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Help us give a warm welcome to 2026’s group of Bay Area–based storytellers who will take up residence at FilmHouse, SFFILM’s dynamic shared workspace for independent filmmakers. The FilmHouse Residency is managed by SFFILM Makers, the artist development program at SFFILM and is made possible in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The program supports both narrative and documentary projects (including features, shorts, and series) by providing 12-month residencies to local filmmakers actively engaged in various stages of production.

FilmHouse Residents receive a variety of benefits including special access to established industry professionals offering artistic guidance and support from their various areas of expertise as well as a robust guest speaker series featuring lectures and presentations by leading industry professionals; workshops led by prominent filmmakers and other members of the independent film industry; peer-to-peer support; work-in-progress screenings; bi-weekly production meetings; access to meaningful networking opportunities; and numerous other community-building programs.

The selection committee for the 2026 FilmHouse Residents were:

• Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development, SFFILM
• Sofia Alicastro, Deputy Director, Film SF
• Erika Arnold, Artist Development Associate Manager, SFFILM
• Joshua Moore, Artist Development Manager of Documentary, SFFILM 
• Rosa Morales, Artist Development Manager of Narrative, SFFILM 
• Betsy Tsai, filmmaker

Let’s meet the residents that will be taking their projects to the next stage at FilmHouse in 2026!

Meet the 2026 Residents

Shizue Roche Adachi

Small Claims—Feature Narrative

Stage: Screenwriting

When her neighbor’s dogs kill 25 of her sheep, a Japanese American city kid turned shepherd takes her fight for justice to court—only to find her own claims to belonging put on trial.

Tara Baghdassarian

The Dragon Under Our Feet—Feature Documentary

Stage: Production

A Bay Area artist reconnects with her Armenian heritage while piecing together stained glass fragments of ancient Armenian symbols. The patterns’ meaning lies within traditionally woven carpets, collected by elders struggling to protect the artifacts from cultural erasure.

Samantha Berlanga

Pleasure Seekers—Feature Documentary

Stage: Production

In Brooklyn, two lifelong best friends and a first-generation mother confront their desires, fears, and longings around love, intimacy, and autonomy. As their lives intertwine, they discover unexpected parallels.

Maya Cameron

20 Years Later: A Juvenile Hall Reunion—Feature Documentary

Stage: Development

Twenty years after being incarcerated as teenagers in San Francisco’s juvenile hall, a group of women — including the film’s director — reunite to reflect on their shared experiences, the family patterns and systemic failures that led them there, and whether the system rehabilitated or harmed them. Together, they examine the long-term effects of incarceration and the paths 

they’ve taken toward healing and transformation.

Erin Carlson

Autumnland—Feature Narrative

Stage: Screenwriting

A down-and-out, romcom-obsessed tour guide discovers a portal into Nora Ephron’s 1990s Cinematic Universe

Ginger Yifan Chen

Papers—Narrative Short

Stage: Pre-Production

During a green card marriage interview, a couple recalls their tumultuous relationship and questions whether their love can survive under the pressures of bureaucracy. 

Daniel Díaz

Roll Fog—Feature Documentary

Stage: Production

When San Francisco City FC, the country’s oldest community-owned fútbol club, loses its beloved stadium to a new team backed by money and politics, their diehard fans refuse to fold. Instead, they rally with punk grit and working-class spirit to fight for their club’s survival through a season of uncertainty.

Camilo Garzón

To SETL—Feature Narrative/Episodic

Stage: Screenwriting

An unprecedented aurora borealis phenomenon in a Scandinavian Sound interrupts the life and work of a newly married journalist and scientist, leaving them searching for answers both about the solidity of their relationship and the presence of extraterrestrial life.

Jalena Keane-Lee

Yellow Widow—Feature Narrative

Stage: Screenwriting

Manish Khanal

Sukha—Documentary Short

Stage: Development

After running Subway sandwich shops for two decades, a Florida family dreams of returning to Nepal. 

Henry Kinder

The Gathering—Feature Narrative

Stage: Development

After his mother’s death, EVAN (29) returns home to Berkeley to sort through the family house, finding himself with a new roommate: his estranged, ornery uncle EUGENE (68).  Together, the unlikely pair –– with the help of a newcomer, ALICE (31) –– contend with the collected baggage of a shared past and prepare the house for a sale, as Evan’s understanding of home evolves, from an address on a map to a dynamic web of relationships being remade and validated each day.

