Jan 18, 2024
The FilmHouse Residency is managed by SFFILM Makers, the artist development program at SFFILM and is made possible in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and additional funding from the San Francisco Film Commission and the San Francisco Foundation. The program supports both narrative and documentary projects (including features, shorts, and series) by providing 12-month residencies to local filmmakers actively engaged in various stages of production.
FilmHouse Residents receive a variety of benefits including special access to established industry professionals offering artistic guidance and support from their various areas of expertise as well as a robust guest speaker series featuring lectures and presentations by leading industry professionals; workshops led by prominent filmmakers and other members of the independent film industry; peer-to-peer support; work-in-progress screenings; bi-weekly production meetings; access to meaningful networking opportunities; and numerous other community-building programs.
The selection committee for the 2024 FilmHouse Residents were:
Masashi Niwano, Director of Artist Development, SFFILM
Joshua Moore, Artist Development Manager of Documentary, SFFILM
Rosa Morales, Artist Development Manager of Narrative, SFFILM
Erika Arnold, Artist Development Associate Manager, SFFILM
“FilmHouse is an ecosystem of creative people and exciting projects in motion, and this year’s eclectic group of residents all bring with them their own unique talents and perspectives,” said the 2023 Selection Committee.“There is an intentional balance of emerging filmmakers and more established filmmakers who have built a foundation from which to grow. These bold and exceptional storytellers also share a personal connection to the material they are working with and we couldn’t be more thrilled to offer them the support and guidance the FilmHouse residency provides.” FilmHouse Residents Selection Committee
Let’s meet the residents that will be taking their projects to the next stage at FilmHouse in 2024!
Meet the 2024 Residents
A.K. Sandhu
UNTITLED MOTHERHOOD Project—Feature Documentary
Who decides the when, why, and how a woman can have a family? Does she actually have a choice? Filmmaker A.K. Sandhu explores these questions from a social and personal perspective, following women who dare to choose while defying the patriarchy in a time when their reproductive rights are no longer guaranteed.
Adamu Chan
What These Walls Won’t Hold—Documentary Short
Filmmaker Adamu Chan, who was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, documents his path through incarceration and beyond.
Andrés Gallegos
The Shape of Light—Feature Documentary
In the world’s epicenter of technological innovation, San Francisco people struggle to preserve their neighborhood movie theaters and keep the theatrical experience alive in times of a global pandemic, shifting social behaviors, and an ascendant streaming industry. Will they be able to safeguard cinemas as we know them?
Annie Marr
Black Box—Feature Documentary
A woman finds out she is pregnant after a string of previous miscarriages. Fearful she will miscarry again, she cycles through questions of time, loss, and liminality. Navigating unexpected territory, BLACK BOX explores the tenuous and mysterious early weeks of pregnancy, where life and death coexist.
Betsy Tsai
A Land of Long Shadows—Feature Narrative
An aspiring journalist from working-class Belfast investigates the real epidemic suicide rate amongst her millennial peers when it hits close to home. She exposes how and why in 2010s Northern Ireland, violence still persists, but is turning inwards.
Caron Creighton
Wood Street—Feature Documentary
Wood Street is the last stop for unhoused “brothers,” John and LaMonté. They moved there eight years ago after police pushed them from other encampments around Oakland. After a two-alarm fire in July, their tight-knit community faces eviction. It’s their goal to stop it.
Colette Ghunim
Traces of Home—Feature Documentary
Filmmaker Colette Ghunim embarks on journeys with her parents to find the ancestral houses they were forced to flee as children in Mexico and Palestine. Colette’s initial desire to heal her disconnect from her cultures and her parents reveals an internal quest to discover home within herself.
Dominic Mercurio
Hypnophobia—Feature Narrative
When Zanye’s sleepwalking episodes start getting more and more concerning, his partner suggests hypnotherapy. Through his sessions, far more concerning truths begin to unravel that put his relationship and safety in jeopardy.
Elivia Shaw
The Invisible Valley—Feature Documentary
A journey into the heart of California’s Central Valley, The Invisible Valley is a kaleidoscopic portrait of survival in the face of constant environmental change through the eyes of the communities that feed us all.
Estevan Padilla
Pangea Ultima—Feature Narrative
Convinced that their parent’s separation is the root cause of their inability to foster relationships and mature, a delusional brother and sister brazenly kidnap their estranged parents in hopes of manipulating them through extreme measures in hopes of becoming the functional family they always wanted.
Florencia Manovil
Queerly Beloved—Feature Narrative
When a tightly-knit group of queer friends come together for an idyllic wedding in the redwoods, shifting dynamics, strained family bonds, and surprise revelations put long-standing relationships to the test.
Jessica Jones
Women Who Ride—Documentary Short
Tish Edwards is the founder of Oakland’s first black women’s motorcycle club D’Vious Wayz. Driven by the hum of the engine on the open road, she tries to balance caring for her disabled son and her own health challenges while determined to keep the sisterhood alive and ride again.
Kyle Chu
Go Back Home—Feature Narrative
In a rapidly-gentrifying San Francisco, a newly-widowed Chinese-American mother moves with her son to the only apartment she can afford, wherein a mysterious horror soon threatens their lives.
Linda Mai Green
Jane (working title)—Feature Narrative
In this Gothic thriller set in rural 1880s California, a vulnerable young Chinese American woman is taken in by a charismatic woman scientist whose worldview tantalizes but harbors dark truths.
Liz Roberts
Midwaste—Feature Documentary
Two friends from the midwest reunite after 25 years by using a VHS archive to connect the long thread of their past selves to who they are now. Midwaste is a vivid and personal exploration of drug use, healthcare, and the carceral system.
Masha Karpoukhina
In Between Worlds—Feature Documentary
It’s been almost a hundred years since McCloud Chinook salmon swam up the McCloud River. A keystone species, by whose health we measure the health of all others. In this film, we are swept into a beautiful, tumultuous journey with Caleen Sisk, the Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and her son Michael Preston, who are on the frontlines of a battle to restore ancestral salmon to the waters of California.
Meg Shutzer
Dirty Water—Feature Documentary
The discovery of dangerous chemicals in the ground water under an Oakland high school spurs an investigation that surprises everyone.
Octavian Kelly
Innocence Lost—Feature Narrative
At the funeral of his half-brother, a businessman confronts his family on past abuse perpetrated by the recently deceased when they were kids. Deep division ensues as everyone is left in the wake of what to do with the truth.
Osinachi Ibe
Karolina and Udochi Dance in the Woods at Dusk!—Feature Narrative
During their first summer apart, two childhood best friends discover they have fallen in love with each other and embark on a spiritual journey that changes them forever.
Rajan Gill
HARVEST PARTY AT CAMP TWO—Documentary Short
It was a summer of romance, race wars, and rock n’ roll. Unable to attend their local prom, HARVEST PARTY AT CAMP TWO recounts the story of the Punjabi farmworkers in 1980s California who throw the biggest party their small town has ever seen.
Steven Raven Liang
Godfrey’s Time Out (working title)—Feature Narrative
After incarceration, Godfrey reenters a world where time is both a friend and an assault.
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