FILM ARTS FORUM
SFFS Film Arts Forum: Sundance Confidential
Monday, December 7, 7:30 pm (7:00 pm door)
Monday, December 7, 7:30 pm (7:00 pm door)
KINOTEK
Catherine Galasso: Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice
December 12–13, 8:00 pm
December 12–13, 8:00 pm
SF360 FILM+CLUB
Steven Severin: Music for Silents
Tuesday, January 12, doors 7:00 pm, show 8:00 pm
Tuesday, January 12, doors 7:00 pm, show 8:00 pm
Releases
San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Announce Finalists for $35,000 Fall 2009 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant
Ten Narrative Feature Projects Contend for Prize, Winner to Be Announced in Late October
10/6/2009
San Francisco Film Society and The Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced today the ten finalists and two honorable mentions for the second $35,000 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant, to be given to a narrative feature film with a social justice theme being made in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the next five years SFFS and KRF will disburse a series of annual grants totaling more than $3 million.
The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. The grants, which run 2009–13, will be awarded in the spring and fall of each year. Finalists and honorable mentions for the fall 2009 grant follow.
FINALISTS
J.P. Allen: Innocence, screenwriting/script development
In telling the story of an environmental activist struggling to exonerate herself from accusations that she set off a pipe bomb at a local manufacturing company, Innocence dramatizes the importance and difficulty of establishing responsibility. www.coffeeandlanguage.com
Chris Brown: Fanny, Annie & Danny, postproduction
When a mentally disabled 39-year-old woman who has been living in a home for dependent adults loses her job and returns home, familial bonds are strained and the resentment of her siblings shatters the celebratory mood of a holiday dinner. www.chrisbrownfilms.com
Jorg Fockele, Hiddensee, screenwriting/script development
An abrasive Holocaust survivor recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of Alzheimer's disease hires her nurse, a moonlighting African American history professor, to accompany her on a journey to her childhood home in an attempt to reconstruct her family’s last days during World War II. www.fockele.com
Michael Jacobs: Story About My Wife, screenwriting/script development
Story About My Wife is an unnerving portrait of mental illness. Following a traumatic train accident, a young couple’s seemingly idyllic life begins to unravel as a vague feeling that something isn’t quite right gives way to the realization that the problem is more pervasive. www.strikeanywherefilms.com
Amanda Micheli: Tomboy, screenwriting/script development
Tomboy is a coming-of-age story about a girl struggling to invent her own definitions of family, sexuality and courage in the face of the adamant disapproval of the father she worships. www.runawayfilms.com
Ned Miller: Tenderloin Homecoming, screenwriting/script development
In Tenderloin Homecoming, a psychologically and physically wounded Iraq war veteran returns to San Francisco to face police questioning for the murder of a local lowlife, renew his relationship with his young son and come to terms with his long-suppressed memories of war. www.tenderloinmovie.com
Miles Montalbano: A Human Certainty, screenwriting/script development
A Human Certainty tells the story of a young homeless couple who, foreseeing a bleak future in the throes of a worsening economic crisis, make a pact to commit suicide after a month of passionate, romantic adventures.
www.grayeminencefilms.com
Jed Riffe: Convention, postproduction
Convention explores issues of race and gender in the American political system through one woman’s compelling search for social and racial equity as she advocates for the election of the first African American president at the Democratic National Convention. www.jedriffefilms.com
Brant Smith: In-World War, postproduction
In the late 21st century, a player in a virtual reality simulation of the post-9/11 war on terror turns his Pakistani American friend into the authorities, then scrambles to undo the horrifying consequences. www.inworldwar.com
Jeffrey Zimbalist: The Scribe of Uruabá, preproduction
Based on real events, The Scribe of Uruabá chronicles the rise of the Nobel Prize–nominated peace community movement in Latin America through the story of a 14-year-old Colombian girl whose father is murdered for being a union leader and the African American public relations executive who is assigned to put a lid on the controversy around a violent union bust. www.favelarising.com
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Christina Chan: Apple Pie and the KKK, screenwriting/script development
Apple Pie and the KKK, set in Virginia in 1981, tells the compelling story of a young and idealistic Chinese girl who writes heartfelt letters to the leadership of the local Ku Klux Klan, standing up for her family in the face of a virulent campaign against immigrant newcomers. www.christychan.com
David Schendel: Collision Point, screenwriting/script development
In Collision Point, a young San Francisco journalist, determined to publicize the rising cancer rates and sickness caused by toxic dumping in a predominately low-income neighborhood, finds herself entangled in a violent battle between local residents, real estate developers and polluters.
The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support work by local filmmakers as well as attract projects of the highest quality to the Bay Area, providing tangible encouragement and support to meaningful projects and benefiting the local economy. In addition to a cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services programs. sffs.org/filmmaker-services
The letter of inquiry period for the third SFFS/KRF grant will be announced in Spring 2010. For more information: sffs.org/filmmaker_services/rainin-filmmaking-grants
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of life by promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy, enabling inspiration through the magic of the arts and providing opportunity for a healthy lifestyle for those with chronic disease. The Foundation focuses its efforts on the San Francisco Bay Area and specific medical issues and utilizes its networks, resources and commitment to socially responsible business practices to support innovation, collaboration and connection.
