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 and additional funding from the San Francisco Film Commission and the San Francisco 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 asa 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 2023 FilmHouse Residents were:

Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development, SFFILM
Joshua Moore, Artist Development Manager of Documentary Projects, SFFILM
Rosa Morales, Artist Development Associate Manager of Narrative Projects, SFFILM
Sabrina Sellers, Artist Development Coordinator, SFFILM
Manijeh Fata, Executive Director, Film SF
Dana Merwin, Producer
Natalie Baszile, Writer, Director, and FilmHouse Resident Alumni

“FilmHouse is an ecosystem of creative people and exciting projects in motion, and this year’s diverse group of residents all bring with them their own unique talents and perspectives,” said the 2023 Selection Committee.“There is an intentional balance of emerging filmmakers and more established filmmakers who have built a foundation from which to grow. These exceptional storytellers also share a personal connection to the material they are working with and we couldn’t be more thrilled to offer them the support and guidance the FilmHouse residency provides.” FilmHouse Residents Selection Committee

Let’s meet the residents that will be taking their projects to the next stage—whether it be screenwriting or post-production—at FilmHouse in 2023!

Feature Residents

Adnan Khan

Dreama’s Room – Narrative Short
When a 7-year-old girl gets a letter from her incarcerated father, she sets out on an imaginative fantasy adventure in her room to free him.

Albert Fernandez

Numero – Narrative Short
When a gifted baseball player is discovered in Cuba, an MLB scout must navigate him through the dangerous web of human traffickers to reach the multimillion-dollar contracts and redemption that await some 90 miles away. Inspired by a current DOJ investigation.

Asad Durrani

She Fell From the Sky – Narrative Feature
A struggling single dad’s life gets further complicated when his late wife falls out of the sky and back into his life.

Betsy Tsai

A Land of Long Shadows – Hybrid Feature
An aspiring journalist from working-class Belfast investigates epidemic suicide rates amongst her millennial peers. When it hits close to home, she exposes why the violence still persists in 2010s Northern Ireland, but is turning inwards.

Cheo Tyehimba Taylor

Untitled – Narrative Feature
An egotistical journalist convinces his HIV-positive brother to participate in a controversial AIDS clinical trial he’s documenting during the height of the AIDS epidemic, but the consequences reveal hidden truths.

Dominic Mercurio

He Won’t Belong – Narrative Short
In the midst of a storm on a desolate strip of California’s lost coast, two strangers begin to uncover each other’s past.

Estevan Padilla

Pangea Ultima – Narrative Feature
Convinced that their parent’s separation is the root cause of their inability to foster relationships and mature, a delusional brother and sister brazenly kidnap their estranged parents in hopes of forcing them to fall back into love.

LaTajh Weaver

Queerling – Narrative Feature
After taking a cushy tech job to make ends meet, an Oakland native struggles to stay morally grounded while benefiting from the same luxuries that are destroying her community. All while stumbling through the complexities of Bay Area’s Queer scene.

Osinachi Ibe

Tales From Under the Sun – Narrative Feature
During their first summer apart, two childhood best friends discover they have fallen in love with each other and embark on a spiritual journey that changes them forever.

Steven Liang

Godfrey’s Time, Out – Narrative Feature
After 14 years behind bars, Godfrey receives a weekend pass out of his transitional house to celebrate his newfound freedom in his hometown in the San Gabriel Valley, only to discover his city and his people have moved on without him. When the pressure to make up for lost time becomes unbearable, he wrestles with the delusion of home and the reality of new beginnings.

Documentary Residents

Aurora Brachman

Dear You – Documentary Feature
After fleeing an abusive husband and leaving behind her Pacific Island home of Kiribati—projected to be one of the first countries to disappear due to climate change—Grace is detained while seeking asylum in the US. Anchored by love letters she writes while in prison, Dear You follows Grace as she fights for stability and a new sense of purpose while contemplating the future of the rapidly-disappearing home to which she can never return.

Briana Nieves

Arise! My Beloved – Documentary Short and Feature
A group of carmelite nuns living secluded from friends and family reflect on what it means to know God and be alive in a state of profound isolation.

Caron Creighton

Dispossessed – Documentary Feature
Residents of Oakland’s largest homeless encampment struggle to keep their community united as they fight dual evictions from both the city and state.

Elivia Shaw

Untitled Central Valley Project – Documentary Feature
Land has a time limit. Untitled Central Valley Project explores the impact of decades of agricultural extraction and increasingly extreme climate on community health in California’s Central Valley through intimate short stories that investigate our changing relationship to the environment.

Ines Pedrosa e Melo

The dark knot at the center – Documentary Short
In a road movie set in post Roe v. Wade America, an anonymous group of people reckons with the current state of abortion rights in a deeply divided country. As they share their thoughts, reflections and experiences on the struggles of accessing abortion care, their voices reshape the road and the vast scenery around it, shedding light on the disparate realities of reproductive health care access in contemporary the United States.

J.P. Dobrin

Untitled asian deportation Project – Documentary Feature
After twenty years in prison, two Cambodian-American men lose their residency status due to their convictions and face potential deportation back to a country they never knew. Yet despite the insurmountable odds, the two friends try to savor their freedom and make up for a childhood lost, showing us what it means to be young at heart.

