Industry

Four individual writers and one writing team have been selected as winners of the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition.  Each winner will receive a $35,000 prize, the first installment of which will be distributed at an awards presentation on Thursday, November 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.  For the first time, the event will also feature a live read of selected scenes from the fellows’ winning scripts.

This year’s winners are (listed alphabetically by author):
Frank DeJohn & David Alton Hedges, Santa Ynez, CA, “Legion”
Patty Jones, Vancouver, BC, Canada, “Joe Banks”
Alan Roth, Suffern, NY, “Jersey City Story”
Stephanie Shannon, Los Angeles, CA, “Queen of Hearts”
Barbara Stepansky, Burbank, CA, “Sugar in My Veins”

The winners were selected from a record 7,251 scripts submitted for this year’s competition. 

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year.  The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

Directed by Rodrigo Garcia (“Albert Nobbs,” “Mother and Child,” “Nine Lives”) and produced by Julie Lynn ( “Albert Nobbs,” “Mother and Child,” “The Jane Austen Book Club”), the awards presentation and live read, which is supported by Lexus, will include members from the Academy’s Actors Branch performing scenes from the five winning scripts.  Casting for the live read will be announced.  Tickets to the event are available to the public at www.oscars.org.

Lexus will engineer a new and innovative extension of the fellowship for the first time. One of the top five winners will be presented with a grant which will allow them to write and produce a short film that will appear on certain Lexus creative platforms such as LStudio.com. 

The Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee, chaired by producer Gale Anne Hurd, is composed of writers Naomi Foner, Daniel Petrie Jr., Tom Rickman, Eric Roth, Dana Stevens and Robin Swicord; actor Eva Marie Saint; cinematographer John Bailey; costume designer Vicki Sanchez; producers Peter Samuelson and Robert W. Shapiro; marketing executive Buffy Shutt; and agent Ronald R. Mardigian.

Since 1986, 133 fellowships have been awarded, including one to 2010 winner Destin Daniel Cretton who recently wrote and directed “Short Term 12” from his Nicholl Fellowship-winning script.  Creighton Rothenberger co-wrote “Olympus Has Fallen,” which opened in theaters this past March.  Rebecca Sonnenshine is a writer and executive story editor on “The Vampire Diaries.”  Andrew Marlowe is a writer and executive producer, and Terri Edda Miller is a writer and consulting producer on “Castle.”

 via press release

Pictured: Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented its Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting awards dinner on November 4, 2010 in Beverly Hills.  via: Facebook

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THE DEBT – Ritesh Batra

12 projects have been selected to participated in the first workshop of the second edition of Biennale di Venezia’s Biennale College – Cinema (2013 – 2014) held in Venice from the 5th to the 14th of October 2013.  The first edition of the Biennale College – Cinema 2012/13 closed with the screening of three feature films at the 70th Edition of the Venice Film Festival in 2012: MARY IS HAPPY, MARY IS HAPPY – Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit (director, Thailand) , MEMPHIS – Tim Sutton (director, USA) and YURI ESPOSITO – Alessio Fava (director, Italy) .

The 12 selected projects with a brief synopsis.

BLOOD CELLS – Joseph Bull (director, the UK), Luke Seomore (director, the UK), Samm Haillay (producer, the UK): a decade after a catastrophe destroyed his family and their farm, an eruption from the past compels an exiled young man to embark upon an odyssey through the broken and beautiful margins of contemporary Britain.

H. – RANIA ATTIEH (director, Lebanon), Daniel Garcia (director, USA), Shruti Rya Ganguly (producer, India): a tale of two women, both named Helen, whose lives and relationships begin to unravel in the wake of a meteor explosion over their town of Troy, NY. It is a modern and lyrical re-imagining of a classic Greek tragedy.

IMACULAT – Kenneth Mercken (director, Belgium), Marcian Lazar (producer, Romania): when a 19-year-old girl from a good family is committed to rehab, she becomes a prey to the male junkies. She learns that in order to regain control over herself and her own body, she must first destroy her old self.

LA BARRACUDA – Jason Cortlund (director, USA), Julia Halperin (director, USA), David Hartstein (producer, USA): when an odd young woman named Sinaloa shows up on Merle’s front porch claiming to be her half-sister, an exciting surprise leads to violence.

LA MUJER DE LOS PERROS – Laura Citarella (director, Argentina), Verónica Llinás (director, Argentina), Mariano Llinás (producer, Argentina): a woman shares her life with ten dogs in a shack in the outskirts of a big city. The realistic story of a strange queen.

NANCY – Christina Choe (director, USA), Gerry Kim (producer, USA): Nancy, a 40-year-old serial impostor, lives at home with her abusive, elderly mother. Desperate for love and connection, she creates a fake blog and catfishes a lover, until her hoaxes result in epic and tragic consequences.

RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS – Edmund Yeo (director, Malaysia), Ming Jin Woo (producer, Malaysia): a peaceful coastal town in Malaysia is turned upside down by the construction of a potentially radioactive plant. A young boy at the cusp of adulthood and an idealistic history teacher find themselves fighting for the soul of their hometown.

