Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Education Fund Essay Contest: Read the Winning Submissions

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.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Learn more about SFFILM Education at sffilm.org/education.

Meet the finalists for the Spring 2020 SFFILM Rainin Grants

It’s June, which means SFFILM’s spring season of filmmaker grant reviews is coming to a close. This week, SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation are announcing the finalists for the Spring 2020 SFFILM Rainin Grant, the flagship artist development program offered by SFFILM Makers. Twelve filmmaking teams have been shortlisted as contenders to receive funding for their narrative projects in various stages of production, from screenwriting to post-production.

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. Awards are made to multiple projects twice a year, in the spring and fall, 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. The Fall 2020 grant cycle is currently accepting applications; the deadline to apply is July 2. Learn more at sffilm.org/makers.

SPRING 2020 SFFILM RAININ GRANT FINALISTS

Catch the Fair One
Josef Kubota Wladyka, writer/director; Kimberly Parker and Mollye Asher, producers — post-production
In Catch the Fair One, a boxer plans her own abduction in order to find her missing sister.
 
Coyote Boys
Haley Anderson, writer/director/producer — development
Coyote Boys is a contemporary odyssey through fringe communities, centered on rootless train-hopping youth experiencing loss and loneliness, who are trying to find alternative ways of surviving 21st century America.

Estrada para Livramento (Road to Livramento)
Giuliana Monteiro, writer/director/producer; Beatriz Monteiro, co-writer — screenwriting
Two estranged brothers are forced together when their family home is destroyed by corporate greed. The stringent rules for financial compensation require them to embark on a long journey through the south of Brazil in search of their younger brother.

The Hole in the Fence
Joaquin del Paso, writer/director; Lucy Pawlak, writer; Fernanda de La Peza, producer — post-production
The first-year students of an elitist religious school attend a “faith and integration” camp outside the city. The tranquility is soon dissolved when a hole is discovered in the fence that walls the place, originating a chain of mysterious incidents that will reveal the school’s teaching methods.

If We Left
Moon Molson, writer/director; Andrew Burrows-Trotman, writer; Miles Maker, producer — screenwriting
A cook and a janitor stayed without pay to care for abandoned senior residents when their assisted living home was shut down in Castro Valley, CA. Their selfless act of friendship and heroism became the feel-good story of 2013 and led to the Residential Care for the Elderly Reform Act.

Karaoke King
Federica Gianni, writer/director; Lara Costa-Calzado and Tatiana Bears, producers — screenwriting
In the aftermath of an earthquake that destroys their village, a gay teenager and his ultraconservative brother are sent to live in the margins of Rome. Alone and in a big city, the brothers are forced to confront the different men they are becoming as they search to find love and work, and breathe new life in the crumbling infrastructures around them.

Madame Négritude
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, writer/director; Christine Sanders, producer — screenwriting
Madame Négritude is a technicolor adventure through the brilliant and mercurial mind of Martiniquan writer and political heroine Suzanne Césaire.
 
My Love Affair with Marriage
Signe Baumane, writer/director/producer/animator; Sturgis Warner and Roberts Vinovskis, producers — post-production
Starving for love and acceptance, Zelma feels incomplete. Hounded by three singing mythological sirens, she sets out on a 23-year quest for perfect love and lasting marriage. She is unaware, however, that her own biology is a powerful force to be reckoned with. 
 
On the Mat
Daniel Antebi, writer/director; Alexandra Byer, Madeleine Askwith, and Michael Gottwald, producers — development
Ilan, 16 and queer, must untangle himself from a secret relationship with his martial arts coach.
 
Philax
Ruken Tekes, writer/director/producer; Balam Bingul and Gabriele Oricchio, producers — screenwriting
Following a donkey as she changes various owners among the last Greek inhabitants of an island in Turkey, Philax depicts the flow of life in four seasons filled by feasts, resistance, fear, and hope.
 
Rolling Stone
Christopher Cole, writer/director — screenwriting
Doug is a disaffected music journalist who has ambitions of being an influential writer. Butcher is an egocentric superstar rapper. They look exactly alike. After Doug interviews Butcher, he haphazardly agrees to play his double in a music video. When one gig as Butcher turns into too many, Doug struggles to find his own voice while reckoning his relationship with the public, substances, and a budding romance with his new editor Ana.
 
