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[caption id="attachment_3339" align="alignnone" width="550"]Recent SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winners include Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton’s sophomore feature which just won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013[/caption]

The 12 finalists were announced for the latest round of San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants; more than $300,000 will be awarded to one or more narrative feature films at any stage of production. Winners of the spring 2013 SFFS/KRF Grants will be announced in mid-April. 

Recent SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winners include Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton’s sophomore feature which just won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013; Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category at Sundance 2013; 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
Rod Blackhurst, director and Josh Murphy, producer – North (production)
Rack is a 38-year-old recently released ex-convict, struggling with his return to a neglectful society. Emotionally discarded by his family and caught in a flawed parole system, he embarks on a bicycle journey to northern California to find Rebecca, the girl he left behind. With his criminal past threatening to resurface at every turn, Rack discovers what it means to be truly free and how fragile his newly gained freedom can be.

Jonas Carpignano, writer/director – A Chjana (preproduction)
After leaving his native Burkina Faso, Ayiva makes the perilous journey across the Sahara and Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe. Once in Italy, he must balance his desire to provide for his family in Africa with the intolerance and harsh working conditions he finds in his newly claimed home.

Grainger David, writer/director – Nocturne (working title) (screenwriting)
Nocturne is the story of a white South Carolina cop on the verge of retirement who accidentally kills a young black teenager he suspects of a recent robbery and murder. In a moment of extreme weakness, he hides the boy’s body in a woodshed-only to return a day later to discover it has disappeared.

Ian Hendrie and Jyson McLean, co-writers/directors/producers – Mercy Road(development)
Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the political and spiritual odyssey of a small town housewife as she turns from a peaceful pro-life activist to an underground militant willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.

Dan Kern, writer/director and Jay Van Hoy, producer – Relapse(screenwriting)
Relapse is a sci-fi thriller about an amnesia patient accused of murder who goes on the run in an attempt to prove his innocence and save the woman he loves.

Maryam Keshavarz and Paolo Marinou-Blanco, cowriters – The Last Harem(screenwriting)
The Last Harem follows the battle between Jayran, a young musician girl, and Malik Jahan, the mother of the newly-ascended boy-king, for the affection of the new monarch and control of the palace’s extensive harem. Whoever wins becomes the most powerful woman in the Persian empire…

Richard Levien, writer/director and Chad Burris, producer – La Migra(development)
Twelve-year-old Itan’s life in San Francisco is turned upside down when she comes home from school to find her apartment ransacked and her mother missing. Suddenly she must rely on her estranged uncle Eevencio, who she suspects is a criminal. They cross the country in Eevencio’s dilapidated truck, through the labyrinth of immigration detention, trying to find Itan’s mother and prevent her from being deported.

Zeresenay Mehari, writer/director and Leelai Demoz, producer – Dare(postproduction)
Dare is the story of a young lawyer who operates under the government’s radar until one young girl’s legal case exposes everything and threatens the survival of her work and life.  

Tommy Oliver, writer/director/producer – 1982 (postproduction)
Semi-autobiographical and inspired by true events, 1982 tells the story of a black father whose wife succumbs to a crack cocaine addiction and his efforts to shield his young daughter from the ill effects of having a drug-addicted mother. Set at the very onset of the crack epidemic, the film is about a father doing whatever he can to protect his family.

Vendela Vida, cowriter and Eva Weber, cowriter/director – Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (screenwriting)
28-year-old Clarissa discovers on the day of her father’s funeral that everything she believed about her life was a lie. She flees New York and travels to the Artic Circle to find her real father, but instead is reunited with her mother who abandoned her when Clarissa was only 14.

Caroline von Kuhn, producer – The Fixer (development)
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 emerges all around him.

Josef Wladyka, cowriter/director – Manos Sucias (production)
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.

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The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) today announced the program for the second annual TFI INTERACTIVE daylong conference at the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF). Made possible by support from the Ford Foundation, TFI INTERACTIVE, which launched at last year’s TFF, will assemble the brightest thinkers and innovators from the worlds of film, media, gaming, technology and society to explore storytelling in digital age through an all-day forum on Saturday, April 20.