Javid Soriano

The Impossible Dream (working title) – Documentary Feature
The artistry of an opera singer endures on the streets of San Francisco, where the performer recounts his past fame while struggling to re-establish himself with his children.

Jessica Zitter

The Chaplain of Oakland – Documentary Feature
Frustrated by watching Black patients suffer in hospitals due to end-of-life healthcare inequities, a dedicated chaplain works to transform an unjust medical system, one patient at a time.

Michael Workman

The Richest Hill On Earth – Documentary Feature
Unfolding through the lives of a diverse cross-section of people in a town haunted by its history of labor struggle, The Richest Hill on Earth is an intergenerational story exploring what it means to be working class in the United States.

Rajan Gill

Harvest Party at Camp Two – Documentary/Hybrid Short
It was a summer of romance, race-wars, and rock n’ roll. Unable to attend their local prom, Harvest Party at Camp Two recounts the story of the Punjabi farmworkers in 1980s California who throw the biggest party their small town has ever seen.

Yeelen Cohen

Fighting for the Light – Documentary/Hybrid Feature
Named after the African cinema classic, Yeelen journeys to Bamako to make a movie about the enigmatic elder who inspired their name. Souleymane Cisse, director of Yeelen, readily assumes the role of godfather to the multimedia artist, but soon begins questioning the millennial’s vision. What starts as a playful personal film about the origin of a name, spirals into an existential interrogation of representation, collective imagination, and the power manifested through image creation. Juxtaposing the past, present, and future, archival footage and reimaginings of the film Yeelen, the documentary odyssey explores a fated relationship that defies cultural and generational divides.

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.

Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund (DFF) has supported feature-length documentaries in post-production that are distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters, and an innovative visual approach. DFF has distributed nearly $1 million to advance new work by filmmakers worldwide, many of whom go on to premiere at festivals like Sundance, our own San Francisco International Film Festival, Tribeca and more, as well as collect dozens of nominations and awards including the Oscars.

This year’s winners include Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn’s Going Varsity in Mariachi (premiering at Sundance this month), Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan’s Made in Ethiopia, Nadav Kurtz’s Untitled Sam and Omar Project, and Kevin Duncan Wong, Kar Yin Tham, and Todd Still’s Home is a Hotel (Working Title).

“In an incredibly competitive slate of submissions, we are thrilled with the winning selections. All of these films explore the human experience in new and powerful ways that truly moved our jury to tears,“ said Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development at SFFILM.

The panelists who reviewed the submissions were Ximena Amescua, Artist Manager at Firelight Media; Jameka Autry, Principal and Producer at Beholden Films; Joshua Moore, Manager of Documentary Programs at SFFILM; Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development at SFFILM; Sabrina Sellers, Artist Development Coordinator at SFFILM.

“With over 300 submissions and ten exceptional finalists to choose from, this was one of the most competitive review panels we’ve had for the Doc Film Fund,” remarked the panel. “Ultimately our jury selected four superb and distinct films that we believe will be successful and accessible as they near the end of post-production.”

“We felt these four projects not only presented compelling, compassionate, and timely subject material, but each have a unique and creative approach that sets them apart,” they said. “The winners are all emerging filmmakers making their feature debuts, some having already made award-winning shorts, and we couldn’t be more excited to see the impact this grant will have on their burgeoning careers.”

Previous DFF winners include Sarvnik Kaur’s Against the Tide making its 2023 Sundance debut, ​​Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s Writing With Fire, which won Audience and Special Jury Awards at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s Honeyland, which won a record number of juried awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Academy Awards for both Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Language Film, RaMell Ross’ Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2018 and was nominated for the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and many others.

The 2022 Documentary Film Fund is made possible thanks to support from Jennifer Hymes Battat and the Jenerosity Foundation along with Tom Knutsen and Katie Hall.

2022 Documentary Film Fund Winners

Going Varsity in Mariachi

Alejandra Vasquez, Director; Sam Osborn, Director; Julia Pontecorvo, Producer; James Lawler, Producer; Luis Miranda, Producer

In the richly competitive world of high school mariachi, the musicians from the borderlands of South Texas reign king. Under the guidance of coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed Mariachi Oro must turn a shoestring budget and motley crew of inexperienced musicians into state champions.

Made in Ethiopia

Xinyan Yu, Director/Producer; Max Duncan, Director/Producer/Cinematographer; Tamara Mariam Dawit, Producer

Three pioneering women navigate the bumpy expansion of the biggest Chinese industrial zone in Ethiopia.

Untitled Sam and Omar Project

Nadav Kurtz, Director/Producer; Diane Quon, Producer; Jeremiah Zagar, Executive Producer; Jeremy Yaches, Executive Producer; Abby Lynn Kang Davis, Executive Producer

Omar Bader was only eight years old when his father Sam, a film producer, was arrested and sentenced to a 24-year prison sentence. Now twenty-three, Omar struggles under the weight of his father’s long absence. But through a creative collaboration facilitated by prison visits and phone calls, Sam helps Omar summon the courage to pursue his artistic dreams and begins the process of healing their relationship.

