The IFP Labs Showcase presents short scenes from each of the documentary and narrative feature works in progress participating in IFP's 2010 Independent Filmmaker Labs. IFP's Independent Filmmaker Labs us is the only program in the country that supports emerging independent filmmakers with projects in post production through the completion, marketing and distribution of their first feature film

The films participating in the showcase are:

DOCUMENTARY LAB:

25 TO LIFE
Director: Michael L. Brown
Producers: Michael L. Brown, Yvonne Shirley

William Brawner was infected with HIV before he turned two and kept it a secret for over twenty years. Now he seeks redemption from the women of his promiscuous past and embarks on a new phase of life with his pregnant wife, who is HIV-negative.
www.25tolifefilm.com

DAMELO TODO (GIVE ME EVERYTHING)
Director: Wu Ingrid Tsang
Producers: Ernesto Foronda, Felix Endara, Daniel Eduvijes Carrera

Damelo Todo depicts the creativity and struggles of a unique community within Los Angeles bar Silver Platter. A refuge for transgender women who have immigrated from Mexico and Central America fleeing war, poverty, and prejudice, the bar is a present-day Stonewall, where drag shows meet avant-garde performance artists, giving rise to new alliances and modes of resistance.
www.damelotodofilm.com

DEAR MANDELA
Directors: Dara Kell, Christopher Nizza
Producer: Dara Kell

South Africa promised to eradicate the slums by 2010 in time for the Soccer World Cup. Dear Mandela follows three extraordinary young slum dwellers, from the chaos on the streets to the highest court in the land as they join their communities in resisting mass evictions. Their efforts unleash a deadly backlash, putting Mandela's promise of a "better life for all" to the test.
www.dearmandela.com

FAMBUL TOK
Director: Sara Terry
Producers: Sara Terry, Rory Kennedy, Libby Hoffman

This insider's view of an unprecedented post-conflict forgiveness program enters the lives of offenders who confess to crimes, and victims who forgive them, beginning together the process of reconciliation. This film will not only change the way viewers think about Africa, it will force them to examine their own lives and what the power of forgiveness can accomplish.
www.fambultokthemovie.com

GIVE UP TOMORROW
Director: Michael Collins
Producers: Michael Collins, Marty Syjuco

On a stormy night in July 1997, two young girls disappear without a trace. Simultaneously a murder-mystery and an expose of endemic corruption in the post-Marcos Philippines, Give Up Tomorrow looks intimately at the case of Paco Larranaga, a young Spanish mestizo sentenced to death for the abduction, rape and murder of two Chinese-Filipino sisters on the island of Cebu.
www.giveuptomorrow.com

OUR SCHOOL
Directors: Miruna Coca-Cozma, Mona Nicoara
Producer: Mona Nicoara

The film follows three Roma children - Alin, Beniamin, and Dana -- strugling to break down the barriers of segregation as they move from a dead-end segregated school into a mainstream school where they will learn together with Romanians. Rejected by teachers, Alin falters in isolation, with little support from his parents. Beniamin finds the strength to succeed in his mother's faith and the friendship of Romanian classmates. Dana abandons school for early marriage and motherhood.

THE PATRON SAINTS
Director/Producers: Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky

The Patron Saints is a disquieting and at times surrealistic exploration of an assisted living facility. Bound by first-hand ruminations of Jim, the nursing home's youngest and recently disabled resident, the film is a revealing portrait of the changing nature of bodies and minds.

PUPPET
Director/Producer: David Soll

Puppet interweaves a big picture look at the fraught history of American puppetry (its marginalization as children's theater and its sudden explosion as high art) with an intimate thread following Dan Hurlin, a downtown artist who is creating a complex puppet work about the strange life of an eccentric, depression-era photographer.
www.thepuppetfilm.com

A RUBBERBAND IS AN UNLIKELY INSTRUMENT
Director: Matt Boyd
Producer: Jason Ross

Walter Baker is an eccentric, multi-instrumentalist struggling to find his creative voice in NYC. Artistically and philosophically situated on the fringes of mainstream culture, Baker grasps to bear the roles family man, business owner and aspiring composer. An unexpected Texas family gathering triggers deeper conflicts that find him grappling to reconcile fractured roots in the South and at home.
www.foundpictures.com

SMOKING SALMON
Director: Luke Griswold-Tergis

A young Tlingit Indian makes a pilgrimage to remote rural Alaska to spend a summer living off the land and preparing traditional food, a winter's supply of smoked salmon. He is forced to confront the dichotomy between his history and the modern world he lives in. His personal life story parallels his culture's disintegration and struggle to revitalize itself.

