The San Francisco Film Society today announces the winner of the inaugural Filmmaker Education Screenwriting Scholarship, the first initiative of the newly instituted Colleges and Universities Program (CUP) of the Film Society’s rapidly expanding education department. Annika Wood, a full-time student in the Cinema Department at City College of San Francisco, has been awarded a full tuition scholarship to From Rough to Polished, the third level of the SFFS screenwriting track. Wood’s script, Backwater, is a razor-sharp comedy set in the waterways of southern Louisiana that plumbs the alchemy of Southern manners, malice and malaise.

Joanne Parsont, the Film Society’s recently appointed director of education said, “We are thrilled to be offering our first Filmmaker Education scholarship to an inspiring student such as Annika. The originality and style of her screenplay submission clearly demonstrated the vision and skills of a talented young writer with the potential to take full advantage of our screenwriting program. We look forward to witnessing the end results of her hard work.”

From Rough to Polished is a four-month course with a high level of individual attention that guides screenwriters through a second draft of their completed full-length screenplay. More information on this class and the SFFS screenwriting program can be found at sffs.org/classes-and-workshops.

The Colleges and Universities Program (CUP) at the Film Society aims to develop stronger relationships between the Film Society and Bay Area institutions of higher learning that will create opportunities and a community for students transitioning into the professional world.

New initiatives in the formative stages at the SFFS education department include online classes, curricula and webinars; filmmakers-in-schools programs; professional development workshops for K-12 teachers; an educational media lending library; media literacy classes for youth and educators; and youth internships.

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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