Elisa Leiva

Película sin fin, 1995—Feature Documentary

Stage: Development

A filmmaker discovers Hi-8 tapes hidden in her late grandmother’s closet, revealing an unfinished documentary about her life from 1995. As she pieces the film together, she uncovers a political thriller within her own family history, and the archive begins to move between past and present, between images that are both inherited and reimagined. 

Sepi Mashiahof

Tell Me About the Fairies—Feature Narrative

Stage: Development

Alienated by the sexual wonderland of college life, a sheltered queer Iranian “boy” encounters fairies who curse him with an aroma that makes men hopelessly attracted to him as his body rots away like spoiled fruit.

Brandon Yadegari Morneno

The Prison Outside—Feature Documentary

Stage: Post-Production

Sentenced to life for crimes he committed as a child, Terrence Graham took his fight for freedom all the way to the Supreme Court and won, prompting the release of thousands off his case and changing the nation’s juvenile justice system. But not before coming of age behind bars. After 21 years, he is finally getting out –  but is life outside just another prison?

Otito Obi

Nights In Fillmore—Narrative Short

Stage: Screenwriting

In 1950s San Francisco, a romantic night turns sinister when a young couple accidentally attends a minstrel show and must battle against the supernatural to save their neighborhood. 

Tajianna Okechukwu

Nights In Fillmore—Narrative Short

Stage: Screenwriting

In 1950s San Francisco, a romantic night turns sinister when a young couple accidentally attends a minstrel show and must battle against the supernatural to save their neighborhood. 

Yeon Park

Is There Anything Left to Fix?—Other

Stage: Development

Between photo studios in South Korea and immigration offices in the United States, the filmmakers reflect on how the face became a site of power and exclusion. Their investigation takes them from the origin of ID portraiture to identify Chinese detainees on Angel Island to the pervasive use of surveillance and facial recognition technology to monitor today’s immigrants.

Tenzin Phuntsog

Sentient Beings—Feature Narrative

Stage: Development

In a surreal landscape, a man embarks on a fateful journey amid ecological and spiritual turmoil.

Susannah Smith

We Belong (working title)—Feature Documentary

Stage: Post-Production

For 18 rowdy years, the Lexington Club was the only dyke/queer bar in the “Gay Mecca” of San Francisco; More than just a safe space, the Lex was headquarters for a Queer rebellion transforming the world. A decade after its closure, the film reveals how this iconic space offers vital lessons for sustaining queer resistance amid unprecedented political backlash.

Yvette Solis

Untitled 3PD Project—Hybrid Short

Stage: Development

A self-reflective narrator embarks on a chaotic journey to uncover the truth behind a mysterious neurological disorder. As the invisible illness takes hold, her grip on reality unravels, forcing her to confront the disorienting fragility of life and fight to feel safe in her own mind and body again.

Kyungwon Song

Is There Anything Left to Fix?—Documentary Short

Stage: Development

Between photo studios in South Korea and immigration offices in the United States, the filmmakers reflect on how the face became a site of power and exclusion. Their investigation takes them from the origin of ID portraiture to identify Chinese detainees on Angel Island to the pervasive use of surveillance and facial recognition technology to monitor today’s immigrants.

Felix Uribe Jr

The Tenderloin (working title)—Documentary Short

Stage: Production

A collaborative documentary rooted in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, unfolding through interconnected stories shaped over time with the people at its center.

Shucheng Yan

Water Mama—Feature Narrative

Stage: Screenwriting

A young divorcée in California reconnects with her home-quarantined mother in Shanghai through daily video calls. At her new job culturing jellyfish, she runs into a married woman from her past. The two find themselves drawn to whales and to each other.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

A dynamic hub for influential conversations about non-fiction funding and the state of the industry, Doc Congress is an annual gathering that takes place during SFFILM’s Doc Stories. By bringing together documentary funders, filmmakers, and distributors to discuss the most prevailing topics of the non-fiction funding landscape, Doc Congress is one of the documentary showcase’s most vital events.

