Apr 30, 2015
Artist Development
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Film Society today announced the three winners of the 2015 SFFS Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $75,000, which support feature-length documentaries in postproduction. The SFFS Documentary Film Fund was created to support singular nonfiction film work that is distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters and an innovative visual approach. Mike Day’s The Island and the Whales, Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s Learning to Forget and Peter Nicks’ The Oakland Police Project were each awarded significant funding that will help push them towards completion.
The SFFS Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for championing compelling films that have gone on to earn great acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary, was distributed theatrically by RADiUS-TWC and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature; Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s American Promise, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won the festival’s Special Jury Prize in the documentary category; and Jason Zeldes’s Romeo Is Bleeding, which had its World Premiere at the 58th San Francisco International Film Festival on April 29.
Since its launch in 2011, the SFFS Documentary Film Fund has distributed more than $450,000 to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide. Expected to grow in the coming years as further underwriting is secured, the 2015 Documentary Film Fund is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Jennifer Battat and the Jenerosity Foundation.
The panelists who reviewed the 11 finalists’ submissions are Jennifer Battat, founder of the Jenerosity Foundation; Noah Cowan, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society; Lisa Kleiner-Chanoff, cofounder of Catapult Film Fund; filmmaker Dan Krauss; and Michele Turnure-Salleo, director of the Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program.
“These films are such remarkably bold endeavors, in terms of where they take their audiences and the worlds they explore,” said Turnure-Salleo. “We were particularly impressed by the great depth these filmmakers have shown, in both their intellectual approaches to their subjects and the visual style they use to present them, and we’re proud to be supporting such dedicated and innovative storytellers. We have seen quite a lot of development in recent years in the visual language of documentaries, and these projects absolutely exemplify that sophistication.”
2015 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND WINNERS
The Island and the Whales – Mike Day, director – $35,000
The pilot whale hunters of the Nordic Faroe Islands believe that hunting is vital to their way of life, but when a local doctor makes a grim discovery about the effects of marine pollution, environmental changes threaten to end the controversial tradition and change the community forever. For more information visit intrepidcinema.com.
Mike Day was previously a writer and photographer before becoming a lawyer in London and the Middle East. He retrained as a filmmaker and founded Intrepid Cinema in 2009 and was commissioned by the BBC to make The Guga Hunters of Ness to critical acclaim. Day is now a Sundance fellow, was listed as one of “10 filmmakers to watch in 2012” by Filmmaker Magazine and was one of the European Documentary Network’s “12 for the Future.”
Learning to Forget – Kaspar Astrup Schröder, director; Katherine Sahlstrom, producer – $15,000
In China, more people are on death row than in the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are most often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Some of these abandoned kids are picked up by an orphanage founded by a former prison guard; here they learn to live a life without parents and prepare for a world outside where they have to prove wrong the many misconceptions about them. For more information visit goodcompanypictures.com.
Kaspar Astrup Schröder is an award-winning director based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is self taught and started his career in editing fictional films. With a strong sense for narrative storytelling he thrives to make dramatic documentaries with a strong narrative arc. Previous films include The Invention of Dr. Nakamats, My Playground and Rent a Family Inc. His films have been nominated at many major international film festivals. Rent a Family Inc. recently won the Golden Eye Award at Zürich International Film Festival.
The Oakland Police Project – Peter Nicks, director – $25,000
The Oakland Police Project is a film about police power and restraint, unfolding deep inside the famously troubled Oakland Police Department. The film presents in intimate detail the rare perspective of beleaguered officers who are often viewed as oppressors in the community they serve, even as they and their young chief struggle to rebuild trust in the face of mass protests, budget cuts and more violent crimes per officer than any city in America. For more information visit openhood.org.
Director/producer/cinematographer Peter Nicks’ feature documentary The Waiting Room was released in 2012 to critical acclaim, named by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle as the best documentary of the year and shortlisted for an Academy Award®. His other film and television credits include Blame Somebody Else, for which he earned an Emmy; The Wolf, executive produced by Jon Else; Islam In America, America’s Sheriff and Out Of Control: AIDS In Black America. Nicks was recently awarded a SFFS / KRF screenwriting grant for his first narrative feature Escaping Morgantown, loosely based on the year he spent in federal prison in the early 90s.
For more information on the Documentary Film Fund and the other Film Society documentary support programs visit sffs.org/filmmaker360/documentary-grants-and-programs.
SFFS Documentary Film Fund grants are awarded once each year. Exact amounts of individual grants and the number of grants made will be determined on an annual basis. As with all Film Society grants, in addition to the cash awards, recipients will gain access to numerous benefits through Filmmaker360, the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services program. Filmmaker360 is a leader in the field of nonprofit support of cinema and offers unparalleled assistance and opportunities designed to foster creativity and further the careers of independent filmmakers nationwide. Filmmaker360 oversees one of the largest film grant programs in the country, which disperses nearly $1 million annually to incubate and support innovative and exceptional films at every stage of production. Other elements of Filmmaker360 include project development consultation, FilmHouse residencies, Off the Page screenplay workshops, fiscal sponsorship and information resources. For information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.