SHORT SKIN – Duccio Chiarini (director, Italy), Babak Jalali (producer, Iran / the UK): one has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.

THE DEBT – Ritesh Batra (director, India), Seher Latif (producer, India): a cop tries to prove his worth when he takes on the most important case of his life and learns how to be a parent.

THE STRIKE – Adam Breier (director, Hungary), Akos Schneider (producer, Hungary): one day a middle-aged family man asks himself what if his life would be different and decides to exchange the known for the unknown. An absurdly minimalist tragicomedy.

UNLESS – Matteo Servente (director, Italy), Ryan Watt (producer, USA): an imaginative 11-year-old boy barrels into a rural town on a stolen Trans-Am, upending the careful routines of an elderly police dispatcher and a secretive barber.

WINTER – Aamir Bashir (director, India), Alan McAlex (producer, India): Nargis was abandoned by her husband for the cause of Kashmir’s freedom. She waits and hopes for her love to return. But when he does return, scarred by violence, Nargis is forced to choose between love and freedom. 

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Ted Hope, Executive Director of San Francisco Film Society since August 2012, announced today that he will step down at the end of the year to pursue other film-related interests. He will continue in his current role and will manage all activities of the organization until December 31, working with the staff and board to facilitate a smooth leadership transition. Hope will join the SFFS Advisory Board, to assist in guiding the Film Society into the future in a new capacity.

Statement from Ted Hope:
“When I came to San Francisco after producing so many films, it surprised some that I wanted to lead a non-profit organization,” said Hope. “Over the past 14 months I’ve come to realize that as much as I fully embrace the mission of the Film Society, my passion is more entrepreneurial. We accomplished a great deal at SFFS over the last year, and the same fantastic team that initially drew me to the Bay Area is still in place to drive the organization well into the future. Vanessa and I plan to stay in the Bay Area and I look forward to staying involved in an advisory role and collaborating with the Film Society in our film-related activities.”

Statement from SFFS Board President David Winton:
“The Film Society has been fortunate to have Ted Hope at its helm,” said Winton. “He brought with him a lot of great ideas about expanding our already considerable role in promoting film culture given so much disruptive change in media, and we are grateful for his tenure and guidance. We are happy to have Ted’s continued creative input as he steps into his new role on our Advisory Board. The SFFS Board of Directors is committed to finding a new leader that will continue to work closely with our staff to further the mission of the Film Society and its core programs.”

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Three members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ newly created Casting Directors Branch have been elected to the Academy Board of Governors. The first-time governors are David Rubin, who is elected to a three-year term; Bernie Telsey, who is elected to a two-year term; and Lora Kennedy, who is elected to a one-year term.

“The addition of these exceptional professionals to our Board is another positive step toward making our organization more inclusive and more reflective of the broader industry,” Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said.  “We welcome them, their ideas and their insights wholeheartedly.”

The Academy’s 17 branches are each represented by three governors, who may serve up to three consecutive three-year terms.  The addition of the Casting Directors Branch was approved by the Board in July of this year. 

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Destin Cretton

14 narrative feature films finalists have been selected for the latest round of the (San Francisco Film Society) SFFS/ Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant. SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are awarded twice annually to film projects that will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. 

Recent SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winners 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 and is currently in theaters nationwide; 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, has had a wildly successful two-month theatrical run and is an Oscar hopeful in multiple categories; 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.

FINALISTS

DOCTOR
Musa Syeed, director/producer/writer; Nicholas Bruckman, coproducer — screenwriting
Salim, a disgraced young doctor from India, will do anything to rebuild his former life. But when he starts practicing medicine illegally in New York, he’s drawn into a medical underworld where he risks losing everything. 

ESCAPE FROM MORGANTOWN
Peter Nicks, writer/director — screenwriting
A young addict arrives at a federal prison camp with a plan to turn his life around, but is drawn into the intoxicating world of a crew of seasoned inmates.

THE FIXER
Ian Olds, writer/director; Caroline von Kuhn, producer — packaging
An Afghan journalist is exiled from his war-torn country to a small bohemian community in Northern California. When he attempts to turn his menial job on the local police blotter into “Afghan-style” coverage of local crime he gets drawn into the backwoods of this small town-a shadow Northern California where sex is casual, true friendship is hard to come by, and an unfamiliar form of violence burbles up all around him.

G.E.Z.I.
Aslihan Unaldi, writer/director — postproduction
This political and psychological drama is a fictionalized account of the dramatic night when a peaceful demonstration in Istanbul’s Gezi Park turned into a major national uprising. The story follows three main characters: a strong, liberal woman, her idealistic boyfriend and her apolitical ex-lover. As intricate layers of past secrets are revealed, deeper insight is gained into their characters and situation, which is closely intertwined with the political events accelerating around them.

HELLION
Kat Candler, writer/director; Jonathan Duffy and Kelly Williams, producers — postproduction
When his delinquent behavior forces his little brother to be taken away, a motocross-obsessed teenager and his emotionally absent father must take responsibility for their destructive behavior to bring him home.

