Jul 25, 2013
Artist Development
The San Francisco Film Society today announced the three winners of the 2013 SFFS Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $100,000, which support feature-length documentaries in postproduction. The SFFS Documentary Film Fund was created to support singular nonfiction film work that is distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters and an innovative visual approach. Anne Bogart and Holly Morris’ The Babushkas of Chernobyl, Jamie Meltzer’s Freedom Fighters and Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber’s Tomorrow We Disappear were each awarded significant funding that will help push them towards completion.
The SFFS Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for championing compelling films that have gone on to earn great acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Shaul Schwarz’s Narco Cultura, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival; Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s American Promise, which also premiered at Sundance and won the festival’s Special Jury Prize in the documentary category; and Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary, has played at film festivals worldwide and will be distributed theatrically by Radius-TWC.
Since 2011, SFFS has distributed $100,000 annually in grants designed to advance new work by documentary filmmakers nationwide. The Documentary Film Fund was inaugurated thanks to a generous gift from valued Film Society donors Sharon and Larry Malcolmson, whose patronage over the past five years has elevated the Film Society’s support of documentary filmmaking in every aspect. The DFF program is expected to grow in the coming years as further underwriting is secured.
The panelists who reviewed the 13 finalists’ submissions are Tamara Melnik, SFFS grants coordinator; filmmaker Peter Nicks; Sue Turley, managing director of Ro*Co Films Productions; and SFFS Director of Filmmaker360 Michele Turnure-Salleo. The jury noted that for the fascinating nature of their subjects, their elegant imagery and immersive cinematic environments, these films exemplify exceptional and original documentary storytelling at its best.
“These three projects exhibit exactly the kind of compelling storytelling and creative approach to their subjects that the Doc Film Fund was created to support, and I can’t wait to see the finished products,” said Ted Hope, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society. “Our deepest thanks go to Sharon and Larry Malcomson, whose inspiring patronage has truly lifted up our documentary-focused initiatives and put the Film Society on the map as an important champion of nonfiction filmmaking with a tangible national impact.”
2013 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND WINNERS
The Babushkas of Chernobyl – Anne Bogart and Holly Morris, co-director/producers – $40,000
As Fukushima smolders, and the world grapples with a dangerous energy era, an unlikely human story emerges from Chernobyl to inform the debate. The Babushkas of Chernobyl is the story of an extraordinary group of women who live in Chernobyl’s post-nuclear disaster “Dead Zone.” For more than 25 years they have survived-and even, oddly, thrived-on some of the most contaminated land on earth. For more information visit thebabushkasofchernobyl.com.
Anne Bogart is a Los Angeles-based writer and documentary director/producer. For the past 12 years she has directed and produced numerous episodes for the Globe Trekker travel series. For 15 years she worked in Paris and London as a staff writer for Women’s Wear Daily and a freelance writer for numerous American magazines including Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. While in Europe, Bogart also produced and directed documentary and entertainment programming for a variety of French and U.K. broadcasters.
Holly Morris is the writer/director/creator of the award-winning eight-part PBS documentary series about extraordinary women around the world, Adventure Divas, and author of the book Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine. Her award-winning story A Country of Women–on which The Babushkas of Chernobyl is based–was originally published in MORE magazine, won Meredith’s “Editorial Excellence Award,” is featured in Best Travel Literature: 2013, and was republished in London’s Daily Telegraph and The Week.
Freedom Fighters – Jamie Meltzer, director – $20,000
There’s a new detective agency in Dallas, Texas, started by a group of exonerated men who have all spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. They call themselves the Freedom Fighters, and they’ve recently started working their first cases. For more information visit freedomfightersfilm.com.
Jamie Meltzer’s feature documentary films have been broadcast nationally on PBS and have screened at numerous film festivals worldwide. They include Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story (Independent Lens, 2003), Welcome to Nollywood (PBS Broadcast, 2007), La Caminata (2009), and Informant, which won four best documentary/grand jury awards at film festivals in 2012 and is being released in theaters nationwide by Music Box Films. Meltzer teaches in the MFA Program in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University.
Tomorrow We Disappear – Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber, co-director/producers – $40,000
When their homes are illegally sold to real estate developers, the magicians, acrobats and puppeteers of Delhi’s Kathputli colony must unite-or splinter apart forever.
Jimmy Goldblum is a Brooklyn-based writer, director, and interactive producer. In 2008 he won an Emmy for “New Approaches to Documentary” for Live Hope Love, a project he produced for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Goldblum’s projects have won Emmy, FWA, Webby, and SXSW awards and have earned coverage from the New York Times, Wired magazine, USA Today, and CNN.
Adam Weber is currently editing Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, Michel Gondry’s animated documentary about Noam Chomsky. He was the editor of Kanye West’s interactive film Cruel Winter, and assistant editor on Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds.
For more information on the Documentary Fund and the other Film Society cash awards visit sffs.org/filmmaker360/Grants.
SFFS Documentary Film Fund grants are awarded in the summer of each year. Exact amounts of individual grants and the number of grants made will be determined on an annual basis. As with all Film Society grants, in addition to the cash awards, recipients will gain access to numerous benefits through Filmmaker360, the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services program. Filmmaker360 is a leader in the field of non-profit support of cinema and offers unparalleled assistance and opportunities designed to foster creativity and further the careers of independent filmmakers nationwide. Filmmaker360 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 at every stage of production. Other elements of Filmmaker360 include project development consultation, FilmHouse Residencies, Off the Page screenwriting workshops, membership discounts and benefits, fiscal sponsorship and information resources.
Recent Filmmaker360 success stories include Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station, which won 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; Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton’s sophomore feature which won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 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.