The San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announce the January 10 opening of the application period for the Spring 2012 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants. The grants are given twice a year to filmmakers for narrative feature films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, discrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. The grants also support films that have a significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. Between 2009 and 2013 the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants will award nearly $2.5 million, including more than $1 million awarded in the first six grant rounds. The letter of inquiry period for the seventh round of SFFS/KRF Filmmaking grants — totaling up to $300,000 for screenwriting, development, preproduction, production and postproduction — opens January 10; the early deadline is February 1 and the late deadline is February 8.
Winners of the Spring 2012 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking grants will be announced in early April.
For additional information, including guidelines and application, visit sffs.org/Filmmaker-Services/Grants.
SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants are made possible by the vision and generosity of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The 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.
Five filmmaking teams working in various stages of production were awarded funds in the most recent round of SFFS/KRF grants:
Lance Edmands, Kyle Martin: Bluebird
$97,000 for production
In the frozen woods of an isolated Maine logging town, one woman’s tragic mistake shatters the community balance, resulting in profound and unexpected consequences.
Eric Escobar: One Good Thing
$15,000 for screenwriting
A jaded and bitter locksmith spends his days locking families out of their foreclosed homes. When a morning lockout turns up the abandoned child of a long-lost friend, his cynicism is put in check as he races to find the missing parents. For more information visit kontentfilms.com.
Ian Hendrie, Jyson McLean: Mercy Road
$35,000 for screenwriting
Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the political and spiritual odyssey of a small-town Christian housewife as she slowly turns from a peaceful pro-life activist to an underground militant willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.
Chris Mason Johnson: Test
$60,000 for production
The year is 1985. The youngest, skinniest and most mocked member of San Francisco’s new contemporary ballet company begins a friendship with a brilliant dancer with a bad boy reputation in the same troupe. As lurid headlines threaten a gay quarantine, the two friends navigate a world full of risk that is also full of promise. For more information visit thenewtwentymovie.com.
Oden Roberts, Azura Skye: Rosie Got Her Gun
$100,000 for production
Following a series of arrests, a troubled young woman struggling to avoid prison time is visited by an opportunistic Army recruiter. For more information visit odenroberts.com.