KICKS
Justin Tipping, writer/director; Joshua Astrachan, David Kaplan and Adele Romanski, producers — preproduction
Fifteen-year-old Brandon, from a rough part of Richmond, California, has always been picked on. He has survived by running away from trouble all his life. But after getting jumped over a new pair of kicks, Brandon recruits his two best friends to join him on a mission to get his shoes back. The odyssey they embark on is at once the night of their lives and a gamble with life-and-death stakes.

LITTLE ACCIDENTS
Sara Colangelo writer/director; Jason Michael Berman, Anne Carey, Thomas B. Fore and Summer Shelton, producers — postproduction
In a small American coal town, the disappearance of a boy draws a young miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive and a local 14-year-old together in a web of secrets.

LOS VALIENTES / THE BRAVE ONES
Aurora Guerrero, writer/director; Chad Burris, producer — packaging
Felix Lopez is gay, undocumented and living in San Francisco until his family obligations move him across the country to a small Pennsylvania mining town to join his undocumented sister. Once there, alienated by local and family politics, Felix finds unexpected solace in the company of one person: his sister’s husband.

LOVE LAND
Joshua Tate, writer/director/producer; Andrew Richey, producer — postproduction
Love Land follows Ivy, a young woman with a severe traumatic brain injury, as she faces her refusal to be identified as a person with an intellectual disability. When she is placed in an institution for being a danger to herself and others, Ivy will stop at nothing to prove to the world — and to herself — that she is “normal” enough to transcend the label of “special.”

MA
Destin Cretton, writer/director — screenwriting
After being a mom for 30 years, Jan is forced to deal with the fact that her youngest son has finally left the nest. On a road-trip down the Oregon Coast, she begins to learn what it means to live life after motherhood.

MANOS SUCIAS
Josef Wladyka, writer/director; Elena Greenlee and Márcia Nunes, producers — postproduction
A desperate fisherman and a naive young man embark on a dangerous journey trafficking drugs up the Pacific coast of Colombia. Hidden beneath the waves, they tow a narco-torpedo filled with millions of dollars worth of cocaine. Together they must brave the war-torn region while navigating the growing tension between them.

START AT THE END
Jonah Markowitz, writer/director — packaging
Start at The End is a character-driven drama that explores the similarities between the family we are born into and the one that we create. The story begins with a tragic accident that results in a gay couple becoming caretakers of their teenaged niece and nephew. As grief catapults all four onto seemingly individual paths of despair and discovery, the inherent bond of family contains these journeys into one that is shared. 

TERRIBLE LOVE
Christopher Thomas, writer/director; Luke Helmer, producer — postproduction
When her wounded husband returns home from Iraq with violent PTSD, a devoted wife must choose between her daughter’s safety and the preservation of her marriage. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paula Wagner will produce the 5th Annual Governors Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced today.  The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and three Honorary Awards will be presented to Angelina Jolie, Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin and Piero Tosi, respectively, on Saturday, November 16, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center®.

“Paula’s expertise, coupled with her love for film, makes her the ideal person to produce this special event,” said Boone Isaacs.  “She is certain to deliver an exciting and memorable evening for our honorees and guests.”

“It is a privilege to work with the Academy to produce this year’s Governors Awards, honoring iconic talents who have deeply influenced our contemporary culture with their artistry,” said Wagner.  “I look forward to being a part of an event that illuminates and supports these artists’ incredible achievements.”

Wagner has produced or executive-produced more than 20 feature films, including the first three “Mission: Impossible” films, “Vanilla Sky,” “The Others” and “The Last Samurai,” as well as the television film “Five” and three Broadway plays (The Heiress, which received two Tony® nominations, Grace and the recently announced Mothers and Sons).  After beginning her career as an actress and then becoming a top-ranking talent agent at CAA, she went on to co-found Cruise/Wagner Productions and serve as CEO for United Artists.  She now continues to independently produce film and theater through her company Chestnut Ridge Productions.  Wagner is an adjunct professor at her alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, and also lectures at universities around the nation.  Wagner is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America and The Broadway League.  She also sits on the boards of the PGA, the Film Forum, American Cinematheque and the National Film Preservation Foundation.

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Director/writer, Andrea Arnold, has been selected as the 2013 Filmmaker in Residence at the The Film Society of Lincoln Center, to take place during the 51st New York Film Festival. The initiative is in partnership with luxury brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, to further the goals of filmmakers at an earlier stage in the creative process. Arnold will have the opportunity to focus on developing or refining new work, and participate in master classes, mentorships or cultural exchange and enrichment film programs with the Film Society of Lincoln members, the film community and the public.

