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SFFILM’s Sloan Stories of Science Development Fund is part of a suite of screenwriting programs that cultivate narrative feature films exploring scientific or technological themes and characters. This artist support program was developed in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the nonprofit dedicated to bridging the cultures of science and the humanities, and focuses on the adaptation of important scientific and technological discoveries to the big screen.

The Sloan Stories of Science Development Fund supports the screen adaptation of specific scientific articles and discoveries, catalogued in the Sloan Stories of Science Sourcebook as inspiration for filmmakers. These winners each receive a $10,000 cash grant and access to a two-day filmmaker retreat designed to provide guidance and mentorship from scientists, science and tech journalists, and film industry professionals to help them shape their storytelling vision; and from producers and legal advisors to help navigate adapting true stories to the screen.

Christopher Au, writer

Airborne
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a scrappy group of university research scientists take on skeptics, conservative politics, and the World Health Organization to uncover a startling truth about the nature of coronavirus transmission.

Christopher Au wrote, directed and produced the comedy series Bulge Bracket on Amazon Prime, which was featured on the front page of Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance, and was selected for the Gotham Week Project Market (formerly IFP) and SeriesFest, among others. His feature film producing credits include the neo-noir mystery Drive All Night, which debuted at Cinequest in 2021. As a commercial producer and director, Au won an Emmy for his work with Fox Sports Net. He was previously Head of Business Development for the iBrands group at AOL (now Verizon Media), overseeing strategic partnerships for its portfolio of media brands including TechCrunch, Engadget, Autoblog, Moviefone, MAKERS and others. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Center for Asian American Media, and holds film and business degrees from Yale and NYU respectively.

Jonathan Sethna, writer

Fishes & Phages
When an antibiotic resistant Vibrio Bacteria outbreak threatens to wipe out local fish and oyster farms, the conservative fisherfolk of Greenport are forced to call in Dr. Manning Cesario, a flamboyant bacteriophage expert from the Philippines, for help. Culture clashes and science skepticism are tackled head on as Manning and his local liaison Jaxi, the town pariah, deal with more than just the marine contagion.

Jonathan Sethna writes contemporary narratives about the promise and peril of cutting-edge technologies and radical ideas. He lives in New York, but is proudly inspired, informed, and guided by the values and spirit of the Bay Area and the Jedi Order.

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.

On Being Like Water by Patricia Lee

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.” — Bruce Lee

I am a filmmaker and current SFFILM FilmHouse resident. Three years ago I could not have fathomed that sentence applying to me. I had never written a screenplay or worked on any movies. I had only imagined what it might be like to have the energy to write. The luxury of endeavoring into a creative and personal project seemed elusively out of reach, but three years later here I am. Writing a blog post for SFFILM on becoming a filmmaker.

I hope sharing my story of how I began a daunting midlife transition to writing and filmmaking might be helpful to anyone else considering a major change or creative journey. I know in beginning my own transition, I sought out stories of others who had made huge changes in their lives in order to build up the courage to attempt it for myself.

Three years ago I was working in a full-time management role at an architecture and engineering consultancy that I had been with for over twelve years. It was a role that had come to define me in friendships, leisure reading, and the comfort of a regular paycheck. I worked with colleagues that I cared for and respected. Yet, in my mid-thirties, for more reasons than one, I knew it was time to step back and give myself some space to imagine new possibilities. I was expecting a second child and hoped to find something that was a bit more flexible and community oriented. I had little nagging thoughts that this “something else” could be creative work.

When I finally decided to move to a part-time role and take that extra time to sit down and write, I found I didn’t know where to begin. There was no deluge of creativity, no flood of ideas. I had over time been pounded and compressed into a dense, rocklike hardpan. I had become immovable earth — very good at enduring the daily weather of running a small business, but cracking under the pressure of the vast blank page.

The disappointment of not accomplishing enough each day combined with the self applied pressure of having to write something “good” stifled any trickle of creativity hidden within. Panic attacks soon followed. Why had I left a perfectly fine job only to be defeated by a blank computer screen alone in a tiny room? All of those amazing ideas I had before I sat down to write now seemed to lack any substance.

There was work I had to do internally to excavate the hardpan and make room for change before I would be able to create anything.

Finding the Well
It became clear that I needed help if I was going to find any wells of creativity that might be hiding within. I was not going to break down these learned habits or my internalized self critic sitting alone in a room. I began speaking with a therapist to manage the debilitating panic attacks (shout out to my husband for helping me with this — can go on a whole other aside on the importance of proper mental health support!) and enrolled in an online children’s book illustration and writing class. My god how I embraced the structure of that class!

There were deadlines, expectations, assignments! All the familiar approaches of how I had been programmed to get things done in school and at work for the past thirty plus years helped me move past the existential dread of the blank page. I had a little plot of desk I could call my own and made it an inviting place to sit and think. The writing started to trickle out, a little zine about sentient protozoa, the plucky adventures of a young seal, a teenage magician constantly getting into hi-jinx with her guinea pig sidekick. I was writing. By no means were these stories great, or even good, but that was not the point. The dread of the blank page started to turn into the excitement of what idea may (or may not) present itself that day.

