Women Fellows Take TriBeCa

Last week, the Tribeca Film Institute, concurrently with the Tribeca Film Festival, awarded its 2008 Media Arts Fellowship to 20 groundbreaking filmmaker and media artists, with each nabbing $35,000. The Fellowship, which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, presents awards in the narrative, documentary, experimental, installation and computer-generated media genres. For the first time ever, women took more booty than men, with 12 of the 20 prizes going to female filmmakers. “What was amazing this year is we had such a strong showing of women winning in the fellowships, probably the strongest ever,” TFI’s Brian Newman said. “The panel felt these projects were really pushing boundaries in the form: it’s an amazing crop.” Among the winners were Andrew Bujalski of “Mumblecore” fame, Oscar nominee Laura Poitras for her upcoming doc about terrorism, “Release,” and Oscar winner Jessica Yu for her doc about a deaf teacher, “Signs of Life.” The Ceremony was held at the New York Academy of Art.

Yu Go, Girl! Jessica Yu is one of 12 lady filmmakers who nabbed a $35,000 fellowship from the TriBeCa Institute.

Isabella’s ‘Green Porno’

With everything going green these days, I guess it should be no surprise that porno would follow suit. Of course, the new short film series “Green Porno,” which is debuting this week on Sundance Channel’s Web site, is less “Porno” and more “Green.” Isabella Rossellini’s eight-part series about the sex life of insects and other little life forms is a comical, yet surprisingly informative, glimpse at the way certain creatures “make love.” “I’ve always been interested in animals and animal behavior,” said Rossellini. “I wanted people to laugh, but then to leave and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know about that.’ That was my green intervention. It was to make people aware of animal life.” “Green Porno,” which Rossellini conceived, wrote and stars in, was made with the small screen in mind (particularly mobile devices), so it’s only fitting that it would be about some of the world’s smallest creatures. To watch “Green Porno,” visit www.sundancechannel.com.

The Most Design-y Films

Every filmmaker can point to the movies that were major influences on his or her work. I guess it makes sense that film has influences over other areas of the arts, including design. At the online film mag Film in Focus, Deborah Berke — a renowned architect and design prof at Yale — lists the five films that most heavily informed her design style. Her list may surprise you: Stephen Frears’ 1990 thriller, “The Grifters,” Jonathan Demme’s “Married to the Mob” (it must’ve been the architectural design of Michelle Pfeiffer’s cantilevered bangs), Blake Edwards’ “The Party” with Peter Sellers, the Talking Heads music pic “Stop Making Sense” and “Wait Until Dark,” a 1967 thriller about a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) who takes on a trio of thugs in her apartment — because nothing evokes great visual design like a movie about the blind. In all seriousness, where was “Porky’s 2” on this list? Check out filminfocus.com.

Heart Byrne: The Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” is one of the top films to influence the world of design, according to a hot-shot architect from Yale.