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Filmmaking + Industry

What do the Oscars Mean to You?

SFFILM Executive Director and Academy Member Anne Lai shares her thoughts around the annual film industry celebration

 

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Award: Oppenheimer

SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Award: Oppenheimer

SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Award: Oppenheimer

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Regina Hall, Sterling K Brown

Regina Hall, Sterling K Brown

Regina Hall, Sterling K Brown

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Nadim Cheikhrouha, Kaouther Ben Hania

Nadim Cheikhrouha, Kaouther Ben Hania

Nadim Cheikhrouha, Kaouther Ben Hania

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr.

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Matthew Heineman, Lauren Domino

Matthew Heineman, Lauren Domino

Matthew Heineman, Lauren Domino

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Photo by Tommy Lau

Boots Riley, Cord Jefferson

Boots Riley, Cord Jefferson

Boots Riley, Cord Jefferson

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Miri Navasky, Joan Baez, and Karen O’Connor

Miri Navasky, Joan Baez, and Karen O’Connor

Celine Song, Greta Lee

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Most of us have heard the phrase, “And the Oscar goes to…” whether we were practicing our fantasy acceptance speech in front of the bathroom mirror, or were gathered with friends and family around a television watching the annual celebration of Hollywood’s most glamorous event. Have you ever wondered why we all feel some curiosity about “The Academy?” Here’s Anne Lai to tell you a little bit about how the Oscars work, why it is important to the film industry, and why it is also a lot of fun!

It Started at the Local Movie Theater

In my career, there were two moments that validated to my parents that I was officially working in the movies. The first time was when my name appeared in the end credits of a feature film playing at a local movie house. The second time was an invitation from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences to become a member nearly three decades into my career. And, I must say, both of these moments had me feeling a swell of pride and accomplishment, as well.

I grew up in southwest Ohio, and an excursion out to the movies was an occasional treat in my family. That meant the multiplex or that one arthouse theater, both of which were a drive through suburbia and crops of corn and soybean fields. Movies were very far away from my everyday life. But, as this year marks 30 years of working in film, I realize how much I thoroughly enjoy the annual ritual known as the Academy Awards telecast.

What is The Academy?

The first Academy Awards (affectionately known as the Oscars) took place as a private dinner in 1929. To this day, the Oscars recognize achievement in excellence in motion pictures, and the honors are bestowed by peers who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There are just over 10,000 Academy members located around the world with a good amount here in the San Francisco Bay. A member is invited to join after being sponsored by two Academy members and is then voted in by a specific committee made up of current Academy members. (Each Academy member can only sponsor one candidate each year). There are 19 branches that represent different areas of film craft and expertise. The simplest way to understand what branches might exist (although it’s not necessarily a one-to-one correlation) is looking at the Award categories themselves—from Editing to Directing to Producing (i.e. Best Picture) to Film Composing to Visual Effects. The Academy membership embodies so many facets of skill and knowledge and effort that—not surprisingly—mimic what it takes to make a movie from conception, to script, to production, to post production, to distribution, and marketing. Is it any wonder that the telecast of the Academy Awards can hold that element of magic, as well?

Why We Love the Oscars

The Oscars remain a standard bearer of awards shows, and the Academy members I’m privileged to know take their responsibility seriously. (And the glamor is also fun!) Film, at its best, is reflective of ourselves and our world and continues to be a global cultural force. Each of us, whether a movie goer or an Academy member, has our own relationship to and experience with a film. These unique opinions around emotional resonance, satisfaction, admiration, and appreciation define our individual vote for what is “best.” Debating amongst friends about what movie you liked, what you didn’t like, and what got overlooked is part of that wonderful community that includes every person who sees the the same film. I can’t wait to have those final passionate conversations while I watch the envelopes being opened.

SFFILM Supported Films Nominated for Academy Awards

This year, SFFILM is thrilled to celebrate the nominations of films and filmmakers we have supported and honored through our curation and exhibition, artist development, and youth education programs. We are so proud to support the films and filmmakers whose vision ultimately makes it up on screen for all of us to see. I say this from a place of a little bit of awe, with that same sense of anticipation when the lights go down in the movie theater. Filmmaking is not the most romantic and gentle of processes—it’s a miracle that any movie gets made. It takes so much willpower, patience, tenacity, funding, and a truly complex series and volume of nuts and bolts and people power and skill. No one sets out to make a bad film. To make a truly notable one is not an exercise that can be engineered, but becomes an ephemeral piece of art, entertainment, and storytelling that lights up a screen. We are rooting for them this Sunday, and know that it is truly an honor to be nominated.

