Announcing the finalists for the Fall 2018 SFFILM Rainin Grants

Thirteen exciting fiction feature projects have been just been selected by the SFFILM Makers team as finalists for the Fall 2018 round of SFFILM Rainin Grants. The largest grant program of its kind in the US, the partnership between SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation is celebrating ten incredible years of supporting important independent filmmakers telling critical socially driven stories.

The winning projects, which will split $240,000 in this round, will be announced in about a month. In the meantime, get to know this talented group of finalists!

As always, find out more about the filmmaker services provided by SFFILM Makers at sffilm.org/makers.

FALL 2018 SFFILM RAININ GRANT FINALISTS

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18+
Ceylan Özgün Özçelik, writer/director/producer; Armagan Lale, producer — screenwriting
On the feast of the sacrifice, a family gathering of women turns into a tragicomic night of bloody vengeance.

all dirts roads taste of salt
Raven Jackson, writer/director; Maria Altamirano, producer — screenwriting
In lyrical, non-linear portraits evoking the texture of memories, all dirt roads taste of salt viscerally and experientially explores the life of a Black woman in the American South, from her youth to her older years.

California Mommy
Sen-I Yu, writer/director — screenwriting
Camellia travels from Taiwan, pregnant and alone, to the California Mommy maternity home in LA — a trip arranged by her wealthy husband’s family to deliver an American citizen. Overcome by her unfulfilling existence, Camellia runs away with her chauffeur on a life-altering journey through the American Southwest.

Cicada
Matthew Fifer, writer/co-director; Kieran Mulcare, co-director; Jeremy Truong and Ramfis Myrthil, producers — post-production
Some things are worth waiting 17 years for, others should have come out sooner.

Colewell
Tom Quinn, writer/director; Craig Shilowich, Alexandra Byer, and Matthew Thurm, producers — post-production
For 35 years, Nora Pancowski has been the postmaster of Colewell, Pennsylvania. She runs the office out of her home and has become the center of this community, which has no other common space. When Nora receives word that her office will be closed, she must decide whether to relocate and take a new job or face retirement in Colewell.

The Doubt
Ihab Jadallah, writer/director; Marisa Meier, producer — screenwriting
After 12 years in prison, Ibrahim, a Palestinian topographer, returns to his wife and his son whom he has never met. While the public celebrates him as a heroic symbol of resistance to injustice, his family is left with a broken man, driven by deep doubts and distrust. Only by confronting the trauma can Ibrahim gain a chance for a new life.

Freeland
Kate McLean and Mario Furloni, writer/directors; Laura Heberton, producer — post-production
Aging pot farmer Devi suddenly finds her world shattered as she races to bring in what could be her final harvest.

Initials S.G.
Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, writer/directors; Shruti Ganguly and Ivan Eibuszyc, producers — post-production
An aging, Argentine, Serge Gainsbourg wannabe struggles to deal with an acting career he can’t seem to get on track, an affair with an American woman he doesn’t want, and a crime he didn’t mean to commit.

Kike
Pedro Gonzales Khun, director; Rodrigo Ordoñez, writer; Vanessa Perez and Laura Irene Arvizu, producers — development
Enrique is deported to Mexico, a country he has never called home. As he struggles to integrate, survive, and force his way back to the US, he meets Rita, who provides shelter and protection that he has never had before, which makes him question where home really is.

Khsara / Pickled
Suha Araj, writer/director/producer; Nilou Safinya, producer — screenwriting
Dumped on her 30th birthday, Nisreen is thrown into a comedic tailspin, forced to choose between love and marriage and not having the luxury of both.

Lotería
Emily Esperanza, writer/director; Jeffrey Carl Mull, co-writer; Eugene Sun Park, producer — screenwriting
A lonely bathroom attendant at a seedy vaudevillian nightclub longs to become a famous singer and strikes a deal with the devil to make her dream a reality.

The Other Island
Joe Torres, writer/director/producer; Karin Valecillos and Marcel Rasquin, co-writers — screenwriting
Ethan Lundegaard floats lifeless on a beach in the Margarita Island, Venezuela. His mother leaves her native Minnesota looking for an answer. Benítez, a lawyer damaged by his failures, agrees to find out what happened. Every step towards Ethan’s past stirs Benítez’s present, and Benítez must grab his most primitive instincts and free the animal inside him to find the truth and redeem himself.

Sandy Song, The High Priestess of Souls
Pete Lee, writer/director — screenwriting
Sandy Song, a grumpy middle-aged grifter, becomes the sole defender of Oakland’s Chinatown in a battle against loan sharks, white saviors, and demons.

