SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation are excited to announce the finalists for the 2021 SFFILM Rainin Grant
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT GOES HERE.
Thirty filmmaking teams have been shortlisted as contenders to receive funding for their narrative projects in various stages of production.
The SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US, and supports films that address social justice issues — the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges — in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme, or setting. In a shift from previous years, awards will be made to multiple projects once a year, for screenwriting, development, and post-production. In addition to a cash grant of up to $50,000, recipients are offered a two-month residency at FilmHouse and benefit from SFFILM’s comprehensive and dynamic artist development programs.
The program is open to filmmakers from anywhere in the world who can commit to spending time developing the film in San Francisco. Applications will reopen in the Spring of 2022.
A Rodeo Film
A black bull-rider must choose between a life of crime with his cattle rustling brother or a career in rodeo.
Darius Dawson — Director
Darius Dawson
Ale and the Boxer
Ale (21, Brazilian-American) and Samuel (25, Venezuelan-American), employees at a Bay Area working-class Latinx nightclub, form a powerful bond over shared trauma and embark on an intense relationship that shatters personal boundaries in this semi-autobiographical story of love, loss, addiction, and recovery.
A talented but impulsive graffiti artist makes the connection between his art and ancient San rockart forms still alive in his hometown. On the journey, he takes up the calling to explore a deeper magic that exists to renew a culture made a crime. In the end, he must learn that realizing his full purpose means accepting the ultimate fate in a city designed to kill him.
Kurt Orderson — Director
Kurt Orderson
Broken Bird
A daughter and father, torn apart by addiction, find their way back to each other through mixtapes and memories, and challenge their label of “broken.”
Rachel Harrison Gordon—Director, Producer
Rachel Harrison Gordon
Cotton Queen
Fifteen-year-old Nafisa lives in a cotton-farming village in Sudan. She finds herself in the center of a power play between her mother and grandmother: accept an arranged marriage or be circumcised. Her final choice will change the village forever.
Suzannah Mirghani — Writer, Director
Suzannah Mirghani
Coyote Boys
A stream of days that make up the life and journey of a young train-hopping graffiti writer, Coyote Boys is a contemporary odyssey through fringe communities, centered on rootless youth experiencing loss and loneliness — trying to find alternative ways of surviving 21st century America.
Haley Elizabeth Anderson — Director
Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Currency
In West Oakland a young woman finds herself without a place to call home, timed out foster care, and a survivor of sexual exploitation. Without a roof over her head, and caught in a system that would rather forget her, she must not only find a way to survive, but discover who she truly is. But can she find a way forward without confronting her past?
Lucretia Stinnette — Director; Mel Jones — Producer; Darren Colston — Producer
Lucretia Stinnette
Dear Wizard
Set in the 80s. When spunky eight-year-old Shelly Chan and her parents move to rural Virginia, they are bullied for being Asian. The family also starts receiving letters from a mysterious KKK “wizard.” Believing that a wizard must be good, Shelly writes him back and tries to be his friend. Inspired by true events.
Christy Chan — Director, Producer, Writer
Christy Chan
Dìdi (弟弟)
Fremont, CA. 2008. In the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable Taiwanese-American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Sean Wang — Writer, Director, Producer
Sean Wang
Dottie
Two women; one in the present, the other in the future. They don’t know each other, but their lives are profoundly connected by an entity named Dottie.
Yen Tan — Writer, Director
Yen Tan
Earth Mama
Gia, a young mother reaching the end of her third pregnancy, struggles with the uncertain future of her unborn child, her other two children having already been taken from her by Child Protective Services.
In a land ravaged by ‘The Sickness’, desolation and despair, 10 orphans find hope and strength in each other, as they attempt the perilous journey to seek refuge at Last Man Peak. In this coming-of-age drama/adventure set in a dystopian Jamaica, the young outcasts battle unfamiliar terrain and a world where adults have become the enemy.
