, New Jersey, residents during their slow rebuilding process following Hurricane Sandy. The initiative, which marks the first film collaboration between TFI and The Rockefeller Foundation and the first time TFI has fully funded a project, will provide support for the film beginning early in the creative process, and help promote social action around the rebuilding through digital and education initiatives.
This Time Next Year is a portrait of small New Jersey community, directed by a filmmaking team with lifelong ties to the area – co-director Jeff Reichert’s family has lived there for decades and producer Dan O’Meara is an Island native. Eighteen miles long and only a few blocks wide, Long Beach Island is home to approximately 20,000 year-round residents. In October of 2012, Long Beach Island was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Battered by a high storm surge, flooding and winds, the island was evacuated by order of Governor Chris Christie on October 28. Sandy left dozens of homes and businesses in ruins and, as a whole, Long Beach Island suffered an estimated billion dollars in damage. This Time Next Year begins just before Christmas 2012 and ends a year later. From the small triumphs of individual families able to finally return to their homes, to the larger political issues surrounding the slowly released state and federal aid monies, the character-driven film highlights the resilience of the Island’s inhabitants during the rebuilding process, including the altruism of Island residents who worked tirelessly after the storm to help bail out their neighbors.
TFI and The Rockefeller Foundation’s support for This Time Next Year began with initial funding support in August 2013 and will continue through 2014. In addition to financial support, TFI will provide mentoring and guidance throughout development, production and release—from ongoing shooting through December 2013, including the anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, to social and community action campaigns and strategic partnerships that will help communities prepare for a natural disaster and understand how climate change is affecting them. This groundbreaking integrated campaign will include national theatrical and grassroots screenings, and provide free educational screenings through TFI’s existing Tribeca Youth Screening Series (TYSS), which provides unique curriculums and interactive, participatory screenings to more than 6,000 New York City and New Jersey public school students and their teachers each year.
“Through this new initiative with The Rockefeller Foundation, TFI is providing filmmakers with tools to help bridge the gap between the film viewing experience and the direct action needed to affect progress and change around the cause it serves to support – in this case the resources still needed to rebuild and recover a community,” said Ryan Harrington, director, documentary programming, Tribeca Film Institute. “TFI has long nurtured the careers of hundreds of independent filmmakers through professional development and fiscal support and we are excited to extend our mission by helping bring this incredible story of resilience to life and to audiences.”
“We are beyond honored to be working with TFI and Rockefeller on This Time Next Year,” said filmmakers Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman. “The community and people we’ve been filming are incredibly dear to us, and we’re excited that through this partnership we now have the resources to not only finish the film, but ensure it has a far-reaching impact. We can’t wait for viewers to meet all of the amazing LBI residents we’ve spent the last year with.”
“Hurricane Sandy tested the resilience of New York and New Jersey, and it is important to document the experiences of communities like Long Beach Island as they work to rebuild to help communities better prepare for future storms and other shocks and stresses,” said Rockefeller Foundation Vice President, Global Communications Neill Coleman. “The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to fund TFI and This Time Next Year, to increase public awareness and dialogue around the importance of building resilience.”
For images, please download here: https://tribecafilminstitute.org/press_releases/images/rockefeller.
More information on This Time Next Year is available on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ttnymovie, or on Twitter: @TTNYmovie.
About the Tribeca Film Institute
The Tribeca Film Institute is a 501(c)3 year round nonprofit arts organization founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in the wake of September 11, 2001. TFI empowers filmmakers through grants and professional development, and is a resource and advocate for individual artists in the field. The Institute’s educational programming leverages an extensive film community network to help underserved New York City students learn filmmaking and gain the media skills necessary to be productive citizens and creative individuals in the 21st century. Administering a dozen major programs annually, TFI is a critical contributor to the fabric of filmmaking and aids in protecting the livelihood of filmmakers and media artists. For more information and a list of all TFI programs visit http://www.tribecafilminstitute.org/.
About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation aims to achieve equitable growth by expanding opportunity for more people in more places worldwide, and to build resilience by helping them prepare for, withstand, and emerge stronger from acute shocks and chronic stresses. Throughout its 100 year history, The Rockefeller Foundation has enhanced the impact of innovative thinkers and actors working to change the world by providing the resources, networks, convening power, and technologies to move them from idea to impact. In today’s dynamic and interconnected world, The Rockefeller Foundation has a unique ability to address the emerging challenges facing humankind through innovation, intervention and influence in order to shape agendas and inform decision making. For more information, please visit http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org.
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