Meet the 30 recipients of the fourth annual Research & Development Grant, supported by Netflix
Chicken & Egg Films announced today via XXX the 26 film projects supported by its fourth Chicken & Egg Films Research & Development Grant. The grants provide filmmakers with $10,000 USD toward research or $20,000 USD toward the development of a new documentary project. These critical early stages in the life of a documentary often go unsupported. During their grant year, filmmakers will also have access to the Chicken & Egg Films team and community for peer support, expert mentorship, and industry connections. The 2026 Chicken & Egg Films Research & Development Grant is supported by Netflix.
The Research & Development (R&D) Grant this year will be awarded to 30 filmmakers working on 26 projects. The cohort is 70% international–the most global to date. Together the 2026 R&D recipients represent 21 countries worldwide, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, the UK, Ukraine, and the US.
The R&D Grant recipients are divided into two segments. The Research Grant recipients are in the ideation period, which includes identifying secondary sources, following storylines, and building foundational relationships. The Development Grant recipients are in a deeper exploration period, which includes securing access to core subjects and collaborators, solidifying budgets, fundraising, story development, and other tasks.
“At a time when polarization and isolation can make the world feel smaller, these projects remind us that documentaries have the power to build connections across borders,” said Associate Director of Program Elaisha Stokes. “The stories we are supporting in this cohort reflect the world we hope to live in, one defined by curiosity, empathy, and new ways of understanding our shared humanity.”
Every Chicken & Egg Films cohort offers a snapshot of the narratives, topics, and themes most urgent to filmmakers right now. This year's R&D slate is no exception, with stories exploring social issues spanning women's rights, climate, war, immigration, disability rights, democracy, and more. But despite this broad scope, the throughline across each film is intimacy: a father and daughter dig into what grief and memory pass down a bloodline; a filmmaker traces her family back through a colonial rupture that took forty-five years to come to light; a woman follows the ghost of her great-grandmother's execution straight into a war happening today.
The 2026 cohort sees AlumNest filmmakers Contessa Gayles (Songs From The Hole), Alison O'Daniel (The Tuba Thieves), Maite Alberdi (The Eternal Memory), and Oksana Karpovych (Intercepted) receiving support for new projects; the remaining 87% of filmmakers are first-time grantees.
Several previous R&D filmmakers have now completed and premiered their granted projects; films from the 2023 cycle have premiered at Berlinale 2024 (Svitlana Lishchynska’s A Bit of A Stranger), Locarno 2024 (Iva Radivojevic’s When The Phone Rang), Chicago International Latino Film Festival 2025 (Tatiana Fernández Geara’s I Am My Grandma’s Granddaughter), and Tribeca Festival 2026 (Cynthia Lowen & Jon Cohrs’ Kids Like Me, Habiba Nosheen’s The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony). Additionally, previous R&D grantees Amber Fares, Chase Joynt, Ema Ryan Yamazaki, Jules Rosskam, Tamara Kotevska, and Zippy Kimundu have since received the Chicken & Egg Award—a signature program for advanced-career filmmakers poised to reach new breakthroughs—based on films they developed during their R&D year.
A full list of grantees appears below.
Research Grant recipients:
Janay Boulos (Lebanon)
Myriam El Hajj (Lebanon)
Katherine Gorringe (US)
Oksana Karpovych (Ukraine, Canada)
Zhanana Kurmasheva (Kazakhstan)
Kani Lapuerta (México)
Juyeon Yang (South Korea)
Development Grant recipients:
Elizabeth Ai (US) - Untitled
Maite Alberdi (Chile) - Untitled
Tatiana Botovelo (France, Madagascar) - Daughters of Zafy
Gabrielle Brady (Australia, UK) - Drifters
Yi Chen (US) - Democracy in Exile
Sepideh Farsi (Iran, France) - Memoirs of an Undutiful Daughter
Sam Feder (US) - LES
Contessa Gayles (US) - Untitled
Carla Grande (Spain, UK) - Crossed
Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane (UK) - Non_Playable_Character
Tania Hernández Velasco (México) - Capolcuahuitl
Hannah Jayanti, Vikram Jayanti (US, UK) - Heritage
Ilrhan Kim (South Korea) - MARINÉ
Karla Murthy (US) - Project Houston
Alison O'Daniel (US) - Inframince / Infrasound
Agustina Pérez Rial (Argentina) - The Other Voice
Kanishka Sonthalia, Siddesh Shetty (India) - Silver Linings
Yulia Vishnevets, Renato Borrayo Serrano (Russia, Georgia, Guatemala, Germany) - Not So Far Away Places
Xinyan Yu (US) - The Distance Between Us
ABOUT CHICKEN & EGG FILMS Chicken & Egg Films champions women and gender-expansive documentary filmmakers around the globe with funding, mentorship, and access so they can tell stories that ignite change. We match strategically-timed grants with creative guidance, peer community-building, and industry connections. This support system is tailored to meet the unique needs women and gender-expansive people experience in their filmmaking and career trajectories.
As of 2026, we have provided over $15.5 million in grants and thousands of hours of creative mentorship to over 550 filmmakers from across the globe. Films supported by our work have been nationally and internationally recognized with critical accolades, including Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Peabody Awards.
Recipient of honors including the Social Impact Media Awards Vanguard Award and the International Documentary Association’s Amicus Award, Chicken & Egg Films was first founded in 2005 to address the “chicken or egg” inequities women filmmakers faced. We’ve since evolved our eligibility criteria to support all filmmakers impacted by gender bias.