At the the 2025 Doc Stories festival, Lois Vossen, founding Executive Producer of Independent Lens at ITVS, served as Doc Congress’ keynote speaker. Revisit Vossen’s compelling address here.

2025 Doc Stories Doc Congress Keynote Speech

I want to acknowledge Carrie Lozano, our president at ITVS and other colleagues who are here. I’m grateful to be part of such an incredible team.

This year I’ve found myself repeating something to filmmakers, potential ITVS funders, members of our Board, my co-workers, and documentary investors. If the women and men who organized and fought for almost a decade to create ITVS in the 1980s were undertaking that almost unfathomable task today I’m pretty sure their strategy and goal would not be to secure federal funding to make only 90-minute documentaries for broadcast television.

To secure public money, they would look at the current landscape—how media is being made, how stories are being told, how information and misinformation reach audiences, what stories audiences are getting and especially what stories they’re not getting. That is the job of non-profits like ITVS: to look for the gaps in the commercial marketplace and try to fill them.

They would still see a critical need for stories intentionally made to inform, educate and inspire (as opposed to being made to feed a bottom line, or just to win awards, or just to make money). Not that those are bad things; they’re not our Congressional Mandate.

The founders would see an opportunity even bigger than (and we think as exciting as) the circumstances that led to ITVS’s original creation.

Back in 1988 when the ITVS legislation was signed there were four television networks and only one of those, PBS, was designated to serve the public. So to get federal funding today, I think the case would need to be made as to why and how we should harness the power of independent storytellers to serve audiences where they are now—on a variety of platforms and feeds.

Not where they used to be. Or where we wish they were.

As political lines harden and create deeper communication divides, we risk talking in echo chambers, our stories just going to people who already agree with us or think the way we think unless we find a way to get authentic, honest information (aka our stories) on platforms and feeds where new generations are getting their news. Unless we truly reach beyond our choir.

The need for independently produced, nonfiction programming made in the public interest is as profound as ever but to reach tens, actually hundreds of millions of Americans we need to expand how we think about audiences, how we talk with audiences and where stories reach audiences.

That’s the first step to build a broader ecosystem that uses readily available technology, improves access, and takes advantage of new devices and platforms so our stories land where the audience is most likely to find and consume them.

It’s a way to elevate Creatives, mobilize philanthropy, and ensure that a diversity of voices remains central in this work. It’s how we help shape the next generation of media that serves the public interest.

This will require some of us to step out of our comfort zone. But the upside is that we get to create different visual languages. We get to conceive, make, fund, and present multiple ways to tell stories that work on the specific platform they are created for.

I want to take a moment and assure you that I’m not suggesting we stop making feature films. I love them. You love them. Audiences love them. Our documentary The Librarians, for example, is selling out nearly all of their theatrical screenings. And I’m not just talking about being held for a 4th week at Film Forum in New York City. It’s selling out in Iowa and Dallas, in Salt Lake City and Modesto, and Shreveport, Louisiana.

Long form documentaries can uniquely contextualize issues and serve as a timeless history. They still connect with audiences in theaters, in classrooms, and online.

But there’s room and a need for other forms of nonfiction storytelling. And that’s also part of our job at ITVS and INDEPENDENT LENS. To find new ways to support creators who want to make smart, authentic, relevant, surprising programs specifically for the audiences already waiting on YouTube and Instagram and other sites. Creators who know how to effectively use these feeds and platforms to unpack and influence culture. Often in real time.

We stand at a generational watershed moment. In many ways, ITVS was built for this moment. We have 34 years of experience identifying and incubating talent, co-funding and co-producing, and very important at this time, we lead community engagement and provide national distribution in purple, red, blue—all of the still United States!

ITVS is Congressionally mandated to serve the American public so in times of change we look for the opportunities. A big one is that we have permission—especially since innovation is written into our mandate—to try new things. And to stop doing things that are no longer effective.

We’re rebuilding after losing the majority of our funding when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was defunded and we’re also launching new initiatives that put Audiences at the center of our work. Additional programs will be announced in the coming weeks. Today I’m pleased to share information about one: the INDEPENDENT LENS Creator Lab.

