The LES Film Festival, Inc.

Help filmmakers Gabriella Moses and Sarah Wharton bring The Booking to the Venice Biennale College Cinema program!

What is happening?

Gabriella and Sarah have been chosen as one of 12 filmmaking teams from around the world to attend the Venice Biennale College Cinema program with Gabriella's next feature project, The Booking. The program is focused on emerging filmmakers with micro-budget features and will lead the filmmakers through a rigorous development process in Venice from October 8th - 17th. If chosen to advance to the next stage of the program, The Booking is eligible to receive a grant to complete production on the film. Recognized as one of the most prestigious arts festivals and programs in the world, being invited to attend the Biennale College program is a career boosting opportunity.

The Booking is an independent feature film written and directed by Gabriella Moses and produced by Sarah Wharton that follows a young woman through a 24-hour prison ordeal after a 911 call goes wrong at a friend's wedding.

What is the money for?

Gabriella and Sarah are thrilled and grateful to be able to participate in this very exciting opportunity. Room and Board for the program are generously covered by the Biennale College but they need to raise funds for flights and a travel stipend to account for meals and lost work while they are attending the program. The cost breakdown is as follows:

2 x Round Trip Flights to Venice, Italy = $2k

2 x 10-day travel stipend @ $150/day = $3k

Total: $5k

The Lower East Side Film Festival is dedicated to supporting our community of alumni filmmakers with grants, programs, and additional resources to advance their careers and bring their future projects to life. All donations are tax-deductible!

Can you tell me more about the film?

Absolutely!

Inspired by true law enforcement cases, The Booking takes place over the course of 48 hours in the South.

After an explosive confrontation with her unfaithful partner at a friend's wedding, Maribel finds herself thrust into a 24-hour prison ordeal. Faced with the consequences of self-defense and the State pressing charges, she has to navigate her way through the murky waters of truth and justice in order to find her way to freedom.

This story is about a woman’s desire to cling onto a toxic relationship and finding herself in danger in the aftermath of trying to protect herself. It’s also about acknowledging the ways the system fails abused women and specifically women of color who find themselves in perpetual cycles of incarceration. This is an eye-opening account of what being a woman in an abusive relationship can turn into regardless of class or education.

Who are Gabriella and Sarah?

So glad you asked!

Gabriella A. Moses is an award-winning Dominican-Guyanese American writer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

With her firm belief in sharing stories with underrepresented protagonists that test viewer’s perceptions of identity and their imaginations, Gabriella has received support from the Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Lab, Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access Lab and Creators Market, IFP (The Gotham) No Border’s Film Market and the Los Cabos Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund programs. She has participated in numerous workshops including the Sundance Screenwriter's Intensive, the NYWIFT "From Script to Pre-Production" Workshop, Tribeca and Chanel Through Her Lens, AT&T Untold Stories program and the annual Blacklist Screenwriter’s Lab. She most recently was selected for the inaugural Scripted Cannes Screenplay List, LALIFF & Netflix Inclusion Fellowship and The Black List Latinx List. Her screenplay EL TIMBRE DE TU VOZ won Best Drama screenplay at Fresh Voices Screenplay competition, including recognition through their Diversity & Inclusion and our Culture & Heritage Spotlight Awards.

Her debut feature BOCA CHICA, set in the Dominican Republic, premiered in International Narrative Competition at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival where she won the prestigious 11th Annual Nora Ephron Award award.

Sarah Wharton is an award-winning producer based in NYC. Known for championing fiercely independent creators, Sarah has developed, produced and sold projects to Netflix, Showtime, and Paramount+. Most recently, she served as Director of Development at BFD Productions, a film and television production company based in Brooklyn. Notably, BFD has produced content for HBO Max,

Discovery+, CNN, Marvel, CBS, and Showtime. Sarah is also a producer and Board Member of The Lower East Side Film Festival. In collaboration with BFD and LESFF, Sarah spearheaded The Stay Indie Project, a development fellowship geared towards supporting emerging filmmakers.

What is the Venice Biennale College Cinema Program?

Below is some brief info. You can read more about the program on their website , and read the press release about the 2024-2025 cohort of filmmakers here.

Now in its 13th edition (2024–2025), Biennale College Cinema is the higher education workshop of La Biennale di Venezia, created for emerging filmmakers to develop and produce micro budget feature-length films that will be presented at the Venice International Film Festival.

Overall, since 2012, the workshop has awarded the Biennale grants to produce 37 feature-length films (costing no more than 200,000 euro each), promoting new talents that have established their names nationally and internationally and were selected from 2,337 applicants from all around the world.