Oct 31, 2013
Artist Development
The San Francisco Film Society (SFFS), in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation (KRF), announced today the projects that will receive a total of $425,000 in funding-by far the largest amount disbursed to date-in the latest round of SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants. Nine filmmaking teams were granted funding to help with their next stage of production, from screenwriting to post. The Film Society’s flagship SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are awarded twice annually to filmmakers for narrative feature films that will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. More than $2 million has been awarded since the launch of the Film Society’s grant program in 2009. For more information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.
The Film Society has established an excellent track record of success with the 37 projects previously funded by SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants, with supported films winning top honors at the world’s premier festivals, garnering critical and popular acclaim and capturing the imaginations of audiences worldwide. As the grant program continues to grow, more and more exceptional independent features will join the distinguished company of such films as Short Term 12, Destin Cretton’s sophomore feature which won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013; Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category at Sundance 2013 and is an Oscar hopeful in multiple categories; and Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin’s debut phenomenon which won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Cannes’ Camera d’Or in 2012 and earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture).
The panelists who reviewed the finalists’ submissions are Santhosh Daniel, creative consultant; filmmaker Lisa Fruchtman; SFFS Executive Director Ted Hope; Jennifer Rainin, president of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation; and Michele Turnure-Salleo, director of Filmmaker360.
“These will be exceptional films, and we are honored to have a part in bringing them into being,” the jury noted in a statement. “Each of these projects explores a unique and authentic world and presents compelling characters that we want to see on the screen. These are stories of people and places with genuine soul, crafted with true depth of reality and emotion and told by people who have the authority to tell them. When they make their splash in the coming months, watch out.”
WINNERS
Doctor – Musa Syeed, director/writer; Nicholas Bruckman, producer
$35,000 for screenwriting
Salim, a disgraced young doctor from India, will do anything to rebuild his former life. But when he starts practicing medicine illegally in New York, he’s drawn into a medical underworld where he risks losing everything.
Escaping Morgantown – Peter Nicks, writer/director
$25,000 for screenwriting
A young addict arrives at a federal prison camp with a plan to turn his life around, but is drawn into the intoxicating world of a crew of seasoned inmates.
The Fixer – Ian Olds, writer/director; Caroline von Kuhn, producer
$25,000 for packaging
An Afghan journalist is exiled from his war-torn country to a small bohemian community in Northern California. When he attempts to turn his menial job on the local police blotter into “Afghan-style” coverage of local crime he gets drawn into the backwoods of this small town-a shadow Northern California where sex is casual, true friendship is hard to come by, and an unfamiliar form of violence burbles up all around him.
Hellion – Kat Candler, writer/director; Jonathan Duffy and Kelly Williams, producers
$70,000 for postproduction
When his delinquent behavior forces his little brother to be taken away, a motocross-obsessed teenager and his emotionally absent father must take responsibility for their destructive behavior to bring him home.
Little Accidents – Sara Colangelo writer/director; Jason Michael Berman, Anne Carey, Thomas B. Fore and Summer Shelton, producers
$50,000 for postproduction
In a small American coal town, the disappearance of a boy draws a young miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive and a local 14-year-old together in a web of secrets.
Los Valientes / The Brave Ones – Aurora Guerrero, writer/director; Chad Burris, producer
$25,000 for packaging
Felix Lopez is gay, undocumented and living in San Francisco until his family obligations move him across the country to a small Pennsylvania mining town to join his undocumented sister. Once there, alienated by local and family politics, Felix finds unexpected solace in the company of one person: his sister’s husband.
Love is Strange – Ira Sachs, writer/director; Lucas Joaquin, Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen, producers
$70,000 for postproduction
A multi-generational story of love and marriage, Love is Strange depicts the delicate nature of any two people trying to build a long life together, and the possibility of love to grow deeper, and richer, with time.
Love Land – Joshua Tate, writer/director/producer; Maritte Go and Andrew Richey, producers
$35,000 for postproduction
Love Land follows Ivy, a young woman with a severe traumatic brain injury, as she faces her refusal to be identified as a person with an intellectual disability. When she is placed in an institution for being a danger to herself and others, Ivy will stop at nothing to prove to the world-and to herself-that she is “normal” enough to transcend the label of “special.”
Manos Sucias – Josef Wladyka, writer/director; Elena Greenlee and Márcia Nunes, producers
$90,000 for postproduction
A desperate fisherman and a naive young man embark on a dangerous journey trafficking drugs up the Pacific coast of Colombia. Hidden beneath the waves, they tow a narco-torpedo filled with millions of dollars worth of cocaine. Together they must brave the war-torn region while navigating the growing tension between them.
SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are made possible by the vision and generosity of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. In addition to the cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through Filmmaker360, the San Francisco Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services program. These benefits, customized to every individual production, can include one-on-one project consultations and project feedback, additional fundraising assistance, resource and service recommendations, and networking opportunities, among many others.
For additional information visit sffs.org/Filmmaker360/Grants.
Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation that is dedicated to enhancing quality of life by promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy, championing and sustaining the arts, and supporting research that will lead to relief for those with chronic disease. The Foundation focuses its efforts on the San Francisco Bay Area and specific medical issues. It utilizes its networks, resources, and commitment to socially responsible practices to support innovation, collaboration and connection in the service of inspiring world-changing work. For more information visit krfoundation.org.