Adams’s Apple
Amy Jenkins, director/producer

Adam’s Apple is an intimate exploration of what characterizes “maleness” for today’s gender-redefining youth, filmed from the perspectives of director Amy Jenkins and her teenage transgender son, Adam, each with a camera in hand. Vérité and artistic imagery chronicle the evolution of Adam’s identity beginning at toddlerhood, unveiling the ever-shifting family dynamic as Adam charts his path toward manhood.

Against the Tide
Sarvnik Kaur, director/producer; Koval Bhatia, producer

A tale of love, brotherhood and resentments against the backdrop of an adoring sea, which is turning adverse under the menacing effects of an all-pervading calamity called climate change.

Between the Rains
Andrew Harrison Brown, director/cinematographer, editor; Moses Thuranira, Samuel Ekomol, Ngaihike Napuu, producers

As a prolonged drought intensifies the conflict between two pastoral tribes over grazing lands in Kenya’s northern rangelands, an orphaned shepherd boy searches for a path forward while his village questions why the world around them is eroding.

Black Mothers
Débora Souza Silva, director/producer; David Felix Sutcliffe, producer

Violence. Outrage. Impunity. Repeat. Black Mothers follows the journey of two African-American women battling to break America’s cycle of racist police violence. As one mother investigates the cover-up of her son’s attack by Alabama police, the other channels her grief into organizing mothers across the country as they fight for justice.

Driver
Nesa Azimi, director/producer; Ines Hofmann Kanna, producer

Driver follows three years in the life of long-haul truck driver Desiree Wood. Taking on an industry where multi-billion dollar megacarriers conspire to make individual drivers anonymous and disposable, Desiree brings together an unlikely group of women to find strength, solidarity, and self-determination on the road — all while she fights to sustain herself as a long-haul truck driver.

Hakuchu Munayta
Augusto Zegarra, director; Claudia Chavez, Paloma Iturriaga, producers

A young indigenous man is trying to save a language from extinction. Fernando is an independent voice artist from Cusco, Peru who dreams of dubbing the animated classic The Lion King to Quechua, the language of the Incas. This epic endeavor of contacting Disney will make him re-examine his own identity, his role as a father, and test his commitment to his native language and culture.

Home Is Somewhere Else
Carlos Hagerman, co-director/producer; Jorge Villalobos, co-director; Carolina Coppel, Albie Hecht, Andrew Houchens, Susan MacLaury, Martha Sosa, executive producers

Accessing the American Dream is still not possible for all, much less those who come from immigrant backgrounds. For undocumented youth, their hopes for the future coexist with permanent fear of possible deportation. A fully animated 2D feature documentary, Home Is Somewhere Else is a window inside the hearts and minds of young Dreamers and the undocumented, amplifying and giving intimate voice to a growing community, still widely unrepresented and underserved.

Hummingbirds
Silvia Castaños, Estefanía Contreras, Diane Ng, co-directors; Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Ana Rodriguez-Falco, Jillian Schlesinger, producers/co-directors, Leslie Benavides, producer

In this collaborative coming-of-age film, best friends Silvia and Beba escape the cruel heat of summer in their Texas border town, wandering empty streets at night in search of inspiration, adventure, and a sense of belonging. When forces threaten their shared dreams, they take a stand and hold onto what they can — the moment and each other.

Jose and Derek
Keira Sultan, director; Arielle Knight, producer

An exploration of community, memory, and image making, Jose and Derek interweaves 25 years of footage to tell the intergenerational story of a Philadelphia boxing gym and the mother-daughter pair behind the camera. Through the process of revisiting her mother’s unfinished film, director Keira Sultan is confronted with questions around image-making and authorship that alter the course of the film and catalyze reflections around her role as a director and outsider.

Mija
Isabel Castro, director/producer; Tabs Breese, Yesenia Tlahuel, producers

Doris Muñoz is an ambitious music manager whose undocumented family depends on her ability to discover aspiring pop stars. At just 26, she has already launched multiple Chicanx musicians, carving out space for her culture within a turbulent industry. Mija dives into the world of a young woman hustling harder than anyone else, because for Doris and her family, “making it” isn’t just a dream — it’s a necessity.

Time Bomb Y2K
Brian Becker, co-director/producer; Marley McDonald, co-director/editor; Penny Lane, Gabriel Sedgwick, producers

As the clock counts down to the dawn of the new millennium, the world mobilizes to face the largest technological disaster to ever threaten humanity. Told entirely through archival footage, Time Bomb Y2K decodes the truths and myths of the Millennium Bug in an electrifying race against time and technology.

Untitled
Sura Mallouh, director/producer; Laura Poitras, Yoni Golijov, producers

Two friends uncover a conflict that divides their already embattled community. Told from all sides, with unprecedented access to courtrooms, anonymous sources and community leaders, this observational film unfolds in real-time.

