Sep 14, 2011
Artist Development
The San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation today announced that the application period is now open for the Fall 2011 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants. The grants are given twice annually to filmmakers for narrative feature films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, discrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. Additionally, the grants support films that have a significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. The total amount to be disbursed from 2009 to 2013 will be over $2.5 million, including a total of $788,000 already awarded in the first five rounds. The letter of inquiry period for the sixth round of SFFS/KRF Filmmaking grants totaling up to $307,000 for screenwriting, development, preproduction, production and postproduction is now open; the early deadline is October 1 and the late deadline is October 7.
Winners of the Fall 2011 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking grants will be announced in mid-December.
For additional information, including guidelines and application, visit sffs.org/Filmmaker-Services/Grants-and-Prizes.
Due to the vision and generosity of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants provide tangible encouragement and support to meaningful projects while benefiting the local economy. In addition to the cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services programs.
As previously announced, five filmmaking teams working in various stages of production were awarded funds in the most recent round of SFFS/KRF grants:
Carlton Evans and Matthew Lessner: Ross, $50,000 for screenwriting
A hardworking young man’s staid, well-established life is upended after he posts an offhand comment to his Facebook profile, drawing the attention of numerous secretive government agencies and setting off a bizarre chain of events. Forced to abandon the only life he has ever known in an instant, he finds himself in the midst of a minefield of paranoia and mistaken identity, struggling to determine who can be trusted. For more information visit montelomax.com.
Aurora Guerrero: Mosquita y Mari, $88,000 for postproduction
The friendship between two young Chicanas develops into a tender love and challenges their well-established familial responsibilities, forcing them to choose between their obligations to others and staying true to each other. For more information visit mosquitaymari.com.
Adam Keker: National Park, $35,000 for screenwriting
Seven years after America and its allies defeated an alien invasion, the final battlefield is about to become a national park. The country is in a period of national soul-searching and the very few enemy aliens who were not
exterminated have been released into the park in a program to save them from extinction. They are a lightning rod of controversy that threatens to become a national conflagration when hikers find the body of a child.
Timothy Kelly: The Cherokee Word for Water, $75,000 for production
A single mother moves back to Oklahoma from Oakland to raise her two daughters in her Cherokee childhood home. Deplorable conditions are driving families apart, and she resolves to find a way to help her tribe stay intact by spearheading a project to provide running water to the community. The success of the project inspires other Cherokee people to start their own community projects and launches the political career of Wilma Mankiller, who became the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. For more information visit fridaysfilms.com.
Benh Zeitlin: Beasts of a Southern Wild, $55,000 for postproduction
In this mythological epic inspired by the coastal erosion crisis caused by the ruination of America’s wetlands, a heroic young girl fights to save her father, who has been stricken by a mysterious illness, and her rapidly sinking island home. As temperatures skyrocket and the ice caps melt, an army of ferocious prehistoric beasts, freed by the melting of the glaciers, approaches. Convinced that her father’s sickness and the environmental disaster are inextricably linked, the girl sets out to find the one woman who can save them. For more information visit court13.com.
Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of life by promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy, enabling inspiration through the magic of the arts and providing opportunity for a healthy lifestyle for those with chronic disease. The Foundation focuses its efforts on the San Francisco Bay Area and specific medical issues and utilizes its networks, resources and commitment to socially responsible business practices to support innovation, collaboration and connection.