Following the disappearance of her sister, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from her white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in the hopes of keeping what’s left of their family intact.
As the world awaits a new ruling from the Supreme Court that could effectively reverse marriage equality, a local celebrity couple, Pam and Rosa Gaye, are thrust into the spotlight and hands of a publicity seeking marriage counselor when Rosa announces she wants a divorce.
Huriyyah Muhammad — Writer, Director, Producer
Huriyyah Muhammad
Good People
Best friends, Babs Holloway and Nora Lachman can talk about anything: their long-time marriages, sex, even race. Babs is African-American, Nora is white, and their children, having grown up together in one of SF’s wealthiest neighborhoods, also are best friends. But when a neighbor calls the police on their kids, Babs and Nora struggle to preserve their friendship as they discover they’ve made very different assumptions about race, class and the limits of their privilege.
Natalie Baszile — Director
Natalie Baszile
If You Hum at the Right Frequency
The Echo River Art + Memory Center is an experimental residency for artists who have recently lost loved ones. Each Summer, small cohorts of grieving residents are welcomed to a secluded property in Northern California where they can sort through raw emotions while healing through their craft. During their stay, artists are followed by a film crew that captures their creative process as they attempt to generate meaning and beauty from the overwhelming pain that loss brings.
Daniel Freeman — Director, Producer
Daniel Freeman
Laylayon (Cradlesong)
When a retired nurse is forced to relocate her American-born family to her ancestral home in a cursed village buried deep within the Philippine jungle, she discovers that she must face the ghosts of her past or risk losing her children forever.
Nic Yulo — Writer, Director
Nic Yulo
Magnolia Bloom
Magnolia Bloom is a story of young love and rebellion in 1960s New Orleans.
Phillip Youmans — Writer and Director
Phillip Youmans
Motherhood
Salha, a mother gifted with prophetic dreams, lives in an isolated village in Tunisia. When her eldest son’s sudden return from Syria coincides with a series of strange disappearances in their community, Salha’s maternal love is tested and the family faces how guilt can haunt the human spirit.
Ohijee Vati-Myers is a comic book artist. One day while in the comic book store, he meets a woman. They hit it off, and spend the rest of the day walking the city. They end up at her apartment where they spend the night together. The next morning, he awakes in his apartment with signs of never having met the woman.
Malik Isasis — Writer, Director, Producer
></p Malik Isasis
Pure
For 17-year-old queer Celeste, senior year in her affluent Black community means following family tradition and becoming a debutante… but she longs for a different kind of coming out.
An Indian-American drag queen on the verge of stardom returns home to celebrate Diwali with his conservative parents who he hasn’t spoken to in 5 years due to his choice of profession. At this part for Diwali, his life is turned upside down when his parents surprisingly announce they have been divorced for ten years, his mother is gay, and they are selling the childhood home — causing chaos, laughs, and heartfelt drama.
A middle-aged gay man forges an unlikely friendship with his dead lover’s beneficiary as they’re drawn together by matters of the paranormal.
Johnny Alvarez — Writer, Director, Producer
Johnny Alvarez
Since I Laid My Burden Down
DeShawn is living fast and wild in a post-Utopian Oakland. Bathhouses, brawls, and endless hookups have continued well into his thirties. The night his Uncle dies, his hair turns abruptly gray, and he returns to his childhood home of Alabama for answers. DeShawn must confront the ghosts of his past, the dead men who seduced and failed him, and the firebrand women who made him in order to find peace, and finally lay his burden down.
Living in a mommune, balancing her alternative lifestyle and separation from her partner, Sula’s life is plunged into potential chaos by an unplanned pregnancy. After discovering how to procure abortion pills online, she travels an unexpected path to become an underground supplier, an accidental pro-choice activist, and ultimately, a convicted felon. Inspired by true events.
