Apr 30, 2012
Artist Development
Under the auspices of the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, the recently launched Off the Page series gave director/writer Ryan Coogler the invaluable opportunity to workshop his script for Fruitvale, the true story of Oscar Grant, with his lead actors Michael B. Jordan and Melonie Diaz, April 24-25 at the San Francisco Film Centre.
Fruitvale is the true story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family and strangers on the last day of 2008. In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009 Grant was fatally shot by a BART policeman. Fruitvale is a finalist for the Spring 2012 SFF / KRF Filmmaking Grant.
“Off the Page is truly a special opportunity for Fruitvale,” said Coogler. “The Film Society is very supportive of the collaborative process that is often not afforded to filmmakers because of budgetary constraints. Our lead actors are located in Los Angeles and New York and they would not otherwise have had a chance to sit down and get to know each other before production. The Bay Area is a character in the film and this program allowed the actors to walk the streets and visit the houses that their characters frequented and speak with key members of the community who were affected by the case.”
Coogler is a 25-year-old filmmaker who has been making movies for five years. His feature-length screenplay Fruitvale was recently selected for the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. In 2011 his student short film Fig, which followed a young street prostitute’s fight to keep her daughter safe, won the Director’s Guild of America Student Filmmaker Award, as well as the 2011 HBO Short Filmmaker Award. Fig will be broadcast on HBO networks and HBO on demand through 2013. Coogler lives in the Bay Area and works as a counselor at Juvenile Hall in San Francisco. He earned his MFA in film and television production at the University of Southern California in May 2011.
Diaz was raised in New York’s Lower Eastside. She was bitten by the acting bug while attending the Henry Street Settlement. Diaz also attended the Professional Performing Arts High School. She started her film career with a supporting role in Tom DiCillo’s Double Whammy and later landed her breakthrough role in Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas. She then landed roles in Catherine Hardwicke’s Lords of Dogtown and Dito Montiel’s A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female. She played the lead role of Anna in Jamie Babbit’s in Itty Bitty Titty Committee and also appeared in Hamlet 2 and Be Kind Rewind. Her upcoming films include She Wants Me, with Josh Gad and Hilary Duff, and Save the Date with Alison Brie, Lizzy Caplan, Martin Starr and Geoffrey Arend.
Michael B. Jordan recently starred in Josh Trank’s box office hit Chronicle, a supernatural thriller distributed by 20th Century Fox that followed three teens as they developed incredible powers after exposure to a mysterious substance. Previously, Jordan appeared in the George Lucas produced film Red Tails, directed by Anthony Hemmingway, about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during WWII. Before beginning his feature film career, Jordan was best known for having starred in two significant television dramas of the past decade. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the hard-shelled, softhearted Wallace on HBO’s dramatic series The Wire. He then went on to star as quarterback Vince Howard on NBC’s Friday Night Lights. This past television season, Jordan portrayed the recovering alcoholic Alex on NBC’s Parenthood. This spring, he will reteam with writer/executive producer Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) to star opposite Jason Ritter in the Universal/NBC pilot County.
Off the Page is an exciting new addition in the expanding partnership between the San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Writer/directors who have received an SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant and have completed at least one draft of their screenplay or writer/directors who are interested in applying for the grant are invited to take part in script workshopping at the San Francisco Film Centre in the Presidio. The participating directors are given the opportunity to work with professional actors who are interested in or being considered for their film.
For the initial Off the Page workshop in March actors Blake Bashoff, Alia Shawkat and Matt L. Jones came to San Francisco for a table reading of Carlton Evans and Matthew Lessner’s Ross, the story of a hardworking young man whose staid, well-established life is upended after he posts an offhand comment to his Facebook profile, drawing the attention of numerous secretive government agencies and setting off a bizarre chain of events. Lessner and Evans received a $50,000 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant last spring.
Off the Page workshops will be scheduled four times a year. Participation is by invitation only. Two sessions will include filmmakers who are early in their writing process and are interested in work-shopping specific scenes from their script in a closed workshop. Two sessions will be for writer/directors who are close to a final draft and ready to present their work publicly through a traditional table read. Invited audiences may include producers, industry professionals and filmmaker peers as well as potential collaborators and funders.
For additional information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.
Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation that funds inspiring and world-changing work. The Foundation is dedicated to enhancing quality of life by promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy, enabling inspiration through the arts and supporting research that will lead to relief for those with chronic disease. The Foundation will focus its efforts on the San Francisco Bay Area and specific medical issues and will utilize its networks, resources, and commitment to socially responsible practices to support innovation, collaboration and connection. For more information visit krfoundation.org.