Through a full day of panels and presentations, thought leaders will share their insights with TFF attendees and inspire content creators to rethink paradigms. The day will explore the digital media ecosystem and the tools and trends that are changing the art of business and film. Conversations will range from the rich narratives found in adventure games led by Kill Screen co-founder Jamin Warren, to a look at why telling stories is so important and advantageous to society, to an examination of how code and maker culture can give artists and creators a rich new digital palette to work with. The event will take place from 9:30 am – 5pm at the IAC Building and is open to all TFF badge holders and invited guests. Attendees can participate and share comments via Twitter hashtag #TFII.

“At TFI INTERACTIVE, we will weave our way from hacking to maker culture, and from games to web docs as we explore the rapidly evolving field of transmedia through a number of project case studies,” said Ingrid Kopp, Director of Digital Initiatives at the Tribeca Film Institute. “Last year we looked at the media industry with a wide lens to see how different fields apply theories of interactivity. So much has evolved in the last 12 months and this year’s program seeks to highlight the creators and projects experimenting with audience involvement and immersive spaces. It’s time for more big ideas, inspiring projects and amazing people.”

The second annual TFI INTERACTIVE conference joins a range of other TFF and TFI initiatives that bridge filmmaking and technology, including TFF’s Storyscapes – a juried, multi-platform transmedia section created in collaboration with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin that will launch at the 2013 Festival along with the Bombay Sapphire Award for Transmedia, and the annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards; as well as year-round programming like the Future of Film discussion series; Tribeca Hacks, a nationwide series of workshops that brings together content creators with technology experts to increase understanding in the field of interactive storytelling; the Tribeca Online Festival; and the TFI New Media Fund, which, in partnership with the Ford Foundation, provides funding and support to non-fiction, social issue media projects that integrate film with content across media platforms.

TFI INTERACTIVE – PROGRAM & SCHEDULE:

9:50 a.m. – Opening remarks

Beth Janson, executive director of the Tribeca Film Institute

10 a.m. – KEYNOTE: THE CLOUD FILM MAKING MANIFESTO

Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards

Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and recipient of 50
 awards including one of Tribeca’s Disruptive Innovation Awards will present a Live “Cloud Filmmaking Manifesto” where she will describe her new participatory way of making films collaboratively with people all over the world.  She has released 3 of these films to date, customized for free for nearly 500 nonprofits worldwide (part of the Cloud Filmmaking concept), and the last one, Brain Power: From Neurons to Networks, was just selected by the US State Department as one of the films to represent America in the 2013-14 American Film Showcase. In this keynote she will share how she makes these films as well as premiere their latest short film in the series, The Science of Character.

10:40 a.m. – A WISH FOR THE FUTURE

Lance Weiler, filmmaker and innovator
Wish For The Future is a creative platform to empower everyone to shape the world around them and create a better future now. Lance Weiler is known as an interactive media trailblazer and for TFI Interactive will be taking the digital into physical throughout the event with the help of the audience.

11a.m. – PANEL: ARE ADVENTURE GAMES THE NEW TELEVISION?

Moderated by Jamin Warren, co-founder of Kill Screen; confirmed panelists include Sarah Elmaleh (Kill Screen)
Think you know everything about narrative? When it comes to gaming you may be surprised. Adventure games are maturing and increasingly seen as a perfect narrative complement to the rich storytelling found on television. Jamin Warren of Kill Screen talks with panelists about the future of gaming and the evolution of narrative.

11:30 a.m. – NFB INTERACTIVE SINCE BEAR 71

Loc Dao, head of digital content and strategy for English Programming at the National Film Board of Canada
Loc Dao will take attendees through the projects NFB Interactive has been working on since the smash hit Bear 71. They are about to do it again with Circa 1948 by Stan Douglas, a 3D historical augmented reality app that captures the stories and architecture of a transitional post-war era Canada. Get a sneak peak of this exciting project by a world-renowned artist.

11:50 a.m. – STORY+WONDER

Jason Silva, filmmaker and futurist

Called a “Timothy Leary for the Viral Video Age”, Jason Silva is known as an innovator and disruptor.  He definitely breaks the traditional media mould with his wide-ranging curiosity and infectious enthusiasm. His non commercial short films have been seen millions of times online and Jason has spoken at TEDGlobal and keynoted events for IBM, INTEL, Microsoft and SXSW.. In this 20 minute inspirational talk he will touch upon some of the highlights of his past work, the pace of technological disruption, and reflect on why telling stories is so important to us. Jason can be seen this April as the host of National Geographic Channel’s new series Brain Games.