SexGarage
Pier-Philippe Chevigny, writer/director; Geneviève Gosselin-G. and Galilé Marion-Gauvin, producers — screenwriting
July 1990. An LGBTQ+ party in Old Montreal. A brutal police raid. The next morning, survivors heal their wounds and unite, determined to expose the city police’s rampant homophobia. Shot in eight immersive long takes, SexGarage is a tense social drama inspired by real-life events often referred to as the “Montreal Stonewall.”

For more information about SFFILM’s artist development programs, visit sffilm.org/makers.

The Charge for Accessibility at SFFILM: Takeaways from Year One of the SFFILM Disability Advisory Board

For far too long the film industry has functioned in a status quo of inaccessibility, with SFFILM being very much a part of this troubling norm until recently. Our experience over the last year, taking up the charge of becoming a more accessible film institution, has taught us many important lessons that we are excited to share in hopes that we can inspire action and create a more inclusive film community both locally and nationally.

In 2018, Bay Area filmmaker Jim LeBrecht—co-director with Nicole Newnham of Crip Camp—approached SFFILM about creating a Disability Advisory Board to champion the needs of disabled artists and audiences within the local film community. SFFILM’s values have always included being “dedicated to delivering quality, enrichment, education, access, and enjoyment to everyone in our community,” but we had not dedicated much focused attention to actioning that value when it came to accessibility. We jumped at the chance to form the inaugural Disability Advisory Board composed of exceptional individuals working at the forefront of accessibility, inclusion, and the arts (click here to see current and past members). With their keen insight, here’s how we started (and how you can start too):

• Audit Screening Venues with Disabled Patrons: In the lead-up to our 2019 SFFILM Festival, members of the Advisory Board participated in site visits to various venues in the Bay Area to assess the accessibility of each space, and provide vital feedback on what was needed to make those spaces accessible. While some improvements will take years of planning to achieve, we focused on small but meaningful changes that would make our disabled patrons feel more welcome. At times this was as easy as putting up directional signage in lobbies for ADA restrooms. In other cases this required reducing the number of ticketed seats available in order to create more equitable ADA seating.
• Consider Reception Venues in an Accessibility Plan: SFFILM also looked at the spaces in which we held happy hours and receptions — understanding that in the film world important social and professional connections are made in those rooms, and they should be accessible to all. We made an effort to reinforce this by adding venue accessibility information to all digital invitations in order to allow people to make informed decisions about attending.
• Build Accessibility Into The Website: For disabled patrons, we learned that being able to plan ahead is key. The Disability Advisory Board were active collaborators with our Operations and Communications teams to make SFFILM’s Accessibility web page into a comprehensive FAQ so those enjoying the 2019 Festival with disabilities could know exactly what to expect when they came to an event.
• Design With Accessibility In Mind: Along the way, SFFILM also had a chance to learn from its mistakes. When we presented our printed 2019 Festival guide to the Advisory Board we received critical feedback about how frustratingly inaccessible it was due to color contrast and font choices during the design phase. In 2020, we considered the accessibility of color while creating the Festival branding and integrated feedback from the Advisory Board throughout the process to ensure we did better this time around. The key lesson learned from this experience was not to be afraid of “negative” feedback. This was a vital learning experience and we have established that feedback is only negative if nothing is done with it.
• Building Community and Collective Action Is Key: As we charted our own course for improved accessibility at SFFILM, we also came to the table with broader goals of systemic change that required community and coalition-building. We knew to share knowledge was to share power, and in that spirit SFFILM convened its inaugural Accessibility Congress during the 2019 SFFILM Festival. We gathered Bay Area film and arts leaders to have an open discussion about access and representation. We discussed our priorities and our challenges in activating this work, and had the opportunity to speak candidly with leaders in the Accessibility field about how to holistically weave accessibility into all areas of our work, from venues to programming to communications. For example, conversation about audio description (AD) and closed captioning (CC), led to an important discussion about how SFFILM and other filmmaker support organizations could provide financial and educational resources to prioritize these elements in the filmmaking process.
• Learn From Others: Investigating other organizations’ approach to accessibility and observing events that center the needs of disabled patrons has been incredibly beneficial to SFFILM in this process. We want to especially acknowledge SuperFest Disability Film Festival, which has taught us over the past year.

SFFILM is excited about the progress we made in 2019 and are using the lessons we have learned to continue forward movement into 2020 and beyond. In one of our 2019 Advisory Board meetings, member Lawrence Carter-Long wisely said, “Access means you can get in the room, inclusion means you’re at the table, equity means you set the agenda.”