San Francisco Film Society is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to celebrating film and the moving image in all its glorious forms. SFFS year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Celebrating Internationalism, Inspiring Bay Area Youth, Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture and Exploring New Digital Media. The Film Society shows the best of world cinema year-round on its SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas; presents the longest-running film festival in the Americas, the SF International (April 22–May 6, 2010); publishes a daily online magazine, sf360.org, featuring broad-ranging news and features on Bay Area film and media; annually reaches more than 8,000 students ages 6–18 with its acclaimed media literacy programs; and provides crucial support to the Bay Area filmmaking community through SFFS Filmmaker Services including FilmHouse Residencies, Fiscal Sponsorship, the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants, the Herbert Family Filmmaking Grants, the Hearst Screening Grant, the Djerassi/SFFS Screenwriting Fellowship, SFFS Film Arts Forums and professional-level filmmaker classes.
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The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. The grants, which run 2009–13, will be awarded in the spring and fall of each year. Finalists and honorable mentions for the fall 2009 grant follow.
FINALISTS
J.P. Allen: Innocence, screenwriting/script development
In telling the story of an environmental activist struggling to exonerate herself from accusations that she set off a pipe bomb at a local manufacturing company, Innocence dramatizes the importance and difficulty of establishing responsibility. www.coffeeandlanguage.com
Chris Brown: Fanny, Annie & Danny, postproduction
When a mentally disabled 39-year-old woman who has been living in a home for dependent adults loses her job and returns home, familial bonds are strained and the resentment of her siblings shatters the celebratory mood of a holiday dinner. www.chrisbrownfilms.com
Jorg Fockele, Hiddensee, screenwriting/script development
An abrasive Holocaust survivor recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of Alzheimer's disease hires her nurse, a moonlighting African American history professor, to accompany her on a journey to her childhood home in an attempt to reconstruct her family’s last days during World War II. www.fockele.com
Michael Jacobs: Story About My Wife, screenwriting/script development
Story About My Wife is an unnerving portrait of mental illness. Following a traumatic train accident, a young couple’s seemingly idyllic life begins to unravel as a vague feeling that something isn’t quite right gives way to the realization that the problem is more pervasive. www.strikeanywherefilms.com
Amanda Micheli: Tomboy, screenwriting/script development
Tomboy is a coming-of-age story about a girl struggling to invent her own definitions of family, sexuality and courage in the face of the adamant disapproval of the father she worships. www.runawayfilms.com
Ned Miller: Tenderloin Homecoming, screenwriting/script development
In Tenderloin Homecoming, a psychologically and physically wounded Iraq war veteran returns to San Francisco to face police questioning for the murder of a local lowlife, renew his relationship with his young son and come to terms with his long-suppressed memories of war. www.tenderloinmovie.com
Miles Montalbano: A Human Certainty, screenwriting/script development
A Human Certainty tells the story of a young homeless couple who, foreseeing a bleak future in the throes of a worsening economic crisis, make a pact to commit suicide after a month of passionate, romantic adventures.
www.grayeminencefilms.com
Jed Riffe: Convention, postproduction
Convention explores issues of race and gender in the American political system through one woman’s compelling search for social and racial equity as she advocates for the election of the first African American president at the Democratic National Convention. www.jedriffefilms.com
Brant Smith: In-World War, postproduction
In the late 21st century, a player in a virtual reality simulation of the post-9/11 war on terror turns his Pakistani American friend into the authorities, then scrambles to undo the horrifying consequences. www.inworldwar.com
Jeffrey Zimbalist: The Scribe of Uruabá, preproduction
Based on real events, The Scribe of Uruabá chronicles the rise of the Nobel Prize–nominated peace community movement in Latin America through the story of a 14-year-old Colombian girl whose father is murdered for being a union leader and the African American public relations executive who is assigned to put a lid on the controversy around a violent union bust. www.favelarising.com
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Christina Chan: Apple Pie and the KKK, screenwriting/script development
Apple Pie and the KKK, set in Virginia in 1981, tells the compelling story of a young and idealistic Chinese girl who writes heartfelt letters to the leadership of the local Ku Klux Klan, standing up for her family in the face of a virulent campaign against immigrant newcomers. www.christychan.com
David Schendel: Collision Point, screenwriting/script development
In Collision Point, a young San Francisco journalist, determined to publicize the rising cancer rates and sickness caused by toxic dumping in a predominately low-income neighborhood, finds herself entangled in a violent battle between local residents, real estate developers and polluters.
The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support work by local filmmakers as well as attract projects of the highest quality to the Bay Area, providing tangible encouragement and support to meaningful projects and benefiting the local economy. In addition to a cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services programs. sffs.org/filmmaker-services
The letter of inquiry period for the third SFFS/KRF grant will be announced in Spring 2010. For more information: sffs.org/filmmaker_services/rainin-filmmaking-grants
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of life by promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy, enabling inspiration through the magic of the arts and providing opportunity for a healthy lifestyle for those with chronic disease. The Foundation focuses its efforts on the San Francisco Bay Area and specific medical issues and utilizes its networks, resources and commitment to socially responsible business practices to support innovation, collaboration and connection.
San Francisco Film Society is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to celebrating film and the moving image in all its glorious forms. SFFS year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Celebrating Internationalism, Inspiring Bay Area Youth, Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture and Exploring New Digital Media. The Film Society shows the best of world cinema year-round on its SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas; presents the longest-running film festival in the Americas, the SF International (April 22–May 6, 2010); publishes a daily online magazine, sf360.org, featuring broad-ranging news and features on Bay Area film and media; annually reaches more than 8,000 students ages 6–18 with its acclaimed media literacy programs; and provides crucial support to the Bay Area filmmaking community through SFFS Filmmaker Services including FilmHouse Residencies, Fiscal Sponsorship, the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants, the Herbert Family Filmmaking Grants, the Hearst Screening Grant, the Djerassi/SFFS Screenwriting Fellowship, SFFS Film Arts Forums and professional-level filmmaker classes.
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