12:10 p.m. – LOCALORE SESSION 1
Localore, an independent producer-driven public media production from AIR, Inc, has birthed a set of inspiring transmedia projects that open our imaginations to the new possibilities of “full spectrum storytelling.” Some of the most meaningful and powerful projects happen on our doorsteps. Discover ten of them.

·AUSTIN MUSIC MAP – Uncovering Austin’s surprisingly diverse sonic subculture in tandem with fans and performers. 

·REINVENTION STORIES – Reinvention offers residents of Dayton a chance to reflect on how they’re remaking their lives and community. 

·PLANET TAKEOUT – Planet Takeout solicits perspectives from both sides of the counter on how Chinese carryouts have become an unlikely crossroads of community.

·HEAR HERE – Hear Here seeks residents’ most resonant place-based stories enabled in art by a custom-built booth inspiring mobile listening and contributions

·BLACK GOLD BOOM – Black Gold Boom traverses the oil rigs, man camps, and crossroads of North Dakota’s oil rush through a series of lively multimedia pieces.

12:40 p.m. – A WEB-DOCUMENTARY MANIFESTO

Jesse Shapins, CEO/co-founder of Zeega
Zeega has quickly enabled film makers across the world to create non-linear, online stories without the need for a degree in computer programming. In this 10-minute presentation, Jesse Shapins will lay out a collaborative manifesto for web-documentary. 

12:50 p.m. – TFI NEW MEDIA FUND PRESENTS THE 2013 GRANTEES – Session 1

[caption id="attachment_3344" align="alignnone" width="550"]HOLLOW[/caption]

·HOLLOW – Elaine Mcmillion: Like many post-industrial communities across the country, McDowell County, W. Va., is struggling to survive. Through Hollow, the Appalachian community represents themselves and their challenges as they see fit. Hollow combines video portraits, interactive data visualizations, social media and user-generated content delivered on an HTML5 website to support engagement and inspire change.

[caption id="attachment_3345" align="alignnone" width="550"]QUESTION BRIDGE[/caption]

·QUESTION BRIDGE: BLACK MALES – Hank Willis Thomas: A transmedia art project that seeks to represent and redefine black male identity in America. Through video mediated question and answer exchange facilitated through strategic digital channels, diverse members of this “demographic” bridges economic, political, geographic, and generational divisions.

[caption id="attachment_3346" align="alignnone" width="550"]IMMIGRANT NATION[/caption]

·IMMIGRANT NATION – Theo Rigby: Nearly every person in the U.S. has an immigration journey — be it their own or the voyage of a relative in the past. As the topic of immigration divides communities across the country, our shared history can create commonality between recent immigrants and those whose families have lived in the U.S. for generations. Immigrant Nation will use documentary film, user-generated storytelling, and data visualization to provide a social space for communities to share and connect with their immigrant histories.

1:00-2:00 p.m. – LUNCH

2:00 p.m. – TFI NEW MEDIA FUND PRESENTS THE 2013 GRANTEES – Session 2

[caption id="attachment_3347" align="alignnone" width="550"]ALMA, A TALE OF VIOLENCE[/caption]

·ALMA – Alexandre Brachet: For five years, Alma has been a member of one of Guatemala’s most brutal gangs, the Maras. “Alma, a tale of violence” is a cross-platform project based on her life. In a moving confession, Alma tells her story through a unique interactive web/tablet concept in which the viewer moves between two screen levels, a face-to-face experience and a visual evocation of Alma’s recollections.

[caption id="attachment_3348" align="alignnone" width="550"]NEW DAY NEW STANDARD[/caption]

·NEW DAY NEW STANDARD – Marisa Jahn: A public art interactive hotline that informs nannies, housekeepers, elder caregivers, and their employers about New York’s landmark Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, passed in November 2010. Part I features episodes combining equal parts advice and humor; Part II features an expanded storytelling initiative for callers to record and share their own messages.

2:10 p.m. – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY

Caspar Sonnen, curator, IDFA DocLab

In 2008 most of our attentions were turned to the impending doom of Wall Street. Caspar, however, was out creating the IDFA DocLab and setting forth on a journey that would lead the way for the exhibition of interactive documentary. Caspar will look at the past, present and the future of this work with an unusually broad base of experience to draw from.