Weed Dreams
Mathew Ramirez Warren, director/producer; Barni Axmed Qaasim, producer

Black-owned businesses in Oakland, California try to break into the predominantly white legal Cannabis industry, through the nation’s first ever Cannabis Equity Program.

Charlotte Gutierrez

John Juan — Narrative Feature
At 15, brainiac John Lopez is harassed by students and teachers for being ‘too Mexican’ at his old private school, and too ‘white’ in his Latino community at his new public high school. When he meets Sandra, a militant Chicana activist, he struggles to impress her. Frustrated by the expectations and assumptions from family, friends, and community while challenging racism in the wider world, John becomes Juan, super Latino.

Christopher Cole

Rolling Stone — Narrative Feature
Doug is a disaffected music journalist with 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.

Ellie Wen

On the Line (working title) — Documentary Short
Every night, the teenage volunteers at Teen Line respond to calls, texts, and emails from their anonymous peers who are struggling with abuse, depression, bullying, gender identity, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and other issues. By closely following two volunteers, we discover how the work connects to their personal lives and what it means to share the trauma of strangers.

Jonathan Kiefer

So Fast They Follow — Narrative Feature
In a fictive Central California town, at a regional Shakespeare-festival production of “Hamlet,” two leading ladies playing Gertrude and Ophelia grapple with ageism, sexism, mortality, queerphobia, and creative gratification, taking hard-won solace from the surprising bond that’s grown between them.

Lucas Guilkey & JoeBill Muñoz

Untitled Prison Hunger Strike Film — Documentary Feature

In 2013, Michael, Jack, and Paul had each been trapped in solitary confinement cells for decades in Pelican Bay State Prison. They had never met or spoken a word to one another, but they all arrived at the same decision: a hunger strike. This is the story of how 30,000 people pulled off the extraordinary feat of abolishing the practice of indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons.

Luke Lorentzen

Southern Ice (working title) — Documentary Feature
Cape Town has a water shortage that marine engineer Nick Sloane believes he can solve. With a team of oceanographers, Nick plans to tow a 125 million ton iceberg from Antarctica to Cape Town’s harbor. Once moored, this block of ice will provide 20% of the city’s annual potable water needs. Extending the limits of observational cinema with immersive camerawork, we will follow Nick as he takes on one of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Marjolaine Grappe

The Only Game in Town — Documentary Feature

Morgan Mathews

Black Butterflies — Documentary Feature
Black Butterflies is an experimental documentary centered around the subculture of durags and its connections to Black culture, self-care, and preservation. Aesthetically cosmic and poetic in tone, it is an affirmation of identity, beauty, and confidence.

Natalie Baszile

Good People — Narrative Feature
Babs Holloway and Nora Lachman can talk about anything: their long-time marriages, sex, even race. Babs is African-American, Nora is white, and their children, having grown up together in one of SF’s wealthiest neighborhoods, also are best friends. But when a neighbor calls the police on their kids, Babs and Nora struggle to preserve their friendship as they discover they’ve made very different assumptions about race, class and the limits of their privilege.

Patricia Lee

Hannah’s Biography — Narrative Short
Hannah, an elderly, first-generation immigrant, finds her life reset after divorce at age seventy-five. With her newfound freedom she decides to take a personal risk and try stand-up comedy.

Reaa Puri

K For Kashmir — Documentary Feature
Filmmaker Reaa Puri travels to her homeland of Kashmir to reconnect with her 90-year-old great grandmother. What she finds sparks a quest for answers about this contested land and her place in it.

Sephora Woldu

Aliens in Eritrea — Narrative Feature
Everyone is an alien in the newly independent nation of Eritrea — the diaspora moving back home, the citizens who never left, and the visitors from outer space.

Theo Schear & Ruth Gebreyesus

Hard To Swallow — Documentary TV Series
Hard to Swallow follows Nigerian immigrant, chef, and writer Tunde Wey as he explores the social and political implications of the production and consumption of food across the globe.

Tsanavi Spoonhunter

Holder of the Sky — Documentary Feature
Holder of the Sky is a documentary film that tells the story of one tribe’s pursuit to take back their treaty territory in the face of longstanding racism and a lingering lust for their land — a story of colonization’s continuum in modern-day America.

Yvan Iturriaga

Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? — Documentary Feature
Xavier Dphrepaulezz is a 51-year-old survivor living his “third rebirth” as Fantastic Negrito, a two-time Grammy-winning bluesman making an album about the mental health crisis devastating his family and community in Oakland, CA. Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? follows his creative process, unraveling his personal journey and that of his loved ones as he searches for truth, reconciliation, and ultimately, healing.

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