About The Author

Anne Lai is the Executive Director of SFFILM. Previously, she served as Director of Creative Producing and Artist Support at Sundance Institute, where she focused on discovering and nurturing emerging independent producers, screenwriters, and directors through their first or second feature films. During her tenure there, she worked with over 300 screenwriters, directors, and producers who represented a significant and bold collection of voices and films from early development through production and distribution. Anne began her career at Scott Free, the film and television company founded by Ridley and Tony Scott, serving lastly as Vice President of Production. Anne was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, attended the University of Michigan, and received her degree in film production from the University of Southern California. She is a member of the Academy Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

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 for what’s coming next.

Will Michelle Yeoh Win An Oscar? SFFILM Thinks It’s About Time

Last spring, at the 65th SFFILM Festival, we paid tribute to cinematic icon Michelle Yeoh, who wrapped up the year by earning an Oscar nomination. Will she finally win big at the 2023 Academy Awards?

Michelle Yeoh. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

In April 2022, SFFILM welcomed Michelle Yeoh to the 65th San Francisco International Film Festival for a special tribute to the enduring icon, which was hosted by award-winning actor Sandra Oh. In a joyful and wide-ranging onstage conversation, the pair celebrated the career and gifts of this unparalleled international movie star. Yeoh carved out a now-legendary path in Hong Kong cinema in the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s, performing her own stunts in action films like Yes, Madam (1985), Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992), and Holy Weapon (1993).

Then came the release of director Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Whether you saw the film when it premiered in 2000, or joined SFFILM at the Castro Theatre for your first Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon viewing in the lead-up to the tribute, it’s clear why Yeoh gained critical recognition worldwide after this starring role. A standout supporting role in a little 1997 Bond film called Tomorrow Never Dies introduced her to even more audiences.

Called “one of the great international movie stars of the past quarter-century” by New York Times chief film critic A.O. Scott, Michelle Yeoh is a singular, tenacious talent—and that’s exactly why we honored her career last year. After decades of memorable roles, Yeoh has now earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her formidable performance in The Daniels’ (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) multiversal gut-punch Everything Everywhere All at Once. Will Michelle Yeoh win an Oscar on Sunday, March 12? SFFILM believes so—and forecasted it nearly a year ago.

Michelle Yeoh in Conversation with Sandra Oh at the 65th SFFILM Festival. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Has Michelle Yeoh Been Nominated For An Oscar Before?

Despite her impressive and enduring career in film, Michelle Yeoh has never been nominated for an Oscar before. Even her BAFTA nomination for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon didn’t push the Academy to recognize Yeoh over two decades ago. Now, with Everything Everywhere All at Once—the most-nominated film at the 2023 Oscars—Michelle Yeoh is finally being given the recognition she has long deserved on the awards circuit.

At the Golden Globes, Michelle Yeoh became the first Malaysian actor to win Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy. This is also Yeoh’s first time being nominated for the Critics’ Choice Awards, and her second BAFTA nomination. Her role as Evelyn Wang, the laundromat owner who’s just trying to navigate an IRS audit when she’s pulled into a multiverse-spanning adventure, is a career-defining one. And that’s saying something given Yeoh’s decades’ worth of accomplishments.

The role has landed her numerous awards from critics associations, in addition to that Golden Globe, and her fellow Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar nominees—Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Stephanie Hsu—have all earned accolades for their ensemble work in the film. Most recently, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman ever to win any individual category at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG Awards). She won the honor for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, of course. But does that SAG win—both as an individual and as a member of the year’s most outstanding cast—indicate a promising night at the Oscars?

Fans outside the Castro Theatre for the Tribute to Michelle Yeoh in Conversation with Sandra Oh. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Can Michelle Yeoh Make Oscar History?

When Academy Award nominations were announced in January, Michelle Yeoh became the first Malaysian person, and the first Southeast Asian person, to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. She’s also the second woman of Asian descent to be nominated in the category, with the first being biracial actor Merle Oberon. Nominated for her role in The Dark Angel in 1936, Oberon felt the need to conceal her biracial identity due to the pervasive racism in the studio system.