Tracy Droz Tragos — Writer, Producer, Director
Tracy Droz Tragos
The President’s Cake
Despite severe sanctions on Iraq, 9-year-old Saeed must use his wits to make the mandatory cake to celebrate President Saddam Hussein’s birthday or his family will be imprisoned.
Hasan Hadi—Writer/Director
Hasan Hadi
The Return
In an attempt to escape her current life rut, a young Black American woman, finds herself foreign in Ghana caring for an older animatic Ghanaian woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s who’s planning her own funeral.
Mary Ann Anane—Writer/Director
Mary Ann Anane
Tokyo Forever
In Colombia, in a road on the slopes of an abyss in the Chicamocha canyon, Tokyo, a fourteen-year-old boy forced to work as a road mechanic, must face his conscience and responsibility for the disappearance of his younger brother, to confess to his parents the whereabouts of his corpse.
Five Mexican-American women across various cities in Texas attempt to forge connections in familiar spaces while their identities are challenged.
Chelsea Hernandez, Sharon Arteaga, Lizette Barrera, Jazmin Diaz, and Iliana Sosa—Directors
Wishes Sink in Man Made Lakes
Two trans teens secretly living in an old movie theater spend a summer trying anything and everything to get on hormones.
Faye Ruiz — Director
Faye Ruiz
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.
The SFFILM Education team has wrapped a strange-but-still-quite-busy spring and summer of programming for Bay Area students and families, and we asked them to give us a quick recap of what’s been on their minds.
They took the opportunity to share some appreciation for one of our most valued local collaborators in developing world-class educational content for kids. Learn more about what SFFILM Education is up to at sffilm.org/education.
Well, we are fully into the fall semester and Bay Area schools remain mostly shuttered. Somehow, through it all, superhero teachers continue to push ahead with remote learning to provide their students great educational opportunities. Families have also experienced a whole new set of challenges in their households, with parents suddenly entering a new level of involvement in assisting with their children’s schoolwork. Being trapped inside has also tested the patience of both parents and children alike. Families long for the days of going out and doing fun and enriching activities together.
SFFILM Education would normally be engaging with teachers, students, and families directly in classrooms and theaters around the Bay Area. Since March, we’ve pivoted to the world of virtual programming with SFFILM at Home. While we would definitely prefer to see everyone in person, we’re pleased to be able to continue programming interactive film experiences that allow our youth audiences to engage with talented storytellers, filmmakers, and industry professionals from around the world. Thus, we are able to continue providing valuable resources to help develop media literacy and critical thinking skills, illuminate diverse world cultures, and inspire a lifelong appreciation of cinema in our kids.
We’re also fortunate to have deep working relationships with some of the most renowned film studios and artists in the world who gladly give their time to assist us in our work. Recently we had two fantastic programs with our neighbors right across the Bay, Pixar Animation Studios. In September we spoke with Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter and Senior VP of Production (and SFFILM Board member) Jonas Rivera. The creative partnership of this award-winning team has produced the beloved films Up and Inside Out. Our discussion focused on the Pixar storytelling process and how personal aspects of the filmmaking team’s lives are often examined and utilized to discover the emotional core of their films. We also hoped the program would help kids process the complex feelings that they’ve been experiencing during the pandemic, and inspire them to think about creative outlets they can explore to express themselves.
Then on October 4, we gave families the opportunity to get out of the house and experience something only the parents might have done before during their own childhoods. While we didn’t make it back into the theater, we did the next best thing by screening Inside Out during our SFFILM at the Drive-In series at Fort Mason Flix. It was a particularly fitting film with its San Francisco setting, and it gave our team much joy to see families cozied up in blankets in the backs of their cars, munching on popcorn and delighting in the emotional storytelling displayed on the big screen.