As we move towards true equity, SFFILM will:

• Look to hire an Accessibility Consultant to further this work
• Launch an Access and Inclusion Fund to help historic Bay Area venues advance capital projects that remedy accessibility issues (seed funding for the Access and Inclusion Fund comes from a Discretionary Award from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation).
• Continue to partner with the Bay Area community to ask pressing and innovative questions around diversity, inclusion, and accessibility
• Engage in valuable collaboration with the Disability Advisory Board in 2020 and beyond.

We still have a lot to learn and a lot to do, but we share our triumphs and challenges on the journey to accessibility in an effort to empower other organizations to learn from us and join us in this charge. No level of action is too small — every inch forward is an inch in the right direction. Know that when you don’t have all the answers (or any of the answers) — it starts with asking the right questions.

If you are a film organization that is interested in starting your own accessibility initiative, please reach out to us. We would be thrilled to have more partners in this work and build a collective that is working to make the film community more accessible nationally.

SFFILM’s Disability Advisory Board consists of these valued members:

Day Al-Mohamed — Author, filmmaker, disability policy expert
Lawrence Carter-Long — Director, Disability & Media Alliance Project for DREDF
Catherine Kudlick — Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, San Francisco State University & Superfest
Jim LeBrecht — Filmmaker and sound mixer
Kristen Lopez — Film critic and writer
Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda — President, Windmills & Giants; Adjunct Faculty at University of California, Berkeley
Jen Rainin — CEO, Kenneth Rainin Foundation
Delbert Whetter — Producer, COO/Head of Business Affairs at Exodus Film Group
Alice Wong* — Founder and Director, Disability Visibility Project

For more information about SFFILM’s ongoing accessibility initiatives, visit sffilm.org/accessibility.

Meet the finalists for the Spring 2020 SFFILM Westridge Grants

SFFILM and the Westridge Foundation have announced the finalists for the Spring 2020 round of SFFILM Westridge Grants, one of the key narrative support programs offered by SFFILM Makers. The winning projects from this group of finalists will be announced in late May.
 
The Westridge program is designed specifically to support the screenwriting phase of narrative feature projects whose stories focus on the significant social issues and questions of our time. Providing support at this critical early stage protects filmmakers’ creative processes, and allows them to concentrate on properly crafting their stories and building the right strategy and infrastructure to guide them through financing and production.

The SFFILM Westridge Grant is open to US-based filmmakers whose stories take place primarily in the United States. The Fall 2020 round of Westridge Grants is currently accepting applications, with a final deadline of July 2. Find out more at sffilm.org/makers.

As always, in addition to the cash grants, recipients receive various benefits through SFFILM’s comprehensive and dynamic artist development program, as well as support and feedback from SFFILM and Westridge Foundation staff.

SPRING 2020 SFFILM WESTRIDGE GRANT FINALISTS

And You as Well Must Die
Audrey Ewell, writer/director 
And You as Well Must Die is a story of loss and healing that uses psychological horror and haunted-house tropes to chart a course through the disorienting maze of grief. Rowan, reeling after her fiancé’s death, attempts to establish contact with him but finds herself confronting hard truths about their relationship and ultimately herself. When an attractive but enigmatic widower offers his support, she must decide how far she’ll go to become whole again.

Bluets
Hannah Peterson, writer/director; Taylor Shung, producer
At a public high school in Los Angeles, Genevieve and Ben form an indelible bond as they graduate to an uncertain future.

Escaping Morgantown
Pete Nicks, writer/director; Michael Gottwald and Noah Stahl, producers
Escaping Morgantown follows the life of a mixed-race African American man — from childhood, to Howard University, through a one-year prison sentence during the War on Drugs — as he confronts the complex realities and painful truths about identity, race, addiction, and incarceration in America. Based on the true story of the director’s life.

The Girl
Laci Dent, writer/director/producer 
Della, a 13-year-old African American girl, lives in rural Louisiana with her curiously devout mother Ida. After Della begins to experience peculiar bodily symptoms linked to her mother’s prayers, both women find themselves at the center of a dark practice tied to their ancestry, the Baptist Church, and the land they’ve inherited.

The Inspection
Elegance Bratton, writer/director; Chester Algernal Gordon and Effie Brown, producers
In the age of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a young homeless man must conceal his attraction for his drill instructor in order to survive Marine Corps boot camp.

Just Kids 
Frida Perez, writer/director/producer; Rachael Moton and Gia Rigoli, producers
A teenage girl from the Bronx is taken on a twisted journey through New York days after her 18th birthday. 
 