NARRATIVE LAB TITLES:

HABIBI RASAK KHARBAN (DARLING, SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH YOUR HEAD)
Director: Susan Youssef
Producers: Susan Youssef, Laura Howard, Megan Gilbride

Habibi...tells the story of forbidden love in Gaza. It is a modern retelling of the ancient romance Majnun Layla, and is the first feature regarding Gaza to be made in over fifteen years. The film serves as a catalyst for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and as an illumination of the multi-textured character of Gaza.
www.forbiddentowander.com

I'M NOT ME
Directors: Zak Mulligan & Rodrigo Lopresti
Producers: Kia Barbee, Melanie Angelina Maras, Francis Benhamou

As Josh struggles with the death of his wife Sam, his grief begins to manifest itself in strange ways. When Josh meets his dead wife who is somehow alive and well, he investigates further and realizes that he is shifting between realities. Opportunity turns into tragedy as Josh tries to regain the life he once had.
www.imnotmethemovie.com

KINYARWANDA
Director: Alrick Brown
Producer: Darren Dean

During the Rwandan genocide, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the killing. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. Kinyarwanda interweaves six different tales that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.
www.kinyarwandamovie.com

MELVIN
Director/Producer: Chris Ohlson

Melvin is a slow-burn road movie and the fractured portrait of Melvin Mills, a wandering misfit struggling to express himself.
www.melvinmovie.com

PARIAH
Director: Dee Rees
Producers: Nekisa Cooper

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, family and heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.
www.pariahthemovie.com

RESTLESS CITY
Director: Andrew Dosunmu
Producers: Katie Mustard, Matt Parker

You are a young, vibrant West African immigrant. There is music in your blood and fearlessness in your heart. The streets of New York are your home, where you can do anything you want. What you gonna do? Hustle.
www.restlesscityfilm.com

SAHKANAGA
Director/Producer: John Henry Summerour

Paul, a teenager in rural Georgia, throws out his sister's kitten. While searching for the cat in the woods, he stumbles upon a gruesome discovery. If he tells the truth, he risks exposing his parents who run the local funeral home and losing Lyla, a beautiful outsider spending the summer in Sahkanaga. If he keeps the secret, he risks destroying much more.
www.sahkanaga.com

STUCK BETWEEN STATIONS
Director: Brady Kiernan
Producer: Brady Kiernan, Spencer Kiernan, Todd Cobery, Sam Rosen

Casper, a soldier who experienced the horrors of war, fell in love in elementary school with Rebecca, a once-promising grad student who just killed her career. They reconnect in a night that follows the twists and turns of the underbelly of Minneapolis, while they talk through their hopes and dreams, and grow closer towards each other.
www.stuck-between-stations.com

UNA NOCHE
Director: Lucy Mulloy
Producer: Lucy Mulloy, Yunior Santiago Riveron, Daniel Mulloy

Raul is forced to flee Havana. He wants his best friend, Elio, to leave everything behind and come with him. Together they plan to take the treacherous journey across the ocean to Miami. Raul is in search of his father and Elio has to make the choice whether to go or stay and support his sister. Upon this night, full of hope and fraught with tensions, they face the biggest challenge of their lives.

YELLING TO THE SKY
Director: Victoria Mahoney
Producer: Victoria Mahoney, Billy Mulligan, Ged Dickersin, Diane Houselin

Growing up in a depraved neighborhood in Queens, Sweetness O'Hara has so far managed to avoid the pitfalls of New York urban life. Soon enough, events converge that change her course: at the abusive hands of her father, her mother suffers a nervous breakdown and her beloved sister moves out. Alone and devastated, she takes control of her life.