For more information on the artist development programs offered by SFFILM Makers, visit sffilm.org/makers.

Meet the finalists of the Fall 2018 SFFILM Westridge Grant

SFFILM and the Westridge Foundation have announced the finalists for the Fall 2018 SFFILM Westridge Grant, the newest filmmaker support program offered by SFFILM Makers which kicked off with its inaugural grants earlier this year. The winning projects from this group of finalists will be announced in late October.
 
The SFFILM Westridge program is designed specifically to support the screenwriting and development phases of narrative feature projects whose stories focus on the significant social issues and questions of our time. Providing support at these critical early stages 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 application period for the Spring 2019 round opens in late October, with a final deadline in mid-February (exact dates TBA). Find out more at sffilm.org/makers.

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. All grantees will spend one week in the Bay Area attending a programmed retreat geared towards honing their craft, strengthening their scripts, and making connections to other filmmakers and industry professionals.

SPRING 2018 SFFILM WESTRIDGE GRANT FINALISTS

Captain C!
John Paul Su, writer/director
Caleb Diaz is an eleven-year-old Filipino-American queer comic book fanboy who lives in a diverse working-class neighborhood in American suburbia. After saving his classmate from a group of bullies, he is wrongfully accused of stabbing that same classmate. With the impending threat of expulsion, he struggles to prove his innocence, and fulfill his dream of becoming his family’s ultimate superhero.
 
Duel
Kat Grilli, writer
Duel is a sharp comedy inspired by the life of Julie D’Aubigny, a bisexual gender-fluid opera singer who is widely considered to be the best duelist who has ever lived.
 
Invoking Juan Angel
Daniel Eduvijes Carrera, writer/director
Mexican immigrant Magdalena Cruz is hired as the live-in caretaker for Ian, a severely ill child whose forced isolation has created budding psychic abilities and a fascination for the paranormal. But unbeknownst to Ian’s overprotective father, the distressed Magdalena has a child of her own hidden in the basement bedroom. After the two boys share an unexpected encounter, Ian is convinced the mysterious child must be a ghost and seeks to unravel his tragic story.
 
Katelyn Vs.
Carlyn Hudson, writer/director
Inspired by true events, Katelyn Vs. is the story of an overachieving high school senior who speaks out against abstinence-only sex education, awakening a backlash in the community that forces her to file a lawsuit against her ultra-religious principal.
 
Off Peak
Julia Solomonoff, writer/director; Christina Lazaridi, co-writer; Jaime Mateus-Tique, producer
Sophie surprises everyone around her by selling her company and ending her career as a high-end landscape architect. Eager to explore her new-found freedom, she stumbles upon a peculiar habit: taking trains up the Hudson River. That’s how she meets Franka, a Puerto Rican schoolteacher fighting to hold on to her home in the midst of gentrification in the area. These women of vastly different backgrounds meet at a moment of mutual crisis, changing each other’s futures.
 
One Day in ‘98
J. Faye Yuan, writer/director, Travis Davis, producer
One Day in ’98 is a 90s coming-of-age drama set in the rural Midwest, charting a Chinese-American girl’s journey through fifth grade. Angela’s lonely life takes an unexpected turn when she befriends Cody, a tomboyish free spirit. The two become fast friends and fierce allies until one day a platonic kiss lands them in the spotlight, setting in motion an irreversible betrayal that changes the courses of their lives.
 
Placas
Paul S. Flores, writer; Tashana Landray, producer
Sixteen-year-old Edgar wants nothing to do with his father, former gang member Fausto (known as “Placas” for his many tattoos). Placas wants what every father wants: to provide a better life for his son. As Placas strives to put his past behind him, going through tattoo removal and therapy, Edgar is recruited by a rival gang. As Placas’ past and Edgar’s future collide, they both face choices that will change the course of their lives.
 
Qimmit
Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, writer/director; Cara Marcous, producer
Inspired by true events, Qimmit tells the story of Suvlu, an Iñupiaq hunter who is forced to make a monstrous decision for the survival of his family. 
 
Righteous Acts
Alicia D. Ortega, writer
Homeschooled teenager Judith thinks she’s finally found her people when she joins the cast of a megachurch “hell house,” where evangelical teens aim to scare people into salvation. But when she doesn’t land the coveted role of the Abortion Girl, she convinces herself she’s the only player doing God’s work and that it’s her holy duty to expose the true wages of sin.
 