“We are thrilled to announce Andrea Arnold as the 2013 Filmmaker in Residence during the 51st New York Film Festival.  Our partnership with Jaeger-LeCoultre on this cornerstone program fosters excellence in the filmmaking community, and reflects our shared belief in the universal power of film to inspire and engage the global community.” — Rose Kuo, Executive Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center

Andrea Arnold is an English director and writer who made her debut with two short films, MILK in 1998 and DOG in 2001. In 2005, Arnold won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for WASP and her first feature film, RED ROAD won the Jury Prize in Cannes in 2006. Her 2009 film FISH TANK starring Kate Jarvis and Michael Fassbender, once again won the Jury Prize and in 2011, she directed an adaptation of Emily Bronte¹s Wuthering Heights. The film was shown at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Osella for Best Cinematography.

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FORBIDDEN STEPS by Iram Parveen Bilal

Film Independent announced the screenwriters selected for its 14th annual Screenwriting Lab, sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, West. The Screenwriting Lab is an intensive five-week program designed to help writers improve their craft, and take their current scripts to the next level in a nurturing yet challenging creative environment. 

Under the tutelage of the Lab Mentors, the Fellows are advised on the craft and business of screenwriting, and are also introduced to established screenwriters, producers and film professionals who serve as guest speakers and one-on-one Advisors. Writer/Director Robin Swicord (The Jane Austen Book Club, Memoirs of a Geisha) and Writer Jeff Stockwell (Bridge to Terabithia, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) return as this year’s Mentors. Guest Speakers include Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) and Sian Heder (Orange is the New Black).

The Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television (SFTV) has a unique partnership with Film Independent. For the second year in a row, Film Independent and SFTV have partnered on the LMU SFTV Screenwriting Fellowship. Out of the 10 fellows selected, Eli Ibok, who is also an LMU alum, will be awarded a $10,000 LMU SFTV grant to develop his script, Trauma, through the Screenwriting Lab.

The Screenwriting Lab is provided free to invited screenwriters, who upon acceptance become Film Independent Fellows, receiving year-round support, including access to Film Independent’s annual film education offerings and the Los Angeles Film Festival. In addition, Lab Fellows are eligible to join the Independent Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America, West. Recent projects developed through the Lab include Robbie Pickering’s Natural Selection, which garnered multiple awards at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival, Beth Schacter’s Normal Adolescent Behavior, Scott Prendergast’s Kabluey, Philip Flores’ and Max Doty’s The Wheeler Boys, Suzi Yoonessi’s Dear Lemon Lima, Erin Cassidy and Bruce Pavalon’s We Are the Mods, and Minh Nguyen-Vo’s Buffalo Boy, which was Vietnam’s entry to the 2006 Academy Awards.

The 2013 Screenwriters Lab participants and their projects are:

1. Broad Street Diner – Three elderly male friends who meet daily at a neighborhood diner, find that 70 is the new 40 as they deal with friendship, new love, sickness and fatherhood, making it hard for them to retire from “Life.”

Fred Thomas Jr. the seven time 2012 N.A.A.C.P award nominee and winner of Best Director, Best Playwright and Best Producer for his play12’ x 9’ is an alumnus of Lincoln University, where he received his Bachelors in Journalism before attending Temple University and receiving his Masters in Film and Media Arts. To date, Thomas is the producer of the feature The Bachelor Party for Image Entertainment, director and a producer of the film 24 Hour Love, director/writer on the web series The Taboo Diaries, director on Moms the web series, and the co-writer/producer/director for the stage play What Would Divas Do? Divalogues, for TV One’s Network show R&B Divas L.A.

2. Forbidden Steps – A Muslim daughter struggles with the divisions between her passion for dancing and the will of her family.

Iram Parveen Bilal was raised in Nigeria and Pakistan, and is conscious of the rare opportunity and voice she has on the filmmaking playground. Having directed internationally recognized, award-winning short films, Josh is her feature debut that just released theatrically nationwide in Pakistan. Josh has been commissioned by Channel 4 and is in the process of international distribution. Other feature projects in development have received attention by IFP, The Academy’s Nicholl Writing Fellowship, Mumbai Mahindra Sankalan Lab, Film Independent and Women In Film. A Film Independent Fellow, Bilal has participated in Film Independent’s Project Involve, Directing Lab and Screenwriting Lab. Prominent awards and honors include the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, Stark Special Project Scholarship, Mabel Beckman Leadership Award, Paul Studenski Fellowship and the Dean’s Cup. She is an honors graduate of CalTech and the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC. More on www.iramparveenbilal.com.

3. Jamie and Jackie – Jamie and Jackie is the story of a small time thief who lives the life of a ghost until the day he’s invited to play a strange game with a woman he meets at a hotel. 

Tarik Karam is a filmmaker based in New York City who has worked side by side with director Stephen Daldry for the past six years. He co-produced the Oscar nominated Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close while also serving as Second Unit Director. Previously, Tarik collaborated with Daldry on the Oscar-nominated The Reader, serving as Second Unit Director and Associate Producer. Most recently, Tarik completed a short film entitled “ZZZZZZZ,” about two sleepwalkers in love, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and is set to play this year’s Austin Film Festival. Tarik graduated from the American Film Institute (AFI) with an MFA in Film Direction. He is a proud member of the DGA and his work can be found at www.tarikkaram.com.