Salt (Sabras)
Sushma Khadepaun, writer/director; Monique Walton, Producer (US) and Andrea Kuehnel, producer (Germany)
Anita, an enthusiast of American sitcoms in small-town India, orchestrates her own “arranged marriage” and moves to America in the hope of a more exciting and independent life. But Anita’s escape begins to feel like a trap when she finds herself completely dependent on her husband in suburban Texas. Anita must find a way to reconcile her expectations with her reality.

Tiger Girl
Andrew Thomas Huang, writer/director; Angela C. Lee, Nate Matteson, and Hiro Murai, producers
Set in 1966 Los Angeles, Tiger Girl is a coming-of-age fantasy about a repressed teenage Chinese American girl haunted by a tiger lurking in her attic. When pressured by her immigrant mother’s rigid social expectations, the girl must learn that the beast upstairs is the tiger within that will set her free.

Undercurrent
Priscila Torres, co-writer/director; Vincent Bates, co-writer 
A strong-willed Salvadoran immigrant struggles to maintain her sense of dignity after an extensive delay in the arrival of her work authorization. When she’s notified that her application has been placed on hold, she puts her marriage and future at risk by working illegally for a landscaping company. 
 
Untitled Opa-Locka Project
Keisha Rae Witherspoon, director/co-writer; Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, co-writer/producer; Jonathan David Kane. producer
Untitled Opa-Locka Project is a meditative and ultimately transcendent story about a strange young man named Ev who struggles with the ills of a small world because he has already touched the stars. A paranoid and isolated young card shark from inner-city Miami, Ev believes his mother was abducted by aliens, and now seeks answers from a suspicious new UFO cult in the neighborhood.

The Weight of Land
Daniel de Lacerda e Drummond, writer/director/producer; Aaron Fink, Gia Rigoli, and Esteban Zuluaga, producers 
When a family of Latino ranch hands learns they’ve inherited one of the largest ranches in Arizona, the promise of a better future seems certain. But when their bosses also lay a claim to that land, a grisly blood feud unravels.

Meet the winner of SFFILM’s 2020 New American Fellowship

SFFILM has announced the winner of its New American Fellowship, a program that kicked off last year to support international artists who have made the United States their home and want to tell their stories through film. The first of its kind in the US film industry, the New American Fellowship is made possible thanks to SFFILM’s collaboration with the Flora Family Foundation, and provides a $25,000 cash grant and a FilmHouse artist residency in San Francisco to an independent director or producer who has recently moved to the United States. Designed to amplify the voices of international filmmakers and to champion their work in the US, the New American Fellowship seeks to support films by new American artists, ultimately providing meaningful and challenging experiences to public audiences.

The 2020 New American Fellow is Singaporean filmmaker Kirsten Tan, who is currently in the development and screenwriting stage on her narrative feature project Higher, about a mysterious flood that rises through a metropolitan apartment building while its residents fight for survival and resources, setting off an absurdist satire of five interlocking stories that grapple with morality, truth, and justice.

Kirsten Tan is a New York-based Singaporean filmmaker whose debut feature Pop Aye premiered as the Opening Night film of the World Cinema Dramatic competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film went on to receive a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, the VPRO Big Screen Award at Rotterdam, the Best International Film Award at Zurich, and the Audience Award at Innsbruck. To date, it has screened at over 50 film festivals and was invited to represent Singapore in the Foreign-film Category at the Oscars. Before Pop Aye, her short films 10 Minutes Later, Fonzi, Sink, Cold Noodles, and Dahdi have collectively received over ten international awards. Ella, a fashion film she directed for Giorgio Armani, was included in the permanent film collection of MoMA in NYC. A Sundance Institute and Cinereach Film Fellow, Tan earned her MFA at NYU Graduate Film School, where she received the Tisch School of the Arts Fellowship.
 
“My next feature project, Higher, is in its early stages of development and receiving SFFILM’s New American Fellowship at this juncture is a huge confidence booster,” said Tan. “Reading Jack Kerouac’s novels growing up, San Francisco has always carried an attractive air of progressive freedom to me so I thoroughly look forward to exploring and learning more about the city. I often write better in new environments as the unfamiliarity creates an imaginary tension that feeds the writing. I know the residency will certainly provide a respite for me as I work towards a shooting version of Higher’s screenplay.”

Previous recipients of the New American Fellowship include Chinese filmmaker Siyi Chen, who won in 2019 in support of her documentary projects My Grandma’s a Dancer and People’s Hospital.

For more information, visit sffilm.org/makers.