grace
DIRECTOR: RACHEL PIKELNY
GRACE (wt), a short documentary, tells the story of a 36-year-old suburban soccer mom and breast cancer survivor who decides to reclaim her body by getting an elaborate mastectomy tattoo. Directed by a recent breast cancer survivor and created by an all-female crew, Grace will be a frank, honest, and often funny exploration of a seldom-discussed side of the survivor’s experience—the battle that begins when everyone else thinks the war is already won.
Rachel Pikelny
Rachel Pikelny is an award-winning filmmaker who currently serves as Director of Production at Siskel/Jacobs Productions and is a 2017 Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow. Her work has been broadcast internationally on PBS, CNBC, A&E, and OWN. She is currently producing two feature documentaries with Siskel/Jacobs Productions: No Small Matter, a co-production with Kindling Group about early childhood education; and The Road Up, which centers on The Cara Program and its students as they rebuild their lives and find employment.
Most recently, Rachel produced the NETA-distributed short film Unexpected Justice: The Rise of John Paul Stevens and co-directed/co-produced the first episode of The School Project short documentary web series. Previously, with Kartemquin Films, she produced The Trials of Muhammad Ali, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, aired on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2014, and won the 2015 News and Documentary Emmy for Best Historical Long-Form Program. Rachel also served as co-producer on Kartemquin’s film American Arab (America ReFramed, 2016), as associate producer on A Good Man (American Masters, 2011), and as producer of the PBS short film The Creative Proposition (2013). In 2010, Rachel coordinated the web engagement campaign for The Calling, a four-hour documentary miniseries produced by The Kindling Group and broadcast on Independent Lens. She spent several years at Kurtis Productions, creating episodes of the nonfiction series Cold Case Files for A&E and American Greed for CNBC. She has produced promotional content for Fortune 500 companies such as Pepsi and USAA, and she has served on committees for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Chicago Short Film Brigade, and Hugo Television Awards.