4. Jane – After her sister’s fatal back alley abortion, Teresa, a bright, but naïve 1960’s college student, joins “Jane,” an underground group who break the law and risk their lives to help women find access to safe abortions.

Natalija Vekic is a screenwriter and director whose short films “The Sacred Heart” and “The Girl with the Pearl Suspended” have screened at the New York Underground Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Mill Valley International Film Festival. Natalija won a Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival for her short film “Lost & Found,” was the recipient of the prestigious Princess Grace Award in film and a San Francisco Individual Arts Commission Grant.

She is a co-producer on the documentary Strand: A Natural History of Cinema, directed by long time collaborator Christian Bruno. Strandreceived the inaugural Film Independent Fast Track HBO Fellowship and was selected to participate in the Documentary Lab at Film Independent.

Vekic is a recent graduate of the UCLA MFA screenwriting program where she spent countless sleepless nights writing screenplays and TV pilots. She received the Executive Board Award Fellowship, a UCLA Graduate Fellowship and was one of eight writers selected to work with Academy Award-winning screenwriter and UCLA alum Dustin Lance Black in a feature screenwriting seminar. She researched and wroteJane, which was inspired by a brave group of feminists in Chicago who broke the law to make sure women had access to safe abortions.

Vekic has a special place in her screenplays for runaways, outlaws and all the beautiful misfits who make the world so amazing. Family turmoil, forgiveness and how the past always manages to creep into the present — are at the heart of many of her scripts.

5. Love on the Tundra – Seemingly together, type-A Emily becomes obsessed with trying to “save” mentally ill Jacob, but in the process of helping him get better, begins to psychologically unravel herself.

Dana Turken is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker whose work lives somewhere between the real and the surreal, the dramatic and the comically absurd. She has directed eight short films and one play, through the Francis Ford Coppola One Act Festival. Dana grew up in Detroit and spent her youth training as a dancer. She studied semiotics at Brown University, directing at Prague’s FAMU Film Academy, and received her MFA in directing from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television.  A member of the International Cinematographers Guild, she spent five years in New York working in the camera department on feature films, episodic television, music videos, and commercials, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her MFA.

While at UCLA, Turken’s short film, “Love on the Tundra,” screened at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Athens Film and Video Festival, among others. Her film, “Arthur and the Bunnies,” premiered at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, and went on to screen at numerous venues, including, Comic-Con, Camerimage, Mill Valley Film Festival, Cucalorus, REDCAT, and the Columbus International Film Festival, where it won the Best of Festival award. In 2012, she was a directing fellow in Film Independent’s Project Involve. She recently directed a short screwball comedy, produced by Film Independent and sponsored by the Lincoln Motor Company and Vanity Fair. Turken is currently writing a script for independent producer Bergen Swanson about the 1960s battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.

6. The Murch – An extremely smart boy from the Midwest moves to the projects of North Carolina and learns that there is a high price for trying to fit in.

Elliott Williams was born in Seattle, but claims New York, North Carolina and Los Angeles as home. He has lived on both coasts, but he’s almost lived in half the states in the US. He began his corporate career as a management professional in the Fortune 10 Company GE Capital before moving on to pharmaceutical sales and management. Williams is also an Emmy award-winning producer who began his career behind the camera with a bit of good fortune. Williams’ first professional offering was the 2010 Official Sundance Selection Night Catches Us, which was also a winner at the Seattle International Film Festival and nominated for Best First Feature at The Spirit Awards before being distributed by Magnolia Pictures. He went back to school and earned a Master’s degree in Producing from the American Film Institute (AFI) and, while there, he produced the award-winning comedy web series #nitTWITS based on funny tweets. Upon completion of school, his thesis film, “Usagi-san,” won The Grand Jury Prize at the Ivy Film Festival, a Student Emmy Award and a BAFTA-LA Special Jury Prize. He also began writing at AFI and The Murch is his first screenplay. Elliott is very happy and proud to be a part of Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab and can’t wait to see this film reach its full potential.

7. Spa Night – Struggling to escape his crumbling family life, a closeted Korean-American teenager follows his desires and finds more than he bargains for at the Korean spa.

Andrew Ahn is a Korean-American filmmaker born and raised in Los Angeles. His short film “Dol (First Birthday)” premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and has screened at numerous other festivals and venues around the world, including Lincoln Center, REDCAT, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film received the Outfest Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Short Film. An alumnus of Film Independent’s Project Involve, Ahn also participated in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in June 2013 with his feature screenplay Spa Night. The project also received a Sundance Institute Cinereach Feature Film Fellow grant. Ahn is an alumnus of Film Independent’s Project Involve. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in English and received an MFA in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts.

8. Sugar – When a seasoned war correspondent is executed in a fancy Nairobi suburb, his 29 year-old lover is forced to confront corrupt politicians, Somali extremists and her own demons, in order to halt a coup d’état and expose the conspiracy behind his death.