Silhouette
Amman Abbasi, writer/director
Pakistani immigrant Raju is chasing his dreams of success, trying to work his way up the ladder of an unsavory pyramid scheme and pursuing mixed martial arts matches for which he is woefully under-prepared. But when someone who bears a striking resemblance to him commits a local terrorist act, Raju becomes increasingly isolated and identifies with the perpetrator in progressively unsettling ways.
 
Youth
Brett Marty, writer/director; Jib Polhemus, producer; Josh Izenberg and Amelia Whitcomb, co-writers
An older couple’s marriage starts to fray when they decide to spend their life savings on a procedure to rejuvenate their minds and bodies, only to face the dark truth of what it takes to become young again.

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

Meet the winners of SFFILM’s Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowships

SFFILM and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have selected the recipients of the 2018 Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowships! Supporting the development of narrative feature screenplays that explore scientific or technological themes and characters, Sloan Fellowships are awarded once a year. Writer/directors So Young Shelly Yo (The 11th Endeavor) and Erica Liu (The Mushroomers) will each receive a $35,000 cash grant and a two-month residency at SFFILM’s FilmHouse residency space.

Fellows will gain free office space alongside access to weekly consulting services and professional development opportunities. SFFILM will connect each fellow to a science advisor with expertise in the scientific or technological subjects at the center of their screenplays, as well as leaders in the Bay Area’s science and technology communities. In addition to the residency and grant, SFFILM’s artist development team will facilitate industry introductions to producers and casting, financing, and creative advisors — investing in fellows from early script development stages through to release with the goal to further professional development and career sustainability.

Previous recipients of the Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowship include Michael Almereyda, to develop his screenplay about Nikola Tesla; Darcy Brislin and Dyana Winkler, to illuminate the lesser-known aspects of the life of Alexander Graham Bell; and Mark Eaton and Ron Najor, who are exploring the darkest corners of the dark web. These newest fellows are in good company!

The 11th Endeavor
So Young Shelly Yo, writer/director; Mark Castillo, producer
A fiery female biotechnologist, hoping to break ground outside the realms of her lab, competes to be Korea’s first astronaut on the nationwide televised Korean Astronaut Program. In her obsessive quest to become Korea’s first astronaut, So Yeon steps into a world of unmeasurable physical and mental stress and discovers shocking revelations about her country. Based on the true story of Yi So Yeon, South Korea’s first astronaut.

So Young Shelly Yo is a Korean American filmmaker currently based in Los Angeles. She is a recent graduate of the MFA film program at Columba University, where her thesis film Moonwalk with Me was awarded faculty honors. Her short films have screened and received accolades at film festivals around the world including the Mecal Barcelona International Short Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, and New Filmmakers LA, among others. Prior to schooling, Shelly worked as a video editor for a tech company known as ZEFR and as an assistant in the freelance commercial film industry.

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The Mushroomers
Erica Liu, writer/director; David Yu-Hao Su, producer
Following her husband’s death, a young mycologist attempts to sublimate her grief by embarking on an offbeat project to heal a contaminated old-growth forest using only super fungi, but Mother Nature and the mechanics of her own mourning prove far fickler than she had anticipated.

Erica Liu is a Taiwanese-American writer/director based in Los Angeles. She participated in the AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop for Women in 2015. Her films have screened at Clermont-Ferrand, AFI Fest, and Palm Springs International Shortfest, among others. Springtime aired on public television nationwide via KQED and affiliate stations. The Disappointment Tour received a Will & Jada Smith Family Foundation grant. Erica earned her MFA from NYU Tisch Asia and previously spent five years working and shooting throughout Asia, collaborating with companies including BBC, Google, and China Film Group. Erica is currently incubating her first feature, The Mushroomers.

For more information about the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship and other SFFILM Makers artist development programs, visit sffilm.org/makers.

Meet the finalists for the 2018 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund Grants

SFFILM has selected a dozen compelling projects to be in the running for this year’s Documentary Film Fund grants, which support feature-length docs in the post-production phase. For the 2018 cycle, a total of $125,000 will be distributed to the winning projects, which will be announced in late August.

Find out more about this and other filmmaking grant opportunities at sffilm.org/makers.

The Doc Film Fund has helped a growing range of important films finish their edits in recent years, including RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which won a Special Jury Prize for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival; Peter Nicks’s The Force, which won the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary and SFFILM Festival’s Bay Area Documentary Award, and was released theatrically last fall by Kino Lorber ahead of its broadcast on ITVS; Peter Bratt’s Dolores, which won the 2017 SFFILM Festival Audience Award for Documentary Feature following its Sundance premiere; and Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature; among many others.

Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has distributed $650,000 to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide. The 2018 Documentary Film Fund is supported by the Jenerosity Foundation.

