AXS Film Fund Announces Latest Grants Supporting Nonfiction Creators Of Color With Disabilities

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: “Carlitos The Terrible” lost an arm as a child, but that hasn’t stopped the young man from pursuing his dream of competing in Muay Thai at the highest levels.

His remarkable story is told in the upcoming documentary Zurdo (Southpaw), one of five nonfiction projects to receive support in the latest round of grants from the AXS Film Fund, an initiative created by AXS Lab to “support documentary filmmakers and non-fiction new media creators of color with disabilities.” Along with Zurdo, directed by Luis Aguer, the grantees announced today include El Desobediente (The Disobedient One), directed by Rodrigo Dorfman; Prodigal Daughter, directed by Mabel Valdiviezo; Sticker Movie, directed by Will Deloney, and the new media project Lineage Launch Pad, directed by Ann Bennett [see below for more details on each project]. “AXS Film Fund seeks to bring visibility to this underrepresented community of creators by intervening and providing opportunities that they may not otherwise have with mainstream funding structures,” a release stated. “AXS Film Fund is led by Jason DaSilva, a director, producer, writer, and disability rights activist best known for the Emmy Award winning documentary When I Walk, the first film in a documentary trilogy, and program director Naomi Middleton.” DaSilva said in a statement, “It’s nice to see that the AXS Film Fund has come so far in such a short time.

It’s great that we have doubled our application intake from when we first started, which shows that there is a clear need to serve this community.

It’s exciting that these stories can come to the forefront now and have support where they would otherwise not receive funding.” Middleton noted, “AXS Film Fund continues to support and make