We are truly lucky to have such a strong ongoing partnership with Pixar — for over ten years they have worked closely with us to provide our audiences once-in-a-lifetime educational events. We’ve been able to hold sneak-peek screenings of their newest feature film releases, sometimes even within the walls of the studio. Talented directors, writers, and animators have been brought directly into classrooms to discuss their creative process, giving students guidance and inspiration they need to help them on their way toward fulfilling their dreams of growing up to be artists. Teachers have been provided with valuable STEAM learning tools which have allowed them to think outside the box and engage their kids in new ways around math and science. We’ve also held hands-on workshops where kids have learned how to tell stories using visual imagery, sculpted original characters out of clay, made stop-motion animation with everyday objects, and drawn beloved Pixar characters.
We can’t think of a better partner in our mission to educate and entertain Bay Area teachers, students, and families. We look forward to at least ten more years of partnership — indeed, to infinity and beyond!
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.
SFFILM Rainin Grantee D’Arcy Drollinger on Vaudeville 2.0
When the 2020 SFFILM Festival was canceled in March, D’Arcy Drollinger was denied the Castro Theatre world premiere experience for Shit & Champagne, D’Arcy’s epic debut film adaptation of the popular stage show. Luckily for us all, Frameline44 has saved the day with the presentation of the film’s premiere in the best possible circumstances afforded us in this year outside of cinemas: at the drive-in!
Shit & Champagne is a project that is close to the hearts of the SFFILM Makers team, having received SFFILM Rainin Grants for both screenwriting and post-production. We hope you’ll be there at Frameline’s event to cheer along with us for D’Arcy and the entire Shit & Champagne crew! On this exciting occasion, we asked D’Arcy to share some thoughts on the evolution of the film.
Stage to Screen, Shit to Champagne
by D’Arcy Drollinger
Shit & Champagne is my first feature film. Honestly, it is my first film, period. Everyone told me I was crazy to jump right into a feature film without making a few short films first. Everyone told me I was crazy to produce, direct, and star in my first feature film. Everyone told me that adaptations from stage never work as films. So, going into this project I already knew I was working against the odds. Truth be told, if I had known what I “didn’t know” then, I might not have jumped in guns blazing in the same way. In this instance, maybe ignorance was power.
I have made a career out of what I call “Vaudeville 2.0.” Bawdy, loud, lewd, over the top stage productions that combine drag, high camp, slapstick, and commedia dell’arte. All of these things are seen often as “not serious” or fluff, but to be done right they take exacting precision, dedication and craft. I’ve also had a lot of success adapting parody version of film and TV scripts for stage. With this combination, I knew it was inevitable for me to transition into film. The time was right. And while I didn’t understand the mechanics of making a film, I understood what made a film work and how to make people laugh.
The challenges of camp in cinema seemed less daunting until I actually tried to do it. There are already huge hurdles to adapt a stage production for film, but throw in drag and a vaudevillian troupe of actors and the puzzle becomes extraordinarily more difficult.
I knew that films like Shit & Champagne had worked before — I had proof from my heroes like Mel Brooks and the Zucker Brothers, Charles Busch and John Waters — but the medium of film always felt like a mystery. I could produce and direct a stage production with my eyes closed, but the creation of film felt elusive.
Shit & Champagne uses comedy and gender-bending performances in hopes to open audiences to new gender possibilities. This film enlisted a cross-section of actors, performers, and drag kings and queens of the LGBT arts community in San Francisco. And running alongside the ridiculous comedy narrative of Shit & Champagne is also a story where outcasts find each other, where heart does emerge and where friendship is sacred.
While this is a period piece, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sensibility allows for a broader canvas to tell the story, and thus we are referring to it as a “soft period” piece. Shot with a heightened aesthetic and saturated colors, we’re aiming for a look that is both authentic and modern.
I was inspired by 70’s exploitation films like Coffy and Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier, and Savage Streets with Linda Blair. But I am also a big fan of 70’s TV heroines — Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Police Woman — Champagne too is a whole lot of woman! I wanted something that felt like John Waters and Russ Meyer collaborated with Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino.