If Michelle Yeoh wins, it will be a landmark moment in film history. “[Other Asian folks] come up to me and they say, ‘You’re doing it for us’,” Yeoh said in an interview with TIME, which named her an icon of the year. And as the 2023 Oscars near, Yeoh is emerging as the category frontrunner. Even so, some film critics and cinephiles are still betting on two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett (The Aviator, Best Supporting Actress; Blue Jasmine, Best Actress) to nab the award again for her starring role in Tár.

SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks, Michelle Yeoh, and Sandra Oh onstage at the 65th SFFILM Festival. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

After receiving news of her nomination, Yeoh told Deadline that the most important part of her Oscars push was that it could show others, especially other Asian actors and filmmakers, that they can do it, too. “I’m very ordinary. I just work very hard,” Yeoh said. “There are so many brilliant actresses [and] actors out there who know that they have a seat at the table. All they have to do is find an opportunity and get there.”

So, can Michelle Yeoh make history? SFFILM thinks she can! And if Yeoh wins, we’ll be dancing just like she and Sandra Oh danced on stage at the Castro Theatre last year. It was a privilege to honor you, Michelle. You’ve got this—in every universe!

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.

Guest Post: Sound Design, Hip-Hop, and “A Lo-Fi Blues”

FilmHouse Resident Ed Ntiri on sounds and their connection to filmmaking

“The ear is much more creative than the eye.”
— Robert Bresson

“Back in the days when I was a teenager,
Before I had status and before I had a pager,
You could find the Abstract listening to hip-hop,
My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop,
I said, “Well daddy, don’t you know that things go in cycles?”

— Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest)

Sound as Character in “A Lo-Fi Blues”
by Ed Ntiri

When people share their favorite moments from the films they love, they’ll often talk about images. For me, it’s always been sounds. Like in The Battle of Algiers, when the intensifying sound of drumbeats heightens the tension of the three women planting their bombs. Or how Walter Murch used the shrieking sound of a subway car to amplify the infamous restaurant scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone kills the man who tried to kill his father. Or Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, where all I remember from the film is the sound of cups clanking against a hand-rail, amplify the haunting monotony of being trapped in a prison cell.

Each of these moments resonate with me more than images themselves ever have. Films are as much a sonic experience as they are a visual one. That’s why when I began to develop my first film, I focused on sound before script, images, or casting.

abstract drawing of two people playing the piano

Our film, A Lo-Fi Blues, is the story of an aging blues musician who believes that his late wife is trapped inside of a song. The film follows his relationship with a young lo-fi hip-hop producer whose ability to sample music becomes the only thing that can save her.

My fascination with sound started early. I grew up in New York during the golden era of hip-hop music, and its ethos informed nearly every aspect of my personal and professional life. It taught me the importance of voice, how limitations can become strengths, and the value of community. Officially, there are four elements that make up hip-hop culture: the emcee, the DJ, the graffiti artist, and the break-dancer. The one they always forgot, in my opinion, was the producer.

person leaning over music making machinery

Producing hip-hop music seems simple, but it’s actually a science. The sample-based method involves finding old albums, carefully selecting bits and pieces of them, and creatively processing and re-arranging them into new compositions. Sampling, when done creatively, breathes new life into old songs. So, a tune like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ “A Chant for Bu” becomes A Tribe Called Quest’s “Excursions.” Or, you find a record like Roy Ayers’ “Searching” only to later hear Pete Rock flip it into his bass-heavy interpretation.

Developing the story and the sound of the film began with an exploration into the ways that hip-hop evolved from jazz, which evolved from the blues, which evolved from spirituals, which were the only way slaves could keep their language when they were taken from the shores of West Africa. The frequencies within our music hold this history. As I developed a closer relationship with the records that I would sample, I became fascinated with the idea of music as a language we unconsciously carry.

The SFFILM Makers community has helped tremendously with developing a script to support our sound. As a musician, I treat each version of the script as a remix, which we continue to evolve until the tone sounds right. Embedded within the script is the music that we’ve developed with our music supervisor, Jason “Asonic” Garcia, and SmartBomb, a collective of lo-fi musicians here in Oakland.

four people sit in a small room talking

The majority of the characters in our film are already musicians, so part of our process has been how to create a distinct sound for each of them. We started by writing music profiles for each character, including their favorite albums, mixtapes they’ve made for friends, and a list of three albums each of them would bring if they were stranded on a deserted island.