2018 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND FINALISTS

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Anbessa
Mo Scarpelli, director; Caitlin Mae Burke, producer; Nico Leunen, editor
A brand-new condominium has shot up in the Ethiopian countryside, pushing farmers off their land for the construction and promising thousands of others a “better” way of life. Anbessa follows one boy caught between the two, as he navigates modernization on his own terms and comes of age in a brave new world.

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Chéche Lavi
Sam Ellison, director; Abraham Ávila, Rachel Cantave, Kyle Martin, Nora Mendis, and Kimberly Parker, producers
Geopolitical chaos challenges the bonds of brotherhood when two Haitian refugees get stranded at the US-Mexico border. With no one to depend on but each other, difficult choices lead them towards drastically different futures.

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Fanwei
Jessica Kingdon, director; Kira Simon-Kennedy and Nathan Truesdell, producers
Fanwei examines megatrends of today’s China through an impressionistic collage of the new “Chinese Dream.” This observational film reveals paradoxes born from prosperity of the newest world power through the flow of production, consumption, and waste.

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Fourty Pounds
Nick Bentgen, director; Lisa Kjerulff, producer; Eavvon O’Neal and Dustin Waldman, editors
Tarone “Fourty Pounds” Lindsay spends hours illegally dancing on the New York subways, earning pocket money, dodging the cops and chilling with his crew. When new love blooms, Fourty must decide what to do with his life and how to be the man he wants to be.

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Freedom Fields
Naziha Arebi, director; Flore Cosquer and Naziha Arebi, producers; Ling Lee, Alice Powell, Maya Hawke, editors
In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realize their dream? And is there even a country left to play for?

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The Gut (working title)
Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, director/producer; Jim Sabataso and Asma Bseiso, producers; Jen Bradwell and Youssif Salah, editors
Filmed over two years in a small New England community that is struggling to emerge from the opioid epidemic and finds itself caught up in a battle over Syrian refugee resettlement, The Gut closely follows the lives of several intersecting but very different characters to explore what changes — and what doesn’t — when white, rural Americans see themselves in “the other.”

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Hispaniola
Michèle Stephenson, director/producer; Jennifer Holness, Lea Marin and Joe Brewster, producers; Andres Landau, editor
Combining magical realism and verité, Hispaniola follows the lives of families affected by the 2013 Dominican Republic Supreme Court ruling that stripped citizenship from Dominicans of Haitian descent, and reflects on how imposed borders, citizenship, and racial identity define us and seal our fates.

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Honeyland
Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska, co-directors; Atanas Georgiev, producer/editor
The last female bee hunter in Europe struggles to save the bees and restore the natural balance when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood. Honeyland is an exploration of an observational Indigenous visual narrative that deeply impacts our behavior towards natural resources and the human condition.

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In Real Life
Liza Mandelup, director; Lauren Cioffi and Bert Hamelinck, producers; Alex O’Flinn, editor
This intimate contemplation on modern youth follows 16-year-old Austyn Tester as he flirts with the world of social media fame. Driven by a wide-eyed desire for stardom, Austyn cultivates a singularly positive online persona that’s at odds with growing up in small-town Tennessee.

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Midnight Traveler
Hassan Fazili, director; Su Kim, producer; Emelie Mahdavian, producer/editor
Midnight Traveler follows a family of Afghan filmmakers on the run from the Taliban. Told from refugee/director Hassan Fazili’s unique first-person perspective, this story provides unprecedented access to the complex refugee experience as it encounters the West.

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No Kings
Emilia Mello, director/producer/cinematographer; Raoul Nadalet, producer; Adam Kurnitz, Henrique Cartaxo, Marie-Hélène Dozo, and Pierpaolo Filomeno, editors
In a place where conventional structures of authority fall away, a tomboy navigates the space between urban and traditional life.

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Watermelon Thump Queen
Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman, co-directors/producers; Mark Lukenbill, editor
In the “toughest town in Texas,” a high-stakes election plays out as seven high school girls compete to become the next Watermelon Thump Queen.

Announcing the finalists for the Spring 2018 SFFILM Rainin Filmmaking Grants

Fifteen exciting narrative feature projects have been just been selected by the SFFILM Makers team as finalists for the Spring 2018 round of SFFILM Rainin Filmmaking Grants. The largest grant program of its kind in the US, the partnership between SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation is celebrating ten incredible years of supporting important independent filmmakers telling critical socially driven stories.

The winning projects, which will split $250,000 in this round, will be announced in about a month. In the meantime, get to know this talented group of finalists!

As always, find out more about the filmmakers services provided by SFFILM Makers at sffilm.org/makers.