2:30 p.m. – SHARE THIS, YOUR STORY, BUT SOCIAL

Deanna Zandt, co-founder and partner of Lux Digital

Deanna Zandt, media technologist and author of Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, will show how social change movements take root through collaborative media and how to harness the power of social.

2:40 p.m. – THE AATSINKI SEASON

Jessica Oreck, filmmaker, and Mike Knowlton, co-founder Murmur

Developed during a P.O.V. hackathon this seasonal and episodic online documentary is the companion piece to Aatsinki: The Arctic Cowboys (screening during the Festival). This experiential project lives alongside and supports the feature length documentary.

2:50 p.m. – LOCALORE SESSION 2

·ED ZED OMEGA – Asking the question “what does school accomplish?”

·ISEECHANGE – Flipping the scrip on environmental reporting via a participatory hub

·CURIOUS CITY – Inviting locals to pitch in at newsrooms

·SONIC TRACE – A multiplatform documentary on the experience of Latin American immigrants

·MAKING OF – a musical performance from veteran radio producers The Kitchen Sisters

3:20 p.m. – KICKSTARTING STORYTELLING

Stephanie Pereira, director of art programs at Kickstarter

Stephanie Pereira is a self-confessed make-it-happen kind of person who will explore how the Kickstarter crowd funding platform can be used as a storytelling tool – it’s about the audience as much as it is the money.

3:30 p.m. – PANEL: GLUE IT, CODE IT, TWEAK IT, PLAY IT

Confirmed panelists: Reshma Saujani (Girls Who Code), Sonali Sridhar (Hacker School), Amit Pitaru (Kitchen Table Coders), Adnaan Wasey (P.O.V.)

Maker culture is more than knowing how to code, it is about a state of mind – if you can think it you can probably make it. The theory isn’t that far removed from that moment where you get the idea for a film, the only difference is the next step. This panel explores rapid prototyping and getting your hands dirty to get something made and into the hands of your audience as quickly as possible.

4 p.m. – WELCOME TABLE

Joslyn Barnes, producer

WelcomeTable is a multiplatform project including a visual/auditory installation featuring large-scale photography, video portraits and live data to reveal the people behind the kitchen doors in restaurants across America. Joslyn Barnes will take us through all the elements of the project that shows that eating local is only half the battle.

4:10 p.m. – CLOUDS

James George and Jonathan Minard, media artists

CLOUDS includes interviews with 30 new media artists, curators, designers, and critics, using a super-exciting new 3D cinema format called RGBD which uses a Kinect to create a videogame-like film environment. The creators of CLOUDS will take about the possibilities for creative code and creative filmmaking using their open-source RGBD Toolkit.

4:20 p.m. – PANEL: STORYSCAPES – CREATING IMMERSIVE STORY EXPERIENCES
Moderated by Ingrid Kopp, director of digital initiatives at the Tribeca Film Institute; confirmed panelists include Hugues Sweeney (A Journal of Insomnia), Brent Hoff, Alexander Reben (Robots in Residence), Casey Pugh (Star Wars Uncut), Michael Premo (Sandy Storyline)
Storyscapes is a new section at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013, in collaboration with Bombay Sapphire, celebrating interactive transmedia projects across genres. The creators will talk about their projects and describe the process of bringing work from the web to an immersive, installation space at a film festival.

4:50 p.m. – CLOSING REMARKS

Orlando Bagwell, director of the JustFilms initiative at the Ford Foundation

5:00 p.m. – Cocktail hour

 source: Tribeca Film Institute

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Ten filmmakers with unfinished projects were selected out of 560 submissions from across the country to participate in the 10th Annual Tribeca All Access (TAA) program. TAA will support each project with an initial $15,000 grant as well as offer year-round support, guidance, and resources for filmmakers to help advance their projects toward completion.  TAA will present the 11 projects—6 narratives and 5 documentaries—at a three-day career-development program from April 22-24, during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), April 17-28, 2013.

Two projects will also be selected as recipients of the juried Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award; an additional $10,000 grant will be awarded to one documentary and one feature project. 

