2024 New Voices Filmmaker Grant Recipients

Apa Agbayani is a Filipino writer-director based in New York and he’s working through his feelings with magic. Apa started out directing music videos for indie artists in the Philippines then continued towards films and commercials. Currently, he’s finishing a Film MFA at Columbia University.

His latest short “Abutan man tayo ng house lights (When the house lights come on)” was the recipient of the QCShorts production grant and premiered at the QCinema International Film Festival in the Philippines in 2023. Apa’s previous shorts are “Somewhere all the boys are birds” (2023), which premiered at NewFest 35 in New York, and “We kept warm” (2021), which was released online via Tarzeer Pictures.

Angalis Field (b. 1994, Portland, Oregon) is a screenwriter, director, and photographer based in New York City. His graduate thesis film BUST (co-written with Eliza Barry Callahan) premiered at Sundance in 2024. His debut short, THE DALLES, premiered at Sundance in 2023. His photography and writing has been shown in various galleries and published in Artforum, Cultured Magazine, Purple Magazine, GQ, Teen Vogue, California Sunday, OUT, The New York Times, and more. He holds an MFA in Filmmaking from NYU Tisch (2019-2024) and a B.A in English and Creative Writing from Columbia University (2012-2016).

Clementine Narcisse is a black, transgender, writer/director and editor from New Jersey based in New York City. After spending many years as a freelance video editor, Clementine is now a rising senior studying film directing at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. In 2022, she released her debut short film AS WE HOLD HANDS, followed by her sophomore film GIRL BLUNT, both selections of the NewFest Film Festival. Her next film, a queer lesbian thriller, BLUE MOON ANGELS, will be released in late 2024. Her work primarily revolves around LGBTQ Women of Color, and her primary mission as a writer/director is to expand the types of stories that they typically have on screen. Clementine is also the recipient of the 2023 NewFest Film Festival Emerging Black LGBTQ+ Filmmaker Award.

cai thomas is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in Chicago telling intimate stories at the intersection of location, self determination, and identity about Black youth and elders. She grew up in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood and is deeply interested in stories rooted in place. Her filmmaking exhibits how Black folks are agitating and organizing for the world they want, whether that’s a journalist investigating police misconduct (BENEATH THE SURFACE, 2023) , a disabled lesbian elder fighting for an accessible apartment (QUEENIE, 2020) or young folks organizing for parks named after folks that look like them (CHANGE THE NAME FILM, 2021). She’s currently developing a film about Black lesbians and motherhood.