Halle Berry Jury Awards Chanel x Tribeca 'Through Her Lens' Prize to 'Cowards'

Halle Berry and a jury including Regina King, Meg Ryan, Autumn Durald Arkapaw and Ella Rubin awarded this year's Chanel x Tribeca Through Her Lens grant to writer-director Gem Little and producer Kseniya Yorsh for their short film "Cowards." The prize, announced Thursday night at a Greenwich Village penthouse in New York, gives one team full financing to produce its short film.

"Cowards" is set on a summer day in 1999 Chicago and follows 11-year-old Diamond as a rift with her best friend forces her to reckon with everything she has been taught about toughness as a young girl. Little based the story on her own life.

"Youth violence is a crucial issue, and we don't often talk about it from the lens of young girls and how we're taught to be tough as a survival mechanism," Little told Variety.

The winners emerged from a three-day program of workshops, one-on-one mentorship and industry conversations, culminating in a live pitch to the jury. Arkapaw told the crowd on Thursday night that she "felt very confident that all these talented women will make, and should make these films," but that ultimately "one film touched us [as] the most as a compassionate, strong example of a story that is needed in our country right now."

Berry explained the jury's reasoning through the deliberation process. "I don't think, as a woman, our first instinct is to fight," she said. "We're very egalitarian. We're nurturers of our families. More often than not, we're willing to talk something out and find a peaceful resolution. That's the difference between men and women. 'Cowards' beautifully expresses that."

She said the jurors decided "something had to be a definitive thought," and chose "a film on anti-violence, and a female way of dealing with violence was something that the world needs right now."

Regina King, another juror, admitted she had not expected the commitment involved. "I'll be honest: when I first got the materials, I was like, 'Oh, there's homework? I thought we were just going to hear the pitch,'" she joked later in the evening. Hearing the stories and meeting the women telling them reminded her why she loves the business. "At this age, you can definitely be jaded," she said with a laugh. "We're all going to hell in a handbag." She credited the new generation, "marching to the beat of their own drum," with allowing her to settle into the joy of filmmaking again.

King said the three-day experience pushed her to take off her blinders. "When you have experienced success, you can find yourself guilty of losing the peripheral. Having this experience reminds me that everything is not right in front of me." She also reflected on her own next film as a director, grateful that her sister, Reina King, has been her filmmaking partner throughout. "That could be [us] in this room," she said. "We're still in rooms pitching like that."

This year's mentors included "Past Lives" and "Materialists" filmmaker Celine Song, playwright and filmmaker Aleshea Harris ("Is God Is"), producer Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, actress Fala Chen and "The Woman King" director Gina Prince-Bythewood.

For Little and Yorsh, the three days transformed them as storytellers and as women. Heading back to Los Angeles, the pair said their biggest takeaway is "how important it is right now for us to have agency and autonomy over our own stories. Women tell the truth. I think we're going to continue to do that."

Little closed the evening on the terrace with words Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal had imparted to the cohort earlier in the week: "You not only hold the door open for the women who are behind you, but you hold the door open for the women who are ahead of you as well. You never know. All of this stuff is a sliding scale."

With full financing secured, "Cowards" now moves from pitch to production, carrying a jury's verdict that its story of girls, toughness and nonviolence is one audiences need now.