: 2007 TAA alum Cherien Dabis, whose latest feature May in Summer, opened the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Past TAA-supported films have gone on to premiere at film festivals around the country, received distribution deals and garnered critical acclaim. These include titles such as:

When I Saw You, Palestine’s official entry for the Academy Awards, directed by Ann-Marie Jacir (2012), winner of the NETPAC prize for Best Asian Film at the Berlin International Film Festival;

American Promise, directed by Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster (2013), winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival;

Four, directed by Joshua Sanchez (2009), winner of the Urbanworld Film Festival and Independent Spirit Award nominee;

Circumstance, directed by Maryam Keshavarz  (2011), Audience Award-winner at the Sundance Film Festival;

Una Noche, directed by Lucy Mulloy (2012), winner of Best New Director at the Tribeca Film Festival and Best Script at the Brasilia International Film Festival;

Gideon’s Army, directed by Dawn Porter (2011), alumni introduction to her producer HBO Documentaries, winner of the Best Editing Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival; and

Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, directed by Shola Lynch which will open in theatres nationwide on April 5, 2013 and is Executive Produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith and Jay Z

Five grants will be awarded to documentary projects in various stages:

Long Year Begin, Directed and Produced by Malika Zouhali-Worrall and David Osit – An icy vault in the Arctic Circle safely stores seeds from around the world, but there is no such vault for humans or nations. Long Year Begin offers a poetic meditation on humanity’s perpetual quest for self-preservation. 

Roots & Webs, Directed by Sara Dosa, Produced by Josh Penn – Amid the bustling frontier world of Oregon’s matsutake mushroom camps, an unexpected father-son pair endures a tumultuous mushroom-hunting season. They grapple with wounds from Southeast Asian wars, attempting to find the high-priced mushroom before snowfall. An odyssey into the woods, into the memory of war and survival, Roots & Webstells a story of family from enigmatic woodland realm.

(T)Error, Directed and Produced by Lyric R. Cabral and David F. Sutcliffe – (T)Error captures the spectacular unraveling of an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation, and the dramatic aftermath that occurs when the target of the investigation realizes that a government informant is setting him up.

Time Is Illmatic, Directed and Produced by One9, Produced by Erik Parker – A feature length documentary film told through the lens of rapper Nas and his bluesman father Olu Dara, Time Is Illmatic deconstructs Nas’ indelible rap album Illmatic and the socio-economic and cultural conditions that inspired the landmark work and gave voice to a generation.

Unveiling Shirin, Directed and Produced by Nariman Hamed, Produced by Victorien and Anna Lena Vaney– A feature length documentary film about the artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat that takes us inside Shirin’s world and explores her life and work. It is the story of her life and challenges as a female Iranian artist living in exile.

Five grants will be awarded to narrative projects in various stages:

If You Stay, Written, Directed, and Produced by Roja Gashtilli; Written and Directed by Julia Lerman – Iranian-born, American-bred Elham “Ellie” Amiri runs out of patience with her All-American lover and America when neither seems to want to commit to her.  Coming of age meets coming to America in this moving and imaginative comedy about youth, identity and sexual politics in NYC.

Khoya, Written and Directed by Sami Khan; Produced by Karen Shaw; Executive Producer Guneet Monga– After the death of his adopted mother, a Canadian man travels to rural India desperately searching for the birth family he’s never known and seeking to unravel the mystery surrounding his adoption.

The Lobbyists, Written, Directed, and Produced by Terence Nance; Produced by Andrew Corkin; Produced by Chanelle Pearson; Produced by James Bartlett – A conman with no past and a former CIA agent join forces to “lobby” politicians by blackmailing them into voting for progressive legislation.

Obvious Child, Written and Directed by Gillian Robespierre; Produced by Elisabeth Holm – In this subversive romantic comedy about growing up without regret, 27 year-old emerging comic Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) gets dumped, fired, pregnant, and has the best worst Valentine’s Day of her life.

Papaw Easy, Written and Directed by Martha Stephens; Written by Karrie Crouse; Produced by Brett Potter – Under the watchful eye of his vain, ‘Modern Christian’ uncle, a shy young boy forges an unlikely partnership with a foul-mouthed, down and out playboy.

The narrative project selected to participate from the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is:

Combarde, Written and Directed by Boris Rodriguez; Produced by Anne-Marie Gelinas and Concepcion Taboada – A union organizer in Mexico loses his job and joins a band of corrupt detectives planning to kidnap the company’s owner.

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