Support Anya and her Grandma's Film Festival Journey

Anya has recently graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a masters degree in film and animation. She completed her masters thesis about her grandmother, Mari. It touches on her life as a young immigrant wife and mother from Okinawa Japan, and her attempts to become a newspaper cartoonist in America. Despite her ambitions, Mari never succeeded in her attempt at becoming a cartoonist, but through Anya's film we hope that her cartoons will finally be seen.

At RIT, Anya's animated documentary short film was selected for the School of Film and Animation Honors Show, as well as the Dryden Theatre Best of SOFA Student Films screening.

The next step is for Anya to enter the film into festivals. Depending on how much funding she is able to raise, she would ideally like to apply to a minimum of twenty festivals. Five of them will be reach festivals, for example, Academy Award qualifying festivals such as Slamdance. Five will be local, such as Baltimore's Sweaty Eyeballs Film Festival. And the other ten will be topical - for example, ones that highlight the stories of older women, and/or Asian Americans (such as the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival), or highlight short documentaries or emerging filmmakers. If she is able to raise more money than expected, she would enter additional festivals or it would go toward travel costs, potentially allowing her grandma Mari to attend some festivals with her.

Success at these festivals will help launch Anya's career as an independent filmmaker. Attending the festivals in person will be very helpful to her as well by providing invaluable feedback and networking opportunities.

She is trying to raise money to help pay for the festival fees, which average around $50-70 per festival, and to help offset travel costs associated with going to the festivals if she is selected.

At this point, film festivals will not consider films that are publicly available, but the trailer is available for potential donors to view. Any donors will be notified of festivals that they might like to attend, and will be notified when the film becomes publicly available. Thank you for considering helping her get started! In the meantime, please enjoy this trailer: The Tale of Mari trailer