A University of Chicago and AFI graduate born in New York and currently residing in Los Angeles, Thymaya Payne has directed a number of films including the short films “Apparent Horizon” (starring Peter Coyote), “Let’s Not and Say We Did,” and “Coup De Grace,” which premiered at the HBO Latino Film festival. In the summer of 2010 he completed his documentary film Love Limits, which was later released by Icarus films.

In 2008 Payne began a four-year journey to direct and produce an in-depth documentary about Somali piracy and its root causes calledStolen Seas. The film premiered at the Locarno Film festival and was awarded the Boccolino’ D’oro. Later, at the Palm Springs Film Festival,Stolen Seas won the John Schlesinger award for best Documentary. “A dangerous 90-minute immersion in a world where lawlessness applies to all sides” said Variety. The New York Times called the Stolen Seas “Magnificent.” Stolen Seas was theatrically released in early 2013.

9. Trauma – A veteran discharged after a spontaneous act of violence struggles to reorient himself to home town life and must face emotional scars resulting from a sexual assault he experienced in the military.

Edi Ibok wrote for online sites including IGN and Cracked.com and worked as a videographer and editor after graduating from Princeton University with a BA in Philosophy.  While enrolled in Loyola Marymount University’s Graduate Program in Film and Television Production, he won the Cosgrove Family Endowment and LMU’s Oscar Micheaux Award.  After earning his MFA, he photographed projects for the 18th Street Arts Center before his current job in distribution at Fox Home Entertainment.

10. Varenya – Varenya, a South Indian Hindu priest, accepts a young apprentice and is forced to question the doctrines of his religion.

Shripriya Mahesh is an Indian-born filmmaker based in San Francisco and New York City. Mahesh wrote and directed “The Color of Time,” a short film featuring Oscar nominees, James Franco and Jessica Chastain. The short is part of the collaborative feature film, Tar, which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. Her award-winning short films have played at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival (Frameline) and dozens more. Her film, “Reprise”, won the Best Student Film Award at the 12th deadCenter Film Festival, the Best Short by a Woman award at the 9th Salento International Film Festival, and was a finalist for the 6th Iris Prize. Mahesh’s first feature, Varenya, has been selected for IFP’s Emerging Storyteller section and will participate in Independent Film Week, 2013. It has also been selected for Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab, 2013. Mahesh had a successful career in Silicon Valley, ultimately managing a $400M business for eBay, before leaving the corporate world to dedicate herself to filmmaking. She is an MFA candidate at NYU’s Tisch Graduate Film Program, where she was awarded a Tisch School of the Arts Fellowship. She also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

 

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Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab (CAIRO 678) has been selected for the San Francisco Film Society’s sixth Artist in Residence program, October 1 – 15.  Diab’s schedule will include a screening of his debut feature film CAIRO 678, described as feminist drama exploring sexual harassment in Egypt. 

In Cairo 678, three Cairene women from different backgrounds join together in uneasy solidarity to combat the sexual harassment that has impacted each of their lives. We begin on an overcrowded bus line, dreaded by Fayza as a daily site of humiliation and anguish. Responding to a self-defense talk by Seba, whose own assault has driven her marriage apart, Fayza fights back-and soon has a police detective searching for her amid public panic. Meanwhile, Nelly, an aspiring comic, faces pressure from her family to drop a lawsuit against her attacker. Mohamed Diab’s deftly braided narrative tells a gripping, timely social tale through its patchwork of interconnected lives and deeds. — Rob Avila, Global Film Initiative

Mohamed Diab was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1977. Having migrated to Egypt, he studied commerce at Suez Canal University in Ismailia before pursuing film at the New York Film Academy. In 2011, Diab received a Webby Special Achievement Award for his role as a social media activist during the revolution in Egypt, for “embodying the spirit of the Internet and harnessing its power to bring freedom and democracy to [his] nation.” Prior to his directorial debut Cairo 678, he was the writer of four films (Real Dreams, The Island, The Replacement, and Congratulations), each of which enjoyed commercial success in Egypt. 

http://youtu.be/COesFcvkXaE

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Djerassi Resident Artists Program

The San Francisco Film Society, in partnership with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, announced the finalists for the 2014 Djerassi Residency Award / San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship, given annually to encourage the career of an emerging or established screenwriter. The fellowship is one of a number of screenwriting initiatives offered by Filmmaker360, the Film Society’s innovative and dynamic filmmaker services program.

The Djerassi Residency Award / San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship provides uninterrupted time for work, reflection and collegial interaction, making this award unique in its capacity to provide a screenwriter with an inspiring and supportive environment in a stunningly beautiful rural location. Located 40 miles south of San Francisco in the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean, this residency offers living and work-studio accommodations and all meals from August 5 through September 3, 2014, at no cost to the recipient. The finalists were selected from applications submitted in response to an international call for entries.

FINALISTS
Bretten Hannam — SPEAK THE WOLF
A rebellious Métis teenager finds himself at a youth boot camp in the far north. After accidentally shooting a staff member, he flees into the Arctic, where he encounters a young Inuit hunter. Stranded in a remote hunting camp, they are forced to face their inner demons in order to survive.

