Meet the Fall 2019 SFFILM Rainin Grant finalists

As another season of filmmaker grant applications comes to a close, SFFILM and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation have announced the finalists for the Fall 2019 SFFILM Rainin Grant, the flagship artist development program offered by SFFILM Makers. Ten filmmaking teams have been shortlisted as contenders to receive funding for their narrative projects in various stages of 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, and benefit the Bay Area filmmaking community in a professional and economic capacity.

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 2-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 Spring 2020 grant cycle will open for new applications in November; learn more at sffilm.org/makers.

FALL 2019 SFFILM RAININ GRANT FINALISTS

The Brooklyn Bruisers Head Down South
Bam Johnson, writer/director — screenwriting
A Negro League baseball team ventures down south for an exhibition game. Seeking refuge after being run out of the stadium, they find themselves trapped in a small town where the dead have begun to rise.

Could I be dead and not know it?
Ilinca Calugareanu, writer/director; Mara Adina, producer — screenwriting 
A police raid in the dead of the night and two weeks in a detention center end with Relu being deported back to his home country, where he discovers he has long been declared dead by his estranged wife. Relu abandoned everyone 20 years ago, ran away to a new land and never looked back, but now he is forced to face the consequences of his actions.

The Goddesses of Nanking
Carol Liu, writer/director/producer — screenwriting 
Two women crusade to bring to light the Japanese wartime atrocities committed at the Rape of Nanking, but their heroic efforts come at a great personal cost.

Miss Juneteenth 
Channing Godfrey Peoples, writer/director; Neil Creque Williams, Jeanie Igoe, James M. Johnston, Toby Halbrooks, Theresa Page, Tim Headington, producers — post-production
A former beauty queen turned hardworking single mom prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she did.

Nessa
Lishan AZ, writer/director — screenwriting
After her sister’s sudden suicide, a misfit artist confronts her family’s secrecy surrounding mental illness as she searches for answers in the messages her sister left behind.

Noche de Fuego 
Tatiana Huezo, writer/director — post-production
Noche de Fuego depicts life in a town at war as seen through the eyes of three young girls on the path to adolescence.

One Hand Clapping
Shelly Grizim, writer/director; Deniz Buga, producer — screenwriting 
Two women are trapped in an obsessive relationship and only through acts of hopeless revenge is their great love revealed. In this temporal loop of conflicted hearts, an Israeli woman, a Palestinian woman, and a young child form an impossible family.

1791
Stefani Saintonge, writer/co-director/producer; Sébastien Denis, co-director/producer — screenwriting 
It’s August 1791 in the French colony Sainte-Domingue when a massive slave revolt erupts sparking the Haitian Revolution.

Stampede
Sontenish Myers, writer/director — screenwriting 
Set on a southern plantation in the 1800s, a young slave girl named Lena develops telekinetic powers she cannot yet control. Circumstances escalate when she is separated from her mother to be a house girl, in close quarters with the mercurial Master’s wife, Elizabeth.

Washing Elena
Maria Victoria Ponce, writer; Vanessa Perez, producer — development
Set in Richmond, California, Washing Elena follows 31-year-old Indalia as she attempts to solve the mystery surrounding her best’s friend’s sudden death. To find answers, Indalia must confront the realities of her friend’s surprising conversion to Islam, leading her to challenge her own biases and lingering guilt.