A film I thought of a lot while having these discussions is another film shot in the Bay Area, American Graffiti. What I love about this early George Lucas film is that every character is listening to the same radio station throughout the night, turning music (in his case, early Rock ‘n Roll) into a character of its own.

two people sit with music making equipment and instruments

In A Lo-Fi Blues, we’ve taken a similar approach. We created our own fictitious podcast that everyone in our film listens to on various devices. Unlike American Graffiti, which was made when licensing songs was much cheaper, we are not licensing anything. We decided that since we’re all musicians anyway, that we’ll create our own score.

Using our connections to the music community in Oakland, we began composing all of the original jazz, soul, and blues music that you’ll hear throughout the film. For example, when we introduce Leonard, we’ll hear this record. We’re also composing the beats that the young producers make from samples of the songs made for the film. When we’re in the studio with one of the younger beatmakers, you’ll hear one of their actual beats playing. The idea is that even if you choose to watch our film with your eyes closed, you would hear sounds progress, distort, and transform, which embodies our theme of letting go and embracing new life

one person sitting in a chair being filmed by another person

The camera is a tool of magnification. A wide shot establishes a scene. A close-up makes you feel closer to what a person is thinking. A handheld shot can give an impression of chaos or uncertainty. Sound achieves the same. The amplification of inaudible sounds is the magic of sound design. The creative manipulation of sound can be as impactful as a great line of dialogue, or a beautifully composed image. We should employ this magic and give our ears a treat so that they can go on adventures as rich as those designed for the eye.

Images dominate our consciousness. We intake more images today than at any other time in history. When you sit down and watch a film, the experience is made up of the juxtaposition of both images and sound. To study their craft, some cinematographers will watch a film on mute, in order to isolate the image. To study my craft, I often close my eyes when a film is on, to see how the story plays out in sound.

In an interview in Robert Bresson’s book Bresson on Bresson, he explains that if you can replace an image with a sound, always use the sound. Because the ear is more creative than the eye. As storytellers, it’s our job to invoke all of the senses in order to give viewers an emotional experience that they’ll always remember, in more ways than one.

a person stands beside a camera on a tripod

Ed Ntiri is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker who has been based in the Bay Area since 2007. His work has been featured in Vice, WaxPoetics, the Oakland Museum, and the Berkeley Art Museum. In 2017, Ntiri wrote and directed his first short film, Snow Mountain, which won audience choice awards at the SF Urban and Liberated Lens film festivals. His first feature, A Lo-Fi Blues, was awarded a SFFILM Rainin Grant for screenwriting in 2019. He is currently completing a SFFILM FilmHouse Residency in 2020.

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.

SFFILM Supported Titles Headed to Sundance

SFFILM Supported Titles Headed to Sundance

SFFILM Supported Titles Headed to Sundance

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival makes its return on January 20 and two projects supported directly by SFFILM Makers are in the lineup! We…

SFFILM Supported Titles Headed to Sundance

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival makes its return on January 20 and two projects supported directly by SFFILM Makers are in the lineup! We are thrilled that SFFILM Invest continues to fund projects that go on to Sundance and more, and beyond proud to see Reid Davenport’s project I Didn’t See You There from our inaugural SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers With Disability grant as both part of the slate and the winner of Sundance’s US Documentary Directing Award. We hope you get a chance to check out these inspiring projects at the festival this year and as they hit streaming sites in the future. Congratulations to all the films and filmmakers making their Sundance debut!

Here are our SFFILM Makers-supported films:

A Love Song
Next
(USA) Max Walker-Silverman, director; Dan Janvey, Jesse Hope, Max Walker-Silverman, producers
 — SFFILM Invest

After unhitching her camper at a lakeside in the mountains, Faye finds her rhythm cooking meals, retrieving crawfish from a trap, and scanning her old box radio for a station. She looks expectantly at the approach of a car or the mailman, explaining to neighboring campers that she’s waiting for a childhood sweetheart she hasn’t seen in decades. When he does arrive, Lito and Faye, both widowed, spend an evening reminiscing about their lives, losses, and loneliness.

A whimsical romance, Max Walker-Silverman’s captivating debut feature shows an “American West” full of quietude, compassion, and introspection. It’s both naturalistic and vaguely surreal, blurring our sense of time and beauty, loss and vivacity, the grandiose natural world and intimate humanism. Career performances from Dale Dickey and Wes Studi bring an inescapable presence to people we don’t often see portrayed on film. They are gentle outliers possessed of resilience and existential spirit, seeking to process something elusive: a feeling of love for what’s no longer there. Like Faye turning her radio dial, they listen hopefully for the faint trace of a song.

