The house of CHANEL is one that notoriously has a deep connection to the arts. Whether it be literature, filmmaking, music, or savoir-faire and couture, the French Maison has a standing legacy of supporting female artists in achieving their dreams. Last Thursday, Tribeca and CHANEL announced the winning recipient of the 10th annual Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women's Filmmaker Program.
On Thursday evening at the Greenwich Hotel penthouse, Kar Dev Dube and MG Evangelista were awarded this year’s grand prize for their film “Strangers,” a short film about two reserved newlyweds who must navigate the initial days of their arranged marriage—the vulnerability, the intimacy, the rawness of a new partnership where they discover a new dynamic. Dube and Evangelista received full financing to produce their short film with support from Tribeca Studios.
Winners Karishma Dev Dube and MG Evangelista
Chanel
"Winning is pivotal, honestly," Dube says. "It gives me an opportunity to do things at a level that's very rare. It is a rarity, this program, CHANEL and Tribeca have also been so conscious of being in touch with the reality of making shorts, which is not very common in this industry. It takes years, and it takes usually a lot of filmmakers own money. So this is transformational."
Alongside the grand prize, all of the filmmakers involved in the program spent three days with the jury and leading industry voices from around the world in workshops, one-on-one mentorship sessions, and intimate conversations spanning script development, directing, music composition, and costume design. "I think it's quite lonely to make films, especially short films, because you're inching towards an industry that feels really far away, but the program readies you in a very short amount of time," Dube adds.
Issa Rae
Chanel
Colleen Atwood
Chanel
Joining the jury were an all-star lineup of actors, directors, and producers, like Kaitlyn Dever, Meghann Fahy, Allison Janney, Payal Kapadia, Jenny Slate and Issa Rae, to name a few. "I was looking for someone that I wanted to take a meeting with, someone that I could see a future for as fan of filmmaking, someone who had a very clear vision of the story that they wanted to tell," Rae tells me at the cocktail event. "[The script and presentation] came from such a viscerally-real place, and [Karishma and MG Evangelista] had such a confidence speaking about the material, I immediately wanted to see the film."
Among the conversation leaders who attended to program to lend their expertise was Academy-Award-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood, the creative visionary behind costumes for "Chicago," "Fantastic Beasts" and Netflix's "Wednesday," who said of the program: "I think it's really special in the fact that it gives filmmakers that are women an opportunity to tell their stories, or the stories that resonate with them...stories that maybe might be missed."
She notes that the most valuable sentiment from the program is a feeling of connection with your peers. "Whatever your vision is, whatever your heart is, it's important to communicate [that]," she says. "And in this world, women have a hard time, especially as directors. So this kind of thing is really important."