SPRING 2018 SFFILM RAININ FILMMAKING GRANT FINALISTS

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Cops and Robbers
Jinho “Piper” Ferreira, writer (screenwriting)
John “Jay” Punch is a social justice artist from Oakland, California. Frustrated with the lack of impact of his artistic efforts, and haunted by the police killing of Oscar Grant, he decides to pay his own way through the police academy in an attempt to create change from the inside.

50 Miles from Boomtown
Flo Linus Baumann, writer (screenwriting)
After six years of grueling work, the only woman working on the oilfields of North Dakota is months away from the dream she’s been saving for: trading in her truck for a new house with her daughter. But when the economy dwindles, and she finds herself falling in love with her younger partner on the oilfields, she begins to question which dream she should be chasing after all.

Huntress
Suzanne Andrews Correa, writer/director (screenwriting)
In Ciudad Juarez, a city where violence against women goes unnoticed and unpunished, an unlikely heroine emerges to seek justice.

I’m No Longer Here
Fernando Frias, writer/director; Gerry Kim, Gerardo Gatica, and Alberto Muffelmann, producers (post-production)
To prevent a life working for the drug cartels, a teenage Mexican boy is forced to migrate to New York City at the pleas of his family. But when he lands in Jackson Heights, Queens, he quickly realizes that he would rather return home to his family and friends than confront the alienation and loneliness that he faces in America.

Jimmy Salvador
Kirill Mikhanovsky, director; Alice Austen, writer/producer (screenwriting)
Jimmy Salvador depicts 36 hours in the life of a 14-year-old Mexican American sprinter who has to be faster than ever to save his undocumented mother from being deported.

Kayla & Eddie en Français
Iyabo Boyd, writer (screenwriting)
Eddie Williams is 20 years sober but has neglected to rebuild the tenuous relationship with his daughter Kayla, a film producer who’s heading to Paris to pitch an important funder. Hoping to reconnect, Eddie crashes Kayla’s trip, unearthing their long-standing tension around his addiction and emotional distance.

Leche
Gabriella Moses, writer/director; Julius Pryor, Marttise Hill, and Shruti Ganguly, producers (development)
When a reserved Dominican American girl with albinism believes she can perform miracles after she seemingly resurrects an illegally hunted albino deer, rumors spread to the popular clique at school, and she must choose to combat their cruelty with either revenge or peace.

Mafak
Bassam Jarbawi, writer/director; Shrihari Sathe and Yasmine Qaddumi, producers (post-production)
Driven to psychosis by the torture he underwent in an Israeli prison, an ex-basketball champ struggles to re-assimilate into Palestinian society. As the line between reality and hallucination blurs, he cannot help but drive himself back to the same event that started it all.

Omniboat
The Borscht Corporation (post-production)
Omniboat is an anthology feature film comprised of nine different interconnected stories about a speedboat in Miami. It’s not just a boat ride, it’s a Miami adventure.

Santosh
Sandhya Suri, writer/director (screenwriting)
In the corrupt hinterlands of Northern India, a newly widowed young woman inherits her husband’s job as a police constable. When a young girl’s body is found, she is forced to confront the brutality around her and the violence within.

Sealskin Woman
Tani Ikeda, director/co-writer; A-lan Holt, co-writer (screenwriting)
A young girl goes to live with her grandparents in Japan after her mother dies. When she discovers that the people who are supposed to protect her can’t, she must rely on her own magic to save herself.

Shit & Champagne
D’Arcy Drollinger, writer/director, Michelle Moretta, producer (screenwriting)
Shit & Champagne is a high-octane, high-camp, slapstick send-up of the iconic exploitation films of the 1970s. The film is a tribute to female empowerment flavored with borscht belt comedy, with an original funk score, fabulous vintage inspired fashion, and cross-gender casting.

Strange Fruit
Elizabeth Oyebode, writer (screenwriting)
In the 19th century South, a pugnacious Black journalist embarks on a life-threatening investigation that will upend her beliefs about all the Black men whose lives she and the rest of America thought did not matter.

Sutro Forest
Travis Matthews, writer/director; Mollye Asher, producer (screenwriting)
A young homeless woman prepares to leave San Francisco for a new opportunity, but when she finds her brother dead in Sutro Forest, she loses herself on a mysterious journey that may lead to his killer.

Todos los Cuerpos
Jennifer Reeder, director; Laura Heberton, writer/producer
In a not-too-distant dystopian future, in the wake of a climate-change-related disaster, two nearly wild mixed-race girls with special powers named Z and Bub fight to survive in the desert ruins of the former US/Mexico border wall.