Oct 25, 2016
Artist Development
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) and Kenneth Rainin Foundation (KRF) have selected 14 finalists for the latest round of SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants; more than $250,000 will be awarded to one or more narrative feature film projects at various stages of production. SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are awarded twice annually to narrative feature films that will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. More than $3.5 million has been awarded since the launch of the Film Society’s flagship grant program in 2009. Winners of the fall 2016 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants will be announced in November.
The San Francisco Film Society, in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the United States. The SFFS / KRF program has funded more than 50 projects since its inception, including Ian Olds’ The Fixer, starring Dominic Rains, James Franco and Melissa Leo, which had its world premiere in April; Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea, which premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and has created buzz all over the international festival circuit; Chloé Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which screened at Sundance and Cannes and will be released in theaters this spring; Short Term 12, Destin Cretton’s sophomore feature which won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013; Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station, which won the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, the Un Certain Regard Avenir Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category at Sundance 2013; and Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin’s debut phenomenon which won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Cannes’ Camera d’Or in 2012 and earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture).
SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are made possible by the vision and generosity of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. In addition to being awarded funds from the country’s leading granting organization, recipients receive various benefits through Filmmaker360, the San Francisco Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services program. These benefits, customized to every individual production, can include one-on-one project consultations and project feedback, additional fundraising assistance, resource and service recommendations, and networking opportunities, among many others. For more information visit sffs.org/Filmmaker360.
FALL 2016 SFFS / KRF FILMMAKING GRANT FINALISTS
Buoyancy
Rodd Rathjen, writer/director – screenwriting
Chakra, a Cambodian teenager, leaves his family to seek a better life in Thailand, but is soon sold onto a Thai fishing trawler and enslaved at sea indefinitely, working 22 hours a day with little food. Chakra gradually realizes his only hope of freedom is to become as violent as his captors.
Chickenshit
Jess de la Merced, writer/director; Jon Coplon, producer – packaging
With the help of a ragtag group of boys, 11-year-old Phoenix sets out on a dangerous mission to save her Detroit neighborhood from arsonists and to prove herself to her father.
Collisions
Richard Levien, writer/director; Frazer Bradshaw and Vincent Cortez, producers – postproduction
Twelve-year-old Itan’s promising life in San Francisco is turned upside down when she comes home from school with her six-year-old brother to find her apartment ransacked and her mother missing. Suddenly she must rely on her estranged uncle, a big rig truck driver, to drive them across the country, find Itan’s mother, and stop her deportation.
Cowboys
Anna Kerrigan, writer/director; Anil Baral, producer – packaging
A family in western Montana is torn apart when a complicated but well-intentioned father tries to help his trans son but is accused of kidnapping.
En El Septimo Dia
Jim McKay, writer/director – postproduction
En el Septimo Dia is a film about a group of undocumented immigrants from Puebla, Mexico who live in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Bicycle delivery guys, construction workers, dishwashers, deli workers, and cotton candy vendors, they work long hours six days a week and then savor their day of rest on Sundays on the soccer fields.
Glass
Lily Baldwin, writer/director; Ariana Garfinkel, producer – packaging
A driven contemporary dancer turns internet sensation after a important critic recognizes her raw talent. When her life is invaded and electronically exposed by an insidious stalker, she mines a power she didn’t know she had.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Joe Talbot, writer/director; Carlton Evans and Khaliah Neal, producers – packaging
Jimmie Fails dreams of buying back the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Now living in the city’s last, dwindling Black neighborhood with his oddball best friend Prentice, he must search for belonging in the rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
Lucky Star
Matthew Riutta, writer/director – screenwriting
In the 1980s, a Madonna-obsessed gay teenager enters a singing contest to escape from his small Indiana town. He enlists help from a retired opera diva on his paper route.
1991
Yared Zeleke, writer/director – screenwriting
Running away from arms traffickers, a group of girls get lost deep in the southern Ethiopian wilderness until they encounter an unknown tribe. When riches are accidentally found in the remote region, the girls must choose between fulfilling their dreams or rescuing the tribe that once saved them.
The Seahorse
Devon Kirkpatrick, writer/director; Steven Berger and Kim Parker, producers – packaging
“Life after death” takes on a whole new meaning for a gender-fluid widow following the loss of her wife.
Selene
Maris Curran, writer/director – screenwriting
Selene fears she has laryngitis again. On a routine doctor visit to get antibiotics, she is diagnosed with a rare condition that leaves her permanently voiceless. As her world turns upside down and she struggles to communicate and adapt, she discovers that this new limitation leads to the opening of a new world.
Those That Leave
David Casey, writer/director – screenwriting
In the dark of winter, an outsider travels to a small Greenlandic town in search of ancient treasure. There, he becomes entangled in a perilous struggle with the Arctic and the people of the village, determined to protect their way of life from the transgressions of the outside world.
Togetherish
Nikole Beckwith, writer/director; Anthony Brandonisio, producer – production
When a young loner is hired as the gestational surrogate for a single middle-aged man, the two navigate their sudden awkward intimacy the best they can. Most of the time.
Walking Out
Andrew Smith and Alex Smith, co-writer/directors; Brunson Green and Laura Ivey, producers – postproduction
A teenage urbanite travels to rural Montana to go hunting with his estranged “off-the-grid” father. As they ascend into the wilderness, father and son struggle to connect on any level. When an unexpected encounter with a grizzly bear leaves them both with serious injuries, the boy must carry his father to safety if they are to survive.
Kenneth Rainin Foundation Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing quality of life by championing and sustaining the arts, promoting early childhood literacy and supporting research to cure chronic disease. Collaboration and innovation are at the heart of all its programs. Its vision is guided by the belief that change is possible through inquiry, creativity and compassion. Its successful partnership with the San Francisco Film Society supports visionary filmmakers to create narrative films that inspire social justice. More at krfoundation.org.