Mora Stephens, winner of the Hearst Screenwriting Grant, on the set of her film The Conventioneers.

Overview | Winner | Finalists Announced |  Eligibility | Application Guidelines

The San Francisco Film Society announced October 20, 2009 winner and honorable mention of the Hearst Screenwriting Grant. Mora Stephens has been awarded a grant of $15,000 for her project, Made in the USA. Caveh Zahedi received an Honorable Mention for his project, The Jerusalem Syndrome. This grant, supported by a gift from William R. Hearst III, is a major component of the SFFS screenwriting initiative and the newest element of the Film Society’s rapidly expanding Filmmaker Services program.

Read the press release

FALL 2009 WINNER

Mora Stephens, $15,000, Made in the USA

Following the funeral of his high-school girlfriend, a young American man sets out on an odyssey to Shanghai, Shenzhen and finally Saipan to find and rescue his daughter.

Mora Stephens cowrote and directed the feature film Conventioneers, which won the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature (Made for Under $500,000) as well as the Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Florida Film Festival. The film premiered at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, had its international premiere in Korea at the Pusan International Film Festival and was released by Cinema Libre Studio in 2007. An alumna of NYU’s graduate film program and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Stephens has written numerous short films and plays including Breaking Bread, which aired on Showtime in September 2002 as part of Reflections from Ground Zero. She cowrote the independent feature Devil’s Pond, directed by Joel Viertel and starring Kip Pardue and Tara Reid, released by Artisan in 2003. She has been the recipient of a number of prestigious screenwriting awards and filmmaker labs including the Tribeca Film Institute’s Tribeca All Access program, Film Independent’s Directors Lab, the Los Angeles Film Festival/Filmmaker Magazine’s Fast Track program, the Asian Cinevision Screenplay Contest and the Korean Film Council Filmmakers’ Development Lab. At the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival, Stephens was awarded the PPP/Overseas Koreans Foundation Filmmaker Fund prize for her screenplay The 38th Parallel. She currently is developing her screenplay Homeland with producer Heather Rae (Frozen River). Stephens is a cofounder of Hyphenate Films. For more information: hyphenatefilms.com

Read the press release

OVERVIEW

The Hearst Screenwriting Grant is given to a mid-career screenwriter who has been a practicing writer for at least five years and who has previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. The grant is open to writers residing in the United States whose project expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to the subject. Priority is given to writers whose previous short or feature screenplays have been produced as an independent film.

2010 Grant
$15,000 will be disbursed in December 2010.

ELIGIBILITY

SFFS Filmmaking Grants are open to screenwriters that satisfy the following criteria.
•    Applicant must be at least 18 years old.
•    Applicant must have been a practicing writer for at least five years and have written a minimum of one previous feature screenplay.
•    Applicant must reside in the United States.
•    Work must express both a unique personal perspective and artistic approach to the subject.
•    The application, screenplays and treatments must be written in English.
•    Scripts must be properly formatted to industry standard. Digital submissions must be in PDF format only.
•    Scripts by more than one writer are eligible but the grant will be given to the applicant only.
Priority will be given to
•    Writers who have had their previous short or feature screenplays made into an independent film.
•    Projects that are vibrant, intelligent, moving and innovative.

Evaluation Criteria
•    Filmmaker clearly articulates his or her intended goals for the Grant
•    Filmmaker demonstrates how the Grant will impact short- and long-term professional and artistic goals.
Restrictions
•    Filmmaker may not be a SFFS employee or member of any SFFS board.
•    Filmmaker may not be a full-time student.
•    Project is not work for hire.
•    Only one application per project will be accepted.
•    Script must not have been optioned, purchased, in production or produced.
•    Adaptations of any work (other than your own or your co-writer's) are not eligible.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES

Deadlines
•    Letter Of Inquiry (LOI) period opens September 2, 2010
•    LOI deadline is October 1, 2010
•    Finalists are invited to submit additional materials October 22, 2010
•    Additional materials deadline for finalists is November 12, 2010
•    Winner will be announced December 9, 2010

How to Apply
Submit a Letter of Inquiry on the SFFS website.
Finalists will be asked to submit the following:
    * A three to ten page treatment
    * A minimum of ten pages of the script you are applying for
    * Work Sample: A minimum of ten pages of a previous feature screenplay
    * A work sample explanation

NOTE: Filmmakers with incomplete applications will not be considered

Work samples and full application must be received by 5:00 pm on, or postmarked by November 12, 2010 to:

SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant
c/o San Francisco Film Society
39 Mesa Street, Suite 110
San Francisco, CA 94129

Review Panel
The Film Society will convene a panel to evaluate applications and award grants at its sole discretion.

Payment
Payment will be made via business check and can be made out to an individual or company name according to recipient specifications. The Film Society will issue a 1099 form at year's end reflecting grant income.

Reporting Requirement
Grant recipients will be required to submit a progress report and a new work sample six months, from the date of the grant award.

APPLY ONLINE
Access online application