Meet the Fall 2019 SFFILM Rainin Grant winners

SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation have selected the fall 2019 winners of the SFFILM Rainin Grants, the flagship film funding program offered by SFFILM Makers.

A total of $225,000 has been awarded in this round of grants, to eight narrative feature projects from a diverse group of emerging storytellers tackling important social issues facing the nation.

SFFILM, in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the United States. The SFFILM Rainin Grant program has awarded over $5 million to more than 100 projects since its inception, including Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which won a record number of juried prizes at Sundance 2019 and was just released in theaters nationwide by A24; Nijla Mu’min’s Jinn, which won a Special Jury Award at SXSW 2018 following its premiere there; Boots Riley’s indie breakthrough Sorry to Bother You, which had a successful release last summer through Annapurna Pictures before winning an Indie Spirit Award for Best First Feature; Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2018; Short Term 12, Destin Cretton’s sophomore feature which won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at SXSW 2013; Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station, which won the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, the Un Certain Regard Avenir Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category at Sundance 2013; and Ben Zeitlin’s debut phenomenon Beasts of the Southern Wild, which won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Cannes’ Camera d’Or in 2012 and earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture).

Applications are currently being accepted for the Spring 2020 round of SFFILM Rainin Grants; the deadline to apply is February 12. For more information visit sffilm.org/makers.

FALL 2019 SFFILM RAININ GRANT WINNERS

Could I be dead and not know it?
Ilinca Calugareanu, writer/director; Mara Adina, producer — $25,000 for screenwriting
A police raid in the dead of the night and two weeks in a detention center end with Relu being deported back to his home country, where he discovers he has long been declared dead by his estranged wife. Relu abandoned everyone 20 years ago, ran away to a new land and never looked back, but now he is forced to face the consequences of his actions.

The Goddesses of Nanking
Carol Liu, writer/director/producer — $25,000 for screenwriting
Two women crusade to bring to light the Japanese wartime atrocities committed at the Rape of Nanking, but their heroic efforts come at a great personal cost.

Miss Juneteenth 
Channing Godfrey Peoples, writer/director; Neil Creque Williams, Jeanie Igoe, James M. Johnston, Toby Halbrooks, Theresa Page, Tim Headington, producers — $50,000 for post-production
A former beauty queen turned hardworking single mom prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the Miss Juneteenth pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she made.

Noche de Fuego
Tatiana Huezo, writer/director — $25,000 for post-production
Noche de Fuego depicts life in a town at war as seen through the eyes of three young girls on the path to adolescence.

One Hand Clapping
Shelly Grizim, writer/director; Deniz Buga, producer — $25,000 for screenwriting
Two women are trapped in an obsessive relationship and only through acts of hopeless revenge is their great love revealed. In this temporal loop of conflicted hearts, an Israeli woman, a Palestinian woman, and a young child form an impossible family.

1791
Stefani Saintonge, writer/co-director/producer; Sébastien Denis, co-director/producer — $25,000 for screenwriting
It’s August 1791 in the French colony of Sainte-Domingue when a massive slave revolt erupts sparking the Haitian Revolution.

Stampede
Sontenish Myers, writer/director — $25,000 for screenwriting
Set on a southern plantation in the 1800s, a young slave girl named Lena develops telekinetic powers she cannot yet control. Circumstances escalate when she is separated from her mother to be a house girl, in close quarters with the mercurial Master’s wife, Elizabeth.

Washing Elena
Maria Victoria Ponce, writer; Vanessa Perez, producer — $25,000 for development
Set in Richmond, California, Washing Elena follows 31-year-old Indalia as she attempts to solve the mystery surrounding her best’s friend’s sudden death. To find answers, Indalia must confront the realities of her friend’s surprising conversion to Islam, leading her to challenge her own biases and lingering guilt.