Feb 3, 2017
Artist Development
San Francisco, CA — The San Francisco Film Society announced today that Michael Almereyda is the inaugural recipient of the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship, which will support the development of the screenplay for his upcoming narrative feature project about Nikola Tesla. The Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of their support of programs that cultivate and champion films that explore scientific or technological themes and characters. Under the auspices of its Artist Development program, the SF Film Society will award fellowships to filmmakers developing screenplays that tell stories related to science or technology.
The Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship will be awarded twice annually, and include a $35,000 cash grant and a two-month residency at FilmHouse, the Film Society’s suite of production offices for local and visiting independent filmmakers. Fellows will gain free office space alongside access to weekly consulting services and professional development opportunities. The Film Society will connect each fellow to a science advisor with expertise in the scientific or technological subjects at the center of their screenplays, as well as leaders in the Bay Area’s science and technology communities. In addition to the residency and grant, the Film Society’s Artist Development team will offer industry introductions to producers and casting, financing, and creative advisors—investing in fellows from early script development stages through to release. Additional filmmaker support programs include the SF Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant, the Documentary Film Fund and full-year FilmHouse residencies.
Applications are now being accepted for the next round of the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship. The early deadline for applications is April 18; the final deadline is April 25. Visit sffs.org for more details.
“The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has been a significant champion of innovative narrative filmmaking, so we are thrilled to partner with them to expand our support of narrative filmmakers with projects in development,” said Caroline von Kühn “It’s an honor to offer such a fellowship, especially with the help of such an incredible group of leaders in the Bay Area from the math and science communities who value the power of media, and we couldn’t think of a better project with which to launch this partnership than Michael Almereyda’s Tesla which celebrates this historic technological genius.”
“I’m grateful for the ongoing support and encouragement of the San Francisco Film Society and the Sloan Foundation,” said Almereyda. “I’m looking forward to spending time in San Francisco, meeting with advisors in the area and having access to the city’s rich cultural resources.”
“We are delighted to kick off our exciting new screenwriting partnership with the SF Film Society by awarding the first fellowship to Michael Almereyda’s Tesla,” said Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “While many filmmakers have tried to bring the complex story of this Serbian-American inventor, engineer, physicist and futurist to the big screen, we believe the Film Society’s great residency program and superb Artist Development team, coupled with Sloan’s nationwide development pipeline, will enable Michael Almereyda’s vision to be the first fully realized motion picture about Nikola Tesla to come to a theater near you.”
Michael Almereyda dropped out of college to pursue filmmaking, and wrote his first screenplay about Nikola Tesla, the very subject he returns to now. His films have alternated between fiction and documentary, and (with very few exceptions) have been self-generated, independent productions. Almereyda has received numerous awards and prizes, including a Guggenheim Fellowship for film/video in 2005, and a Creative Capital Grant for filmmaking in 2014. He has participated in five residencies at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, most recently in 2015. Almereyda’s writing on film has appeared in the New York Times, Film Comment, Artforum, and booklets for the Criterion Collection. His film credits include Hamlet (2000), William Eggleston in the Real World (2005), Paradise (2009), Experimenter (2015), and Marjorie Prime, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Sloan Feature Prize.
Tesla tracks the struggles and achievements of Nikola Tesla—one of the most brilliant and innovative scientific minds of his time-from his arrival in the US in 1884 to his solitary death in a New York hotel room in 1943. The story chronicles Tesla’s earliest patents and prototypes, his manufacturing partnership with George Westinghouse, and the fierce “Battle of the Currents” that brought Tesla’s ideas for alternating current head to head with the direct current system favored by Thomas Edison. Celebratory exhibitions at the 1893 World’s Fair lead to a coveted commission to design the titanic power station harnessing the force of Niagara Falls. Yet even at the peak of his fame and success, Tesla sets out to explore more radical ideas—the first applications of radio and radio-controlled machines, and the transmission of energy without wires. The film will highlight the glorious possibilities brought forth by technological advances while also admitting their limits, measured against the abiding mysteries of human feelings and desires.
This program is a part of the SF Film Society and Sloan Foundation’s Science in Cinema initiative, which is designed to develop and present new feature films and episodic content that portray fully-drawn scientist and technologist characters; immerse audiences in the challenges and rewards of scientific discovery; and sharpen public awareness of the intersection of science, technology and our daily lives. Leveraging its position in the heart of the innovation capital of the world, the Film Society seeks to forge meaningful links between the artistic and scientific communities through a suite of programs. In addition to the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship, the initiative also features the Sloan Science in Cinema Prize, which celebrates a finished narrative feature film each fall; and Sloan Science on Screen, a spotlight program at the San Francisco International Film Festival that debuted in 2016. For more information about the San Francisco Film Society’s exhibition, education and filmmaker services programs, visit sffs.org.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The New York based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants in science, technology, and economic performance. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater, and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience. Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about scientists, science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past 15 years, Sloan has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country-including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA and USC-and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production, along with an annual best-of-the-best Student Grand Jury Prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute. In addition to the San Francisco Film Society, the Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, the Black List, and Film Independent’s Producing Lab and Fast Track program and has helped develop such film projects as Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, Mathew Brown’s The Man Who Knew Infinity, Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter, Jake Schreier’s Robot & Frank, Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide to Everything, Musa Syeed’s Valley of Saints, and Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess.
The Foundation’s book program includes early support in 2014 for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, now an Oscar-nominated major motion picture that was awarded the San Francisco Film Society Sloan Science in Cinema Prize in 2016. In January 2017, Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime received the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions about twenty science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club, and supports select productions across the country as well. Recent grants have supported Nick Payne’s Incognito, Frank Basloe’s Please Continue, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Informed Consent, Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, and Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, recently on London’s West End.
For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, visit www.sloan.org
Media contact: ben@benaustin.com