In many of the classic exploitation films, an “everyday” person is thrust into the middle of a crime ring. When their family members and loved ones are killed and the police do nothing, they are forced to take the law into their own hands — thus creating our unsuspecting hero. In many of these films, the “bad guys” run a drug racket (usually heroin), which leads to enlisting the drug addicts into a prostitution ring. I was searching for a drug more comedic than heroin, when I stumbled upon Michael Musto’s column in the Village Voice, which was about the sewage problem in many of the NYC nightclubs due to the new trend of “booty bumps.” I ran with that idea, and suddenly I had a very funny and slightly gross plot on my hands.
We first produced Shit & Champagne as a stage play in New York, where it ran for nine months. It was remounted in San Francisco twice — in 2014 where it was extended three times, and then brought back by popular demand to be the inaugural production for the grand opening of my nightclub, Oasis, in 2015. The San Francisco productions attracted a serious cult following — the self-proclaimed “Shit Heads” who would attend the live performances, dozens of times, leading the audiences in chanting lines and repeating callbacks to the actors in a Rocky Horror fashion. I hope that the film audiences will feel the same.
D’Arcy Drollinger has written, directed, and starred in the original feature film Shit & Champagne as well as the multimedia stage productions of Bitch Slap, Disastrous, The Temple of Poon, Mr. Irresistible, Project: Lohan, Scalpel!, The Possession of Mrs. Jones, Pink Elephants, Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls, Suburbia 3000, and The Cereal Killers. Other credits include The Producers (first Broadway production) and Hairspray the Musical (first Broadway production). D’Arcy is the owner of Oasis, the premier drag club in the US, voted San Francisco’s best nightclub / cabaret.
D’Arcy continues to produce, adapt, and direct the live drag parodies Sex and the City Live, The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes, Star Trek Live, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live, and Three’s Company Live. D’Arcy is the creator of Sexitude, the body-positive, age-positive, sex-positive dance experience based in San Francisco.
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.
The winners of the Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Education Fund Essay Contest are in! Read the Winning Submissions below
Originally scheduled to screen in the Family Films shorts program at the 2020 SFFILM Festival, Camrus Johnson’s animated short film Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad was shown online as part of SFFILM at Home on April 23. Johnson charmed the virtual audience with an engaging Q&A that explored the creative process, directed toward youth storytellers.
Following the event, SFFILM Education and the Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Education Fund invited elementary, middle, and high school attendees to participate in an essay contest inspired by the online discussion. Students were asked to respond to the following writing prompts:
1. How did Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad and online Q&A with Camrus Johnson make you feel?
2. How do you feel in general right now?
3. During this difficult time, how are you staying connected to the people you love?
4. Are you staying creative while sheltering in place?
The SFFILM Education team and director Camrus Johnson reviewed all of the submissions, and we’re excited to present the winning essays.
Winner: Daphne Neel (Franklin High School)
TURNING AROUND
Nobody ever realizes what they have until it’s too late. We assume that everything and everyone is going to be “ok” because we don’t want to believe that they’re not. We can stay close to people even if we don’t talk. We can believe in something, even if we can’t see it. We’re capable of all these things, all these thoughts, and yet we don’t like to accept what’s there. Everybody gets scared. Everybody tries to ignore the signs, even when they’re right in front of you.
In watching Camrus’ film, I realized that not everything is going to turn out like you thought, and not all heroes last forever. Expressing your feelings is hard. You want to ignore them, and you want to act like everything is ok, because we don’t like facing the truth. The truth is so strong, so powerful, it keeps a hold on us. It weighs us down because we allow it to. Why? Because of fear? Because we thought that if we could ignore just long enough, that would make it a dream? It’s not a dream anymore; it’s a nightmare. A nightmare that we want to escape, a reality we don’t want to face, but everything catches up to us.
