Oct 22, 2014
Artist Development
The San Francisco Film Society today announced that A. Sayeeda Moreno andMicah Schaffer have been selected to receive this year’s $15,000 SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant for development of their script White. The SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant is awarded in the fall of each year to writers residing in the United States who have been practicing for at least five years and who have previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. The panelists who reviewed the finalists’ submissions were Noah Cowan, SFFS executive director; filmmaker Ian Hendrie; and Michele Turnure-Salleo, SFFS director of Filmmaker360.
The jury said in a statement: “Science fiction has a special ability to explore the issues of today by showing us a possible tomorrow. The boldness of this project’s attempt to demonstrate something new about race and class and climate change through a particular dystopian worldview was very impressive to the jury. As society becomes more concerned with advances in technology and science, we need stories like these to help contextualize changes in the world around us.”
“It’s an honor to receive the Hearst Screenwriting Grant, and we are thrilled to be partnering with the San Francisco Film Society at this stage of making our movie,” said Moreno. “The Filmmaker360 program has a great track record of supporting innovative films that advance our collective dialogue, so we’re excited to be in such good company!”
The SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant, supported by a gift from William R. Hearst III, is a component of the prestigious grants program administered through Filmmaker360, the Film Society’s robust filmmaker services department. For more information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.
2014 SFFS / HEARST SCREENWRITING GRANT WINNERS
A. Sayeeda Moreno and Micah Schaffer
A. Sayeeda Moreno is a proud native New Yorker, dedicated to the art of directing. Her short film White, funded by ITVS for Futurestates.tv, is also on PBS.org. Whitescreened at SXSW, Tribeca, and BAMcinemaFest, with Precious at the Tri-Continental Film Festival and with Spike Lee’s Crooklyn at the Brooklyn Bridge Film Series. Moreno’s award-winning short Sin Salida aired on HBO/HBOLatino for two years. Her short The Grey Woman premiered at Lincoln Center and won the Hallmark short film competition. Moreno received an MFA in Film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she was a Dean’s Fellow. She is a Film Independent Fellow for her collaborative screenplay I’m Not Down and is currently developing the feature version of White.
Micah Schaffer is a writer, filmmaker, and educator whose work focuses on forging unexpected connections between people and finding humanity in unforeseen places. Schaffer’s first feature documentary Death of Two Sons was awarded the HBO “Life Through Your Lens” Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award and was distributed through Netflix. Shaffer then attended the MFA program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he wrote and directed several short narrative films. Schaffer has written three feature screenplays, including On the Wall, which was a finalist for an Alfred P. Sloan screenwriting award. He recently completed a fellowship at the Cinema Research Institute, where he is studying the future of the cross-border financing and coproduction of independent film.
White
It’s another sweltering 120-degree winter day with five more days to Christmas and hot is the only season left. The best protection from the sun remains the naturally occurring melanin in one’s skin. Like many valuable natural resources, in this future it is coveted, extracted, bought, sold and stolen. Bato, who is black, enters into a race against time to save his daughter as he is forced to bargain with the new currency of this world.
For more information on the SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant and the other Film Society grant programs, visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.
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, fiscal sponsorship and information resources. Additional screenwriting initiatives include the Djerassi Residency Award / SFFS Screenwriting Fellowship, the SFFS / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant and Off the Page, a program that provides private script-reading sessions with celebrated actors for filmmakers with screenplays in development.
Recent Filmmaker360 success stories include 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 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, earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and became an indie box office smash. For information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.