Kate Marks — MIRACLE MAKER
A washed up miracle maker, crippled by the problems and demands of a desperate world, runs away from her destiny and uncovers the land beyond her control.

Lea Nakonechny — A SWEETER WORLD
After falling on hard times when his bees die off, Jim Wiebe kills a competing beekeeper for his honey. Finding refuge in a Hutterite colony, he sees a chance at salvation. But how long can a guilty man stay in a place where the number one rule is to love thy neighbor?

Previous recipients of the Djerassi Residency Award are Joshua Zeman (2013) for his scientific drama Collider, Julie Tosh (2012) for her science fiction-infused family drama Program Rose, Adam Chanzit (2011) for his psychological thriller The 15th Stone and Kathryn Mockler (2010) for her project Weak People Are Fun to Torment.

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ROOFTOP FILMS & AT&T FEATURE FILM GRANT:Jonas Carpignano, A CHJANA

Rooftop Films which wraps up it’s Summer Series this weekend, announced the 2013 Filmmakers’ Fund grantees. Rooftop Films’ Founder and Artistic Director, Mark Elijah Rosenberg, said of the grants: “Every year, it is an honor for us at Rooftop to be able to support a new crop of amazing films thanks to the support of our community—our audience, partners and sponsors. We are proud to reflect the diversity of our community by awarding grants to a wide range of films this year, from comedies and wild new media projects to serious films addressing global political issues. Each of these filmmakers previously screened at our festival, so it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to give something back to them and help them make new films which will soon astonish the world.”

The 2013 Grantees are:

ROOFTOP FILMS & AT&T FEATURE FILM GRANT: Jonas Carpignano, A CHJANA
ROOFTOP FILMS & EASTERN EFFECTS EQUIPMENT GRANT: Todd Rohal, SWEET CHEEKS
ROOFTOP FILMS & EDGEWORX POST-PRODUCTION GRANT: Zachary Treitz & Kate Lyn Sheil, MEN GO TO BATTLE
ROOFTOP FILMS EQUIPMENT GRANT: Keith Miller, FIVE STAR
ROOFTOP FILMS & ADRIENNE SHELLY FOUNDATION SHORT FILM GRANT FOR WOMEN: Heather Courtney, Untitled Texas documentary
ROOFTOP FILMS & DCTV EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES GRANTS:
Darius Monroe Clark, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL
Sam Green, THE GREAT HEART OF HUMANITY
Natalie Paul, SWEET TEA
ROOFTOP FILMMAKERS’ FUND SHORT FILM GRANTS:
Riley Hooper, WORLD’S LONGEST YARD SALE
Yung Jake, KICKSTARDER
Mike Plante, GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE
Tom Schroeder & Lisa Paclet, ISLAND

Jonas Carpignano, A CHJANA
Determined and courageous Burkinabé friends, Ayiva and Abas, must persevere through the difficult journey across Africa on their way to finding new opportunities in Europe. But with their family and new home, local hostility and intolerance all hanging in the balance, Ayiva and Abas must consider what price a ‘better life’ is really worth. Rooftop screened Carpignano’s award-winning short film, A Chjana in 2012 and Bayou Black in 2011.

Todd Rohal, SWEET CHEEKS
Sweet Cheeks is the story of two nine-year-old brothers, Tyson and Tyler Butterfield, growing up among the twenty-four adopted children that live together in a one-room house where they eat, sleep, and get raised up by their loving parents. The boys find a gift for their mother inside of an abandoned mailbox which leads them on a mission where they run afoul of a slick reverend with strange ideas about love, steal a car from a daredevil hobo, get chased by a 6-inch tall man in a balloon, and confront Jesus Christ in heaven above. Sweet Cheeks exists in the uncharted territory located somewhere between the Our Gang shorts of the 1930s, Paper Moon, Night of the Hunter, Duck Soup and Forbidden Zone. Rooftop screened Rohal’s short films Knuckleface Jones and Hillbilly Robot in 2000 and 2001 and his feature-length films The Guatemalan Handshake in 2006 and The Catechism Cataclysm in 2012.

Zachary Treitz & Kate Lyn Sheil, MEN GO TO BATTLE
In the fall of 1861, most Americans predicted that the War Between the States would end by Christmas. Henry and Francis Mellon couldn’t care less. The two are struggling to hold on to their crumbling estate while bracing for another winter in central Kentucky. Living together in the last remaining structure on their family’s hemp farm, the two have become suffocatingly close. Francis’ practical jokes become more and more antagonistic until the night he accidentally injures Henry in a fight. Henry disappears in the night, leaving Francis alone to discover the hardship and deprivation that the war has in store for him. Rooftop has screened numerous films starring Kate Lyn Sheil, and showed Treitz’s short films The Mean Time (2008) and We’re Leaving (2011).