No matter how long we run, we will never escape what we don’t want to see: the truth. We’re not ok. We’re not. But what’s so wrong about admitting it? You aren’t weak; in fact, you’re strong enough to realize that no, things aren’t perfect. Nothing is going to play out the way you wanted it to, and you don’t know how long the things you have are going to last.
Instead of being scared, instead of running away, turn around. Turn around and face what is going to catch up to you, because facing it yourself will only make you fall, while running away will pull you down. Everybody trips over their shoelaces, but you need to decide whether you’re going to tie them before you get back up. Anyone and everyone can decide to be a hero, but your heroes aren’t there to solve your problems, they’re there to support you and to encourage you to get back up. They can help you fight off the battles, but they won’t fight your war. You might need your heroes, but your heroes need you too. So, are you going to run again? Or are you going to let the truth drag you down before you decide enough is enough?
Runner-up: Thalia White (Live Oak School)
ART TO SPREAD A MESSAGE
When I saw the short film Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad by Camrus Johnson, it really impacted me. The film was beautiful in a way that would make anyone watching feel deeply connected to Camrus and his story. As I watched and later heard Camrus talk about the film, it became clear he created this art to help his father and the people in similar situations feel heard and understood. The idea of creating art to help people through their pain is astonishing, and Camrus shows it through this beautiful film. But the reason this message is so meaningful to me is because of how much it connects to me personally.
Now, let’s go back to the summer of 2019.
Near the end of August, I was talking to my mom, and she told me about something that would change my life: The Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect was a change-making group of kids around my age in the Bay Area — their mission: to change the world for the better. Their main goal — to free the children at detention centers on the border. And their project? To create forty-two thousand paper butterflies to represent each of the 42,000 children that were separated from their families at the borders. They chose butterflies because, as we say, “butterflies teach us that migration is beautiful.” They hoped to use these butterflies to create massive displays of stunning artwork that would hang in public buildings to spread awareness for the cause.
When I learned about this organization, I knew that I had to join their impactful cause and be a part of their vision. I had felt a lot of pain and fear when I learned about the detention centers at the border, and I wanted to turn that fear into hope. I immediately reached out to their leaders to ask if I could help collect and display butterflies. They agreed, and by the next week, my friends and I had started helping lead the effort in SF, and began collecting butterflies at our school. We worked with our library to host events and talk at school assemblies. In less than a month, the four girls and I had collected and strung two thousand paper butterflies and shipped them to the team in Oakland. The Butterfly Effect project was becoming a lot more known around the world, and we were so glad we could do our part. Then, in January, The Butterfly Effect got a display of fifteen thousand butterflies in the Rotunda of one of the Senate buildings in DC, And at the center of the display was my two thousand butterflies, distinctively arranged in a vibrant rainbow of color. Along with that, we would be going to DC to personally deliver butterflies to US Senators and to talk to key government officials such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I remember walking through the halls of all those important buildings, feeling like I had a real voice. The most inspiring thing I was ever told was when a Congresswoman Jackie Speier from California told me “To others, we seem like very important people, but really, we work for the whole country. The people of the country are the real bosses.” That influenced me to realize that I could and was making a change in the world.
Even now, we continue to work hard on spreading our message to the world, meeting weekly over zoom even while in quarantine, including making two PSA’s that have been seen and heard by a total of 6 million people. The Butterfly Effect group started as one girl who wanted to make a difference. But kids around the world have come together to make a big change through one artistic vision.
Just like Camrus did in his film, I found making art to help people to be a wonderful and powerful experience that helped bring people together during their most challenging times. I learned a lot about myself and the world, and that one small intention from the heart can make a big difference.
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.
FilmHouse Resident Tasha Van Zandt talks the importance of stories and storytelling
COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION THROUGH ART: THE MAKING OF “ONE THOUSAND STORIES”
by Tasha Van Zandt
“We tell our stories in order to live.” — Joan Didion
Storytelling is at the core of humanity. Long before humankind developed the tools to read or write, we shared information in the form of oral storytelling. Humans have been sharing stories since we first learned to communicate, and it is the device that has always connected us. As generations grow older, it is the stories we tell that are passed down that shape our future generations and the way we understand the world. As we look back on our history, it is the stories of our past that shape our present.