Home is a Hotel (Working Title)

Kevin Duncan Wong, Director/Producer; Kar Yin Tham, Co-Director/Producer; Todd Sills, Co-Director/Producer

Within the walls of their 80-square-foot SRO hotel rooms, five diverse San Francisco residents strive against cyclical forces and a housing crisis in their search for a place to call home.

About SFFILM Makers

SFFILM Makers, SFFILM’s artist development program, provides significant strategic and creative resources to independent filmmakers through grants, fellowships, residencies, and individual consultations. Since 2009, over $8.5 million has been disbursed to more than 250 feature projects. SFFILM’s suite of grants includes the SFFILM Rainin Grant and several programs in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; and the Documentary Film Fund, a partnership with the Jenerosity Foundation.

Notable narrative films and filmmakers that have received support from SFFILM Makers include Rainin Grant recipients Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here, Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men, Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods, Nijla Mu’min’s Jinn, and Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station. Supported documentary features include Documentary Film Fund recipients CJ Hunt’s The Neutral Ground, Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched, Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s Honeyland, Liza Mandelup’s Jawline, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family, and RaMell Ross’ Hale County This Morning, This Evening.

Learn more about the SFFILM Makers program here.

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.

Meet the SFFILM Makers behind the SFFILM-supported titles

On Wednesday, December 7, the Sundance Institute revealed the slate of films that will premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. After two years of virtual programming, the long-running film festival will return in-person to Park City, Utah on January 19, 2023.

Securing a spot in the Sundance Film Festival lineup is no easy feat. Thanks to our SFFILM Makers programs, which include our FilmHouse Residency, the Documentary Film Fund, the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship, and the flagship SFFILM Rainin Grant — the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US — SFFILM helps independent filmmakers break through. And, for the second time, a filmmaker supported by the SFFILM Rainin Grant for Filmmakers with Disabilities has been invited to show their work at Sundance.

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival slate includes a record-setting eight (8!) SFFILM-supported features, validating the integral part SFFILM plays in providing independent storytellers with the necessary advisory services, work space, and artist community for filmmakers to develop, complete, and submit their projects to festivals. “We are thrilled for our supported filmmakers, who will be premiering their films at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival,” said Masashi Niwano, SFFILM’s Director of Artist Development. “Their voices are fresh and diverse, and they all share a similar strength: bold storytelling and unique perspectives that we believe can change the world. We cannot wait for audiences to see these eight powerful films.”

The eight SFFILM-supported projects screening at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival are:

Against the Tide
Sarvnik Kaur, director/producer; Koval Bhatia, producer
SFFILM Support Received—Documentary Film Fund; SFFILM Invest
Appearing In—International Documentary Competition

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Raven Jackson, writer/director; Maria Altamirano, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, producers
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Grant; SFFILM Westridge Grant
Appearing In—U.S. Dramatic Competition

Earth Mama
Savanah Leaf, writer/director/producer; Cody Ryder, producer; Danielle Massie, co-producer
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Grant

Fancy Dance
Erica Tremblay, writer/director/producer; Miciana Alise, writer
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Grant
Appearing In—U.S. Dramatic Competition

Fremont
Babak Jalali, writer/director; Marjaneh Moghimi, producer; George Rush, producer; Laura Wagner, producer; Carolina Cavalli, writer
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Grant
Appearing In—Next

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Joe Brewster, co-director/producer; Michèle Stephenson, co-director/producer
SFFILM Support Received—Documentary Film Fund; SFFILM Invest
Appearing In—U.S. Documentary Competition

Going Varsity in Mariachi
Alejandra Vasquez, director; Sam Osborn, director; Julia Pontecorvo, producer; James Lawler, producer; Luis A. Miranda, Jr., producer
SFFILM Support Received—Documentary Film Fund
Appearing In—U.S. Documentary Competition

The Tuba Thieves
Alison O’Daniel, director/producer; Wendy Ettinger, executive producer; Rachel Nederveld, Maida Lynn, Su Kim, Maya E. Rudolph, producers
SFFILM Support Received—SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant
Appearing In—Next

Since 2009, SFFILM has distributed more than $8.5 million to over 300 films through our various filmmaker-centered initiatives. SFFILM-supported projects include works by SFFILM Rainin Grant recipients, such as Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here, Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods, Nijla Mu’min’s Jinn, and Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station. On the documentary feature side, SFFILM-supported projects include those by Documentary Film Fund recipients, such as CJ Hunt’s The Neutral Ground, Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched, Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s Honeyland, Liza Mandelup’s Jawline, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family, and RaMell Ross’ Hale County This Morning, This Evening, among many other remarkable films.

Sharing compelling works from up-and-coming independent filmmakers with fresh perspectives, inventive ideas, and singular styles aligns deeply with the work SFFILM does. Outside of the San Francisco International Film Festival, events like Sundance help such works reach a wider audience and, hopefully, secure distribution deals that will continue to amplify the films’ messages and increase their visibility.

Congratulations to all the filmmakers on this major accomplishment!

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.