Sam Green, THE GREAT HEART OF HUMANITY
The Great Heart of Humanity is a new feature-length ‘live documentary’ by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green. The film, which is inspired loosely by the Guinness Book of Records, will weave together portraits of record-holding people places and things to create a meditation on fate and the outer contours of the human experience. The film will be screened with live narration and live soundtrack performed by the chamber group yMusic. Rooftop Films screened Sam Green’s film “Pie Fight ’69” (co-directed with Christian Bruno) in 2000 and his live documentaries Fog and The Biggest Smallest in 2013.

Darius Monroe Clark, THE EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL
Deep in the heart of Texas, what begins as an innocent tale of family, sacrifice, and financial hardship quickly escalates into a true-crime thriller. Fusing together compelling interviews, striking re-enactments, and home video, we are forced to ask ourselves how a 16 year old honor roll student evolved into a bank robber. Rooftop screened Monroe’s short film Train in 2011.

Natalie Paul, SWEET TEA
It’s a hot afternoon in gentrified Brooklyn, when Nicki, a tough native Brooklynite meets for the first time her boyfriend’s “baby mother” Amy – who turns out to be a Southern blond belle. The two women, as opposite as they are, challenge each other and somehow come to see each other in ways only the other can. Sweet Tea explores the reality of complicated relationships and complicated people – and how they desperately try to hang on, move on, make things work or let things go. Rooftop Films screened Natalie Paul’s first short film, Everything Absolutely (co-directed with Terence Nance) in 2013.

Keith Wilson, FIVE STAR
Five Star follows Primo and John as they face the challenges of urban manhood. For Primo, who turned Blood at age 12 (in the movie and in real life), this includes understanding what it means to be a father and an honest man. John has to decide if gang life is the path for him. Connecting them is John’s father, who was Primo’s mentor, and whose recent death by a supposedly stray bullet sets the story in motion. Based closely on real life elements, the distinction between the story in the movie and events in the ‘real world’ is intentionally blurred. Five Star is a follow up to Keith Miller’s award winning feature Welcome to Pine Hill (Rooftop 2012), which was based off his short filmPrince/William (Rooftop 2010).

Heather Courtney, Untitled Texas Project
“Untitled Texas Project” will follow one Planned Parenthood clinic’s struggle to survive in a state that has made massive cuts in family planning funding, and vilified Planned Parenthood in particular. In their efforts to get rid of abortion, Texas state legislators have also restricted access to contraception, women wellness exams, and pre-cancer screenings, resulting in 76 clinics either closing completely or cutting family planning services. This short documentary explores the human side of policy decisions, as we follow a year-in-the life of one west Texas clinic and the fall-out for their patients. Rooftop screened Courtney’s feature documentaries Letters from the Other Side (2006) and Where Soldiers Come From (2011).

Riley Hooper, THE WORLD’S LONGEST YARD SALE
Now in its 26th year, the world’s longest yard sale runs from Michigan to Alabama the first weekend of every August. It’s a massive exchange of not only goods, but also cultures, customs, ideas, and narratives. Riley Hooper’s short documentary focuses on objects being sold and bought along the route of the sale to reveal personal stories about the people buying and selling them — universal stories of family histories, love, loss, nostalgia, and the human experience. Rooftop screened Hooper’s film Flo in 2013.

Yung Jake, KICKSTARDER
“ayo this Yung Jake. i’m about to drop the most interactive rap video ever. 4 reel. it’s gonna be a video that automatically inserts my supporters; the people who have my back from day one (through day 30) of the time that KS is release will be forever embedded into the video, they jus have to pay a little. my day 1-30 niggas. yeah, so whatever img you want can be dragged onto the video wherever/whenever and publicly displayed for the world to see. like on my shirt or you can be in the background of the shot in my hood. prices range on how dope the area of insertion is. Rooftop Films screened my Datamosh video in 20013 that’s how they found me. email kickstarder@gmail.com to inquire about pre-ordering img spots.”

Mike Plante, GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE
In Ventura, CA, Giuseppe Andrews makes movies in his trailer park. A former child actor, Giuseppe is inspired by the crazy independent filmmakers of history: Cassavetes, Bunuel and Fassbinder… and now has 30 features of his own. With a handwritten script, a video camera, an acting ensemble of neighbors and homeless men and a few hundred bucks, we follow Giuseppe and crew as he sets out to make a feature film in just two days and shows that filmmaking is not for a small elite group but for everyone. Made by Adam Rifkin and by Mike Plante, whose Orbit(film): Earthshort played at Rooftop in 2012.

Tom Schroeder & Lisa Paclet, ISLAND
Isola del Giglio is the smallest island of the archipelago that includes Elba and Monte Cristo. One of the three small villages on the island, Campese, serves as a summer vacation retreat for middle class Italian families. Island will be a 12 minute animated film documenting the course of one day in Campese rendered in an impressionistic, sketchbook style. Rooftop screened Paclet’s film Ursonate (2006) and three of Schroeder’s films: Bike Ride (2002), Bike Race(2011) and Marcel, King of Tervuren (2013).

descriptions via Rooftop Films

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