From the Chauvet Cave paintings found in France, to the songlines of Indigenous Australians, to the Epic of Gilgamesh, to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, these stories give messages to future generations. Today, we tell stories through countless methods, and they are the web that guide the way we structure our lives. Through the experience of processing stories, we are able to expand our understanding and better connect with the world around us. Story at its most basic level is a device designed to unify people and is the way that we relate. In reality, we are all storytellers, building the web of the understanding of the world around us through the tales we tell. When we ask “how are you?” on a daily basis, we are asking for a story. We are asking each other every day to be storytellers in some small way. It is the tool that connects us all and holds the profound ability to build cultural bridges that lead to greater global understanding.
For me, being a storyteller is at the core of who I am. Documentaries are one of the most profound forms of storytelling as they allow others to see the world from a new perspective. They so often can be a tool for connection, education, and growth. Documentaries often motivate us to evaluate and ask critical questions of ourselves and the world around us, leaving us with answers that can transform our own worldview. As a documentary filmmaker, I’m driven to telling stories that spark change and create impact. I’ve been drawn to the power of stories since as far back as I can remember. Now, in this time when we are all part of the same story due to the pandemic, I have been thinking more deeply about storytelling as a tool for connection and community. As the first generation in my mother’s family to be born in the United States, stories were the tool that connected me with our history and expanded my worldview. The stories my family told bolstered my own personal history and connected me with the path I wanted to pave. It is through storytelling that I realized the power of connection and community.
My short documentary film One Thousand Stories: The Making of a Mural explores this power of storytelling as a tool for connection. The film follows renowned French artist JR in the creation of his first ever video mural project, The Chronicles of San Francisco, which brought together over 1,200 people into one work of art. I happened upon the project very serendipitously while walking through the Outer Sunset in San Francisco. I stumbled upon a 53-foot semi-truck trailer emblazoned with a large pair of wheat-pasted black and white eyes on the side. Upon further inspection, I realized that the truck was serving as a mobile photo and video studio for artist JR, whose work I had admired for years. JR and his team were on their first day of a month-long project called The Chronicles of San Francisco, which documented the residents of the city through video portraits and audio recordings. As I approached the truck, I was invited to become one of the first participants of the mural on the very first day.
Upon entering the truck, I was fascinated by JR’s process, and noticed that there was no one to document the creation of the piece itself. After introducing myself and my work as a documentarian to JR, I asked if I could come back the next day to begin following their journey in the creation of this piece. Given the small space within the truck and the rapid pace of the project, I documented the process as a one-person crew, handling the camerawork, as well as sound. After all was said and done, the project brought together people from all walks of life into a single work of art from locations across the city. Over the course of a month, JR and his team set up his mobile studio in 22 locations around San Francisco, where he interviewed and photographed people across the city’s multifaceted communities. Everyone was photographed in the same light and same way, and no one was turned away. Long-inspired by the work of Mexican painter Diego Rivera, who completed three murals in San Francisco beginning in 1931, JR reimagined how a whole city and its diversity of residents can be represented together through art.
Throughout the project, I gathered as much coverage as possible to create an immersive edit with my editor Dana Laman, who is a close collaborator of mine. Together we worked for months after the project was complete, going through the footage to build the film in a way that felt immersive and true to the experience of the creation of the piece. The mural itself is a project that celebrates the power of connection through storytelling. In the completed work, a digital mural scrolls across a seamless bank of screens, bringing together the faces and untold stories of the people we encounter every day. As you go through the mural, you can click on the face of each participant and hear their story through an app that the team created.