Mija
Next
(USA) Isabel Castro, director; Tabs Breese, Isabel Castro, Yesenia Tlahuel, producers
 — SFFILM Catapult Documentary Fellowship

Doris Muñoz desperately longed for better representation in the indie music she listened to as a teenager. At 23, she took matters into her own hands and began a career in music talent management, passionately advocating for rising Latinx artists. Her swift success transformed her into a pillar for a community of first- and second-generation Americans seeking collective acceptance and healing through song. When Doris receives news that forces her to reconsider working in music, she finds Jacks Haupt, an auspicious young singer eager to break out of her parent’s home in Dallas, Texas. Beyond the sweet moments of joy, glitter, and hope, Doris and Jacks share the ever-present guilt of being the first American-born members of their undocumented families. For them, the pressure of financial success is heightened because it facilitates green card processing and family reunification.

Mija is an immensely emotional and intimate portrait honoring the resilience of immigrants and their children. Director Isabel Castro’s debut feature constructs an ethereal love letter to their indomitable spirit in the face of constant instability, and heartily affirms that all humans have the right to shine and to dream.

I Didn’t See You There
US Documentary Competition 
Winner of the U.S. Documentary Directing Award
(USA) Reid Davenport, director; Keith Wilson, producer
—SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers With Disability Grantee

As a visibly disabled person, filmmaker Reid Davenport is often either the subject of an unwanted gaze — gawked at by strangers — or paradoxically rendered invisible, ignored or dismissed by society. The arrival of a circus tent just outside his apartment prompts him to consider the history and legacy of the freak show, in which individuals who were deemed atypical were put on display for the amusement and shock of a paying public. Contemplating how this relates to his own filmmaking practice, which explicitly foregrounds disability, Davenport sets out to make a film about how he sees the world from his wheelchair without having to be seen himself.

Informed by his position in space, lower to the ground, Davenport captures indelible images, often abstracted into shapes and patterns separate from their meaning. But the circus tent looms in the background, and reality regularly intrudes, from unsolicited offers of help to careless blocking of access ramps. Personal and unflinching, I Didn’t See You There forces the viewer to confront the spectacle and invisibility of disability.

By SFFILM on December 17, 2021.

Canonical link

Exported from Medium on March 18, 2023.

Cheers to the SFFILM Makers at 2021 Sundance Film Festival!

Cheers to the SFFILM Makers at 2021 Sundance Film Festival!

Cheers to the SFFILM Makers at 2021 Sundance Film Festival!

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival is fast approaching and the lineup includes four projects supported directly by SFFILM Makers! We are…

Cheers to the SFFILM Makers at 2021 Sundance Film Festival!

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival is fast approaching and the lineup includes five projects supported directly by SFFILM Makers! We are thrilled to see our funding partnerships including SFFILM Catapult Documentary Fellowship, SFFILM Documentary Film Fund, and SFFILM Invest represented in the exciting slate this year. We are rooting them on from San Francisco, and from our ‘@’ SFFILM Twitter and Instagram so be sure to follow us there. We hope you get a chance to check out these inspiring projects at the festival this year which runs from Thursday, January 28 through Wednesday, February 3. Congratulations to all the films and filmmakers making their Sundance debut!

Here are our SFFILM Makers-supported films:

Writing With Fire
World Cinema Documentary Competition
(India) Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh, directors and producers.
 — SFFILM Documentary Film Fund Grantee

Philly D.A.
Premieres
(USA) Ted Passon, Yoni Brook, Nicole Salazar, creators; Ted Passon, Yoni Brook, Nicole Salazar, Josh Penn, Michael Gottwald, producers.
 — SFFILM Catapult Documentary Fellow

All Light, Everywhere
US Documentary Competition
(USA) Theo Anthony, director; Riel Roch-Decter, Sebastian Pardo, Jonna McKone, producers.
 — SFFILM Invest, 2020 Slate

Passing
US Dramatic Competition
(USA) Rebecca Hall, director and screenwriter; Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Margot Hand, Rebecca Hall, producers. 
 — SFFILM Invest, 2020 Slate

Cryptozoo
NEXT
(USA) Dash Shaw, director; Kyle Martin, Jane Samborski, Bill Way, Tyler Davidson, producers.
 — SFFILM Invest, 2019 Slate

Find out more about the grants, residencies, and fellowships offered by SFFILM Makers here. Apply for the 2021 SFFILM Rainin Grant here.

By SFFILM on January 16, 2021.

Canonical link

Exported from Medium on March 18, 2023.

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