Jan 14, 2016
Artist Development
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Film Society has announced the latest recipients of SFFS Producer Fellowships, which are designed to highlight the producer’s craft by providing tangible assistance to emerging filmmaking talent. Now in its second round, the SFFS Producer Fellowship program invests in the future of independent film by supporting creative producers currently working on narrative feature projects through a combination of financial support, mentorship, industry connections and access to a growing network of fellow filmmakers. Producers Reena Dutt, Kyle Martin and Kim Parker have been awarded SFFS / KRF Producer Fellowships—generously supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation—and Paris-based producer Jean Denis Le Dinahet has been awarded the SFFS International Producer Fellowship.
“We had a fantastic experience with the inaugural SFFS Producer Fellowships during the program’s pilot last year, and we’re absolutely thrilled to continue fulfilling the real, practical needs of the independent community’s most creative producers and addressing their unique challenges,” said Michele Turnure-Salleo, director of Filmmaker360. “We’re confident that bringing this talented group closer to the Bay Area filmmaking community to develop their next projects will have a positive impact on the films that dominate the conversation in 2017. We kick things off on a particularly exciting note next week with our group’s trip to Sundance, and we’re looking forward to having these amazing folks as part of the Film Society family there.”
This round of SFFS Producer Fellowships runs from January to June 2016, during which each recipient receives:
• A $25,000–$40,000 cash grant, which must be used for living expenses. Individual amounts depend on place of residence and estimated travel costs to participate in Bay Area fellowship components.
• Placement in FilmHouse Residency program and access to all FilmHouse programs and activities.
• One-on-one consultation with film industry experts from the Bay Area and beyond regarding casting,
financing, budgeting, legal issues, distribution and other relevant topics.
• Presentations and networking opportunities with Bay Area narrative filmmakers.
• Expenses covered for one 3-day networking trip with a Filmmaker360 staff member from San Francisco to Los Angeles, for meetings with established industry professionals.
• Expenses covered for one 5-day networking trip with Filmmaker360 staff to Sundance Film Festival, for meetings with established industry professionals.
SFFS / KRF PRODUCER FELLOWS
Reena Dutt
Reena Dutt is a past Producing Fellow with Film Independent’s Project Involve. She is currently in packaging for The Yogi Trademark—a female-driven indie comedy about narcissism meeting mindfulness in the global yoga arena—working alongside Chris Thomas and Dan Damman, a San Francisco writing/directing team that recently completed a year-long residency at San Francisco Film Society’s FilmHouse. Dutt produced the feature film As Good as You, starring Laura Heisler, Bryan Dechart, Raoul Bhaneja, Peter Maloney and Annie Potts, and was a producer on June, Adrift. Her short film credits include El Doctor, which was acquired by PBS; Touch and The First Session, both of which were winners at NBC Universal’s 2015 short film competition for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively; …Or Die and Shameless, which are travelling the festival circuit internationally; and Unfinished, which was acquired by the BET network.
Kyle Martin
Kyle Martin is a Brooklyn-based independent film Producer. He was named one of Variety‘s 2012 “Ten Producers to Watch” and he was awarded the 2010 Sundance Mark Silverman Producing Fellowship and the 2011 IFP/Cannes Marche Du Film Producer’s Network Fellowship. His films have been released worldwide by Criterion Collection, IFC Films, BBC, Oscilloscope Laboratories, Radius, Sundance International, PBS and Factory 25. His films include the 2014 SXSW Best Documentary winner The Great Invisible (Radius), directed by Margaret Brown; the award-winning Bluebird (Factory 25), directed by Lance Edmands; Teenage (Oscilloscope), directed by Matt Wolf; Tiny Furniture (IFC Films), directed by Lena Dunham; and the 2010 SXSW Audience Award winner NY Export: Opus Jazz (PBS, BBC).
Kim Parker
Born in Seoul, but adopted and raised in Baltimore, Kimberly Parker is a producer who has been freelancing in film for the past five years. She recently produced Katie Says Goodbye, an IFP Narrative Labs feature starring Olivia Cooke and Christopher Abbott. She co-produced The Adderall Diaries, a Sundance Labs feature starring James Franco, Ed Harris and Amber Heard, which will be released by A24. Her first feature as a producer, Those People, an IFP Narrative Labs feature, will be in theaters next year. Parker will be attending Berlinale Talents this winter. She graduated with a MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a BA from Johns Hopkins University.
SFFS INTERNATIONAL PRODUCER FELLOW
Jean Denis Le Dinahet
Jean Denis Le Dinahet was born in Lyon, France in 1981, and studied at Science-po Paris and at Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University. He is a graduate in film production from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome (the Italian National Film School), where he met most of the directors and crewmembers he has been working with. Le Dinahet opened his production company in Rome and in Paris in 2010 together with his partner Sébastien Msika in order to develop projects with young directors mainly from Italy, and to produce their first feature film, Il Sud è Niente, directed by Fabio Mollo. Il Sud è Niente has screened at the Toronto, Rome, Berlinale, San Francisco and Torino film festivals, and Le Dinahet was awarded with the Golden Camera Award as producer of a first feature film at the International Rome Film Festival in 2013. Le Dinahet currently lives in Paris, France.
Past SFFS Producer Fellows include Jonathan Duffy, Márcia Nunes and Laura Wagner. The next round of SFFS Producer Fellowships will run approximately from November 2016 to May 2017, with recipients announced in the fall. For more information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360/narrative-grants-and-programs/sffs-producers-initiative.
Filmmaker360, the Film Society’s filmmaker support program, offers unparalleled assistance and opportunities designed to foster creativity and further the careers of independent filmmakers nationwide and oversees one of the largest film grant programs in the country, which disperses nearly $1 million annually to incubate and support innovative and exceptional films. Recent Filmmaker360 success stories include 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 fall; Kat Candler’s Hellion and Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange, both of which premiered to strong reviews at Sundance 2014; 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). For information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.