Throughout the creation of the project, I was moved by JR’s energetic embrace of the artistic process. He was constantly in such a present state of awareness with each participant, and was able to forge a genuine connection with so many people on such a large scale which was transformative to be able to see. One of the aspects that I find most beautiful about this mural is that everyone was able to choose how they wanted to be represented in the mural. In this way, it truly became a collaborative and participatory work of art between the artist and participants. It has been very special to reflect on this project during this time of isolation, and it’s a reflection of community within a city that is often divided. To see so many individuals united in one project is a powerful experience, and especially now that the world has changed so dramatically due to the COVID crisis, it truly feels as if this mural has become a time capsule into the past. The notion that JR was able to amass these disparate voices and characters into a single mural is a remarkable feat that has transformed my personal perspective on the power of art.
Much like JR stitched together the portraits and images to make the mural, my editor and I worked to stitch together the footage to create the edit that is One Thousand Stories. After the film was complete, it screened with JR’s mural at SFMOMA, and later was selected to screen in the Golden Gate Awards competition at the 2020 San Francisco International Film Festival as well as DOC NYC, Big Sky International Film Festival, the Museum of Moving Image, and the International Center For Photography. The film was the first of many collaborations with JR, and I have since had the opportunity to work with JR on the TIME magazine Guns in America project, The Chronicles of New York City project, and The Chronicles of Cuba project. Currently, we are in development together on a feature-length documentary about his work at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.
It’s been very special to reflect back on this project currently at this time of isolation. At the time of making the documentary and observing the creation of the mural, it certainly felt like a unique experience, but we could have never expected how truly remarkable it would become today. Currently, I am a 2020 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident, which has been a transformative anchor this year. With the pandemic, we’ve all had to adapt to immense change, but the robust and thriving film community in the Bay Area has been wonderfully supportive. The FilmHouse community has felt like a space where we can adapt and move forward into this new world together, and it’s been a privilege to learn from so many other filmmakers in this time.
Stories, much like life itself, have three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Right now, it feels like we are all at the beginning of a new story, one which none of us can fully predict the ending yet. As Margaret Atwood once said, “when you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story.” Although this is a time of great uncertainty, it can also be a time of discovery as well in the way in which we choose to build our new ending.
Storytelling, and specifically the craft of filmmaking, is such an important tool to transport us into perspectives outside of our own and build bridges that can lead to greater empathy. I fully believe in the power of film as a tool for change. The stories we tell matter. They shape our futures, and record our pasts. When I recall the mural that JR and his team created, I imagine the way in which future generations may regard it in a similar manner as the cave paintings or frescos of the past, as a document of a moment in time that helps us reshape our future.
Tasha Van Zandt is a documentary film director, cinematographer, and Emmy-nominated producer who has traveled on assignment around the globe across all seven continents. Her most recent film, After Antarctica, is a feature-length documentary that follows the life of one of National Geographic’s most celebrated polar explorers. The project is supported by the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, and SFFILM, and will be released in early 2021. Van Zandt’s previous film, One Thousand Stories, offers an intimate look into the creation of the artist JR’s first interactive mural which was exhibited at the SFMOMA. The film was selected for the 2019 DOC NYC Festival, the 2020 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, was selected to screen in the Golden Gate Awards competition at the 2020 San Francisco International Film Festival. One Thousand Stories can currently be streamed via several virtual cinemas nationwide. Her award-winning documentary series Five Minutes from Home with Stephen Curry garnered millions of views around the world, and featured guests such as E-40, Daveed Diggs, and many more. Her work has been commissioned by TIME magazine, the Guardian, PBS, NPR, Google, and Adobe, among many others. Throughout the year, Van Zandt leads photography and filmmaking expeditions around the world for National Geographic in places such as Tanzania, Iceland, Australia, and Japan. She is a 2019 Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow, a 2019 Sundance Institute Fellow, a 2020 SFFILM Sloan Stories of Science Fellow, and a 2020 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident.
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