We want to help creators make programming specifically for YouTube, the second most visited website in the world. By partnering with digitally native creators we know we can bring empathy, humor, and hope into feeds and comment sections. We’ll help creators form maker-artist communities who believe in working in the public interest—something our industry has gotten right for decades. And we’ll provide these creators with the production support, editorial scrutiny, and mentorship that is synonymous with ITVS funding.

We’re intentionally calling it the INDEPENDENT LENS Creator Lab to light a path forward for public media.

The call opens November 12, so look for more details next week.

The current paradigm shift allows the creative community opportunities to talk more directly with audiences in ways the ITVS founders couldn’t have imagined when they created this public policy miracle. Now, when media made in the public’s interest is so necessary, we cannot afford to leave millions of audience members behind just because they don’t watch feature documentaries.

We know we can work with storytellers to produce exceptional content that cuts through our differences with the trust and integrity that ITVS has always offered. We’re excited to shape the ITVS that’s most needed today.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

What is the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Prize?

On the Wednesday after the wrap of the 2025 edition of Doc Stories, we presented the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Prize to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Guillermo was joined onstage by the film’s sound designer Nathan Robitaille, VFX supervisor Dennis Berardi, head of concept design Guy Davis, editor Evan Schiff, alongside Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna

SFFILM’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation—the nation’s leading philanthropic grantor for science and the arts—culminates in the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative. Launched in 2015, the program celebrates and highlights cinema that brings together science and the art of storytelling, showing how these two seemingly disparate areas can combine to enhance the power of one another. The selections are meant to immerse a broad public audience in the challenges and rewards of scientific discovery, as well as to engage members of the scientific community.

Guillermo had this to say about his approach to making movies, “There are directors that are guests and there are directors that are hosts. I’m a host… At the end of the day I say to the entire crew if anyone wants to come into the editing room tomorrow, come in!”

Watch the full conversation to hear more about the making of the film.

SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Prize Conversation

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

SFFILM Education has successfully concluded its annual Youth Filmmakers Camp, a dynamic and immersive program designed for teens ages 13–18. Divided into both a Starter and Advanced Lab, the two-week camp empowers students to explore the full spectrum of the filmmaking process—from idea generation and pitching to screenwriting, cinematography, sound design, and editing. Through hands-on learning and team-based collaboration, participants create original narrative short films, guided throughout by SFFILM’s instructors, guest lecturers, and dedicated interns.

Learning in a Professional Environment with Professional Tools

This year, the camp partnered with the University of San Francisco’s Media Department, giving students access to state-of-the-art facilities and industry-standard equipment. Campers worked in professional-grade editing suites using Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Pro Tools, gaining real-world and professional experience in a supportive, creative environment.

“I tend to empathize really strongly with the people that I see on screen,” says Camper Aisha McCulloch. I think [sharing] those emotions that you’re having when you’re writing the story is really powerful, and film is one of the few mediums where you can do that.”

Guidance From Acclaimed Bay Area Filmmakers

Throughout the program, students were inspired by visits from acclaimed industry professionals, including producer Todd Traina, Oscar-winning Pixar animator Trevor Jimenez (Weekends, 2017), Sundance fellows Roberto Fatal and Kyle Casey Chu, and a number of SFFILM FilmHouse Residents. These guests offered invaluable insight into the craft and industry, expanding students’ perspectives and sparking new ambitions.

SFFILM-supported filmmaker Jessica Jones attended and discussed editing with campers; she shared her process and best practices for cutting together their films. “I’m impressed by high school students who are editing and really familiar with Premiere,” she said. “The kids who are in this camp are really enthusiastic filmmakers… They’re commitment to this artistic medium and their age in doing so is really cool” film.”

Both the Starter and Advanced Lab concluded with celebratory red carpet screenings, where students presented their finished films to an audience of family, friends, and SFFILM board members. Each team participated in a post-screening Q&A, sharing reflections on their creative process and what they learned. As a final capstone, campers were invited on an exclusive tour of the Pixar campus, where they witnessed concept artwork from their latest release, Elio and more–a special opportunity made possible by longtime Pixar animator and animation supervisor Bret Parker.

One parent writes, “This was truly a memorable experience. We appreciate all the hard work you all [SFFILM] put into challenging the students with their creative thought process and provoking them to work collaboratively in such a limited timeline. I’m so happy we got to witness their process and finals in their presentations!”

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.