Everyday was an exploration into the unknown. For me it required more of the blind faith of dowsing rather than the scientific rigor of a geotechnical survey in search of water. One day might be a day of reflection, another day might be reading and research, and another might involve actually writing (and then likely rewriting it all later). There were no KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure or daily goals to meet. I had to learn to follow the story and the characters and the ideas. I had to be okay with not knowing exactly where it was all leading. When I started to loosen up without overthinking or criticizing myself before I even began, the ideas finally started to flow. I had found an entry point into the creative waters flowing below the dry earth and I was finally pumping some of it up and into my writing.

The online children’s book class also made me realize the value of community in the creative process. I found that my fellow classmates offered the encouragement, critiques and inspiration that I lacked sitting alone in a room. It was fascinating to see how different everyone’s style and approaches were to writing when given the same assignment. It helped remove some of the doubt I had on whether I had any stories important enough or interesting enough or novel enough. Being in community with others made it ever more clear that we each had our own stories to tell and each of our voices were unique.

This exploration took energy. I would end the day exhausted, having used every brain cell I had to imagine a world and story and characters. I was spent in ways that an office job had never taxed me before. I realized I could only sit and write for about four hours at a time if I was to be a functional human and mother to my children afterwards. I also found that while some learned habits had to go to make way for the creative process, other skills I had gained in the decades I spent working in an office were invaluable to the process.

Through my time doing corporate office work I gained a hard earned confidence I did not have when I started off in the professional world. I began my office job barely able to send a benign professional email without being wracked with doubt on if I had used the right words. Should I use “Best” or “Sincerely”? Start with a personal greeting or get straight to the point? Over twelve years I had grown from an anxiety prone entry level assistant into a manager who could go toe-to-toe with chauvinist mansplainers and ruthless real estate tycoons. I had learned focus, confidence, and the importance of a good team. I had grown accustomed to taking two steps forward and one step back in working towards long term goals. This perspective gave me the courage and energy to keep going even when I would end a day disheartened about my projects or when it came time to scrap everything that I had written or when I decided to pull together an application to a film residency — cue SFFILM FilmHouse!

A Confluence of Streams
When I got word that I was a finalist for the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency I was in shock. Could they truly be so open-minded to find a story about an elderly, first generation immigrant, divorcee worth supporting? By a first time screenplay writer no less?

Just before the pandemic hit us in 2020 I had begun meeting a few folks in the film industry who had been incredibly supportive and generous with their time. They offered connections to other filmmakers, advice on process, and generally were excited to meet someone else also trying to make films. One particularly generous and experienced mentor put together a rough budget for my film and introduced me to the person who is now producing my short film, “Hannah’s Biography.”

I was amazed by the welcoming community of filmmakers I was meeting in the Bay Area. Many of them suggested I look to SFFILM as an organization with great programs supporting new filmmakers. Upon reviewing the different programs at SFFILM I decided to apply to the residency program. At minimum, I thought, the structure of an application deadline would be motivation to fine tune the script for my short film. The application process turned out to be much more than that. It was the first time I was asked to write about myself as a filmmaker, my artistic process and my motivations. The application process itself was a journey and required a rigor that I had not placed on this new craft before. It helped me distill the story for “Hannah’s Biography” and my reasons for telling it.

Now about seven months into the residency I can only say how grateful I am to be a part of this cohort. I have been able to form friendships (even through Zoom meetings) and expand the community of amazing artists and mentors in my orbit. The inspiration continues, the projects are fascinating and to see how others approach their craft and their stories is eye opening. I like to call it my own independent study film school. The access to industry members and resources has been invaluable and gave me the boost I needed to get my project ready for production. I know I am still very early on in this journey and have much more to learn and experience, but for now the waters are flowing towards making this film, strengthened by the overflowing reservoir of SFFILM.

I am a filmmaker and current SFFILM FilmHouse resident. If I can say it, maybe someday you can too.

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.

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.

Alexandre Moratto — Writer, Director, Producer
Ramin Bahrani — Producer

Alexandre Moratto

Apetown

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.

Savanah Leaf — Director, Screenwriter, Producer; Cody Ryder — Producer; Danielle Massie — Producer

Savanah Leaf

Cody Ryder

Danielle Massie

Escape to Last Man Peak

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.

Nile Saulter — Director; Tanya Batson-Savage — Screenwriter / Producer; Analisa Chapman — Producer

Nile Saulter

Tanya Batson-Savage

Analisa Chapman

Fancy Dance

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.

Erica Tremblay — Screenwriter, Director, Producer; Miciana Alise — Screenwriter

Erica Tremblay

Miciana Alise

God Help the Gayes

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.

Meryam Joobeur — Director, Producer; Maria Gracia Turgeon — Producer; Annick Blanc — Producer ; Nadim Cheikhrouha — Producer; Sarra Ben Hassen — Producer

Meryam Joobeur

Maria Gracia Turgeon

Annick Blanc

Nadim Cheikhrouha

Sarra Ben Hassen

Ohijee’s Past Lives

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

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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.

Natalie Jasmine Harris — Writer / Director; Natalie Holley — Producer

Natalie Jasmine Harris

Rangoli

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.

Vishaal Reddy — Producer; Neal Ludevig, Producer; Shravya Kag, Creative Consultant; Raj Trivedi, Creative Consultant

Vishaal Reddy

Scary Lovely

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.

Ro Haber — Director; Savannah Knoop — Writer; Brontez Purnell — Producer

Ro Haber

Savannah Knoop

Brontez Purnell

The Macrobiotic Toker

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.

Andrés Piñeros — Writer / Director; Federico Piñeros — Producer

Federico Piñeros

Untitled Texas Latina Project

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.

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.