Winners | Overview | Eligibility | Application Guidelines | Apply Online

San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced November 10, 2009 the winners of the Fall 2009 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants, given to two filmmakers for narrative feature films with social justice themes.

Due to the vision and generosity of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the panelists awarded the two $35,000 grants to Amanda Micheli for Tomboy and Jeff Zimbalist for The Scribe of Urabá.

The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. The grant supports films that have a significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. The grants, which run 2009–2013, will be awarded in the spring and fall of each year. The total amount disbursed over these five years will be over $3 million, including a total of $190,000 for Spring 2010 and a total of $225,000 for Fall 2010. The letter of inquiry period for the third SFFS/KRF grant, to be announced, for screenwriting, script development, preproduction, production and postproduction, opens January 6, 2010; the deadline is February 5, 2010. Winners for the Fall 2009 grant follow.

For more information, see the press release.

FALL 2009 WINNERS

Amanda Micheli: $35,000, Tomboy, Screenwriting/Script Development
Sixteen-year-old Ruby Ciaccio idolizes her father, Frank, a former NFL linebacker buried in debt and addicted to painkillers. Frank taught Ruby to throw like a boy, but expected her to grow into a lady. Against Frank’s will, Ruby joins an all-girl rugby team and must choose between pleasing her father and finding her true self. TOMBOY is a full-contact coming-of-age story about a girl struggling to invent her own definitions of family, sexuality, and courage.Amanda Micheli is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker with over a decade of experience as both a director / producer and a cinematographer. She most recently co-directed La Corona, which premiered at Sundance in 2008 and was nominated for an Academy Award before airing on HBO. In 2004, she premiered Double Dare at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the audience award for documentary feature at the San Francisco International Film Festival and AFI Fest, among others. Her first film, Just for the Ride, won a student Oscar and an International Documentary Association Award and aired on PBS 1995. Her other director of photography and producer credits include Thin, Cat Dancers, Brave New Voices, 30 Days, My Flesh and Blood and The Flute Player. For more information visit runawayfilms.com.

Jeff Zimbalist: $35,000, The Scribe of Urabá, Pre-production
Based on real events, The Scribe of Urabá chronicles the rise of the Nobel Prize–nominated Peace Community movement in Latin America through the personal story of a 14-year-old Colombian girl whose father is murdered for being a union leader at a rural Colombian Coca-Cola bottling plant. The girl’s life collides with that of an African American public relations executive at Coca Cola’s U.S. headquarters, who is assigned to ameliorate controversy around the violent union bust.

Jeff Zimbalist is an Emmy Award–nominated writer, director and editor whose films such as Favela Rising have won more than 35 international film festival awards, have been broadcast on HBO, PBS, Channel 4 UK, ESPN and BET and have been theatrically distributed throughout the Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia. He has produced documentaries on third world development issues for clients such as the UNDP, the World Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank. He is a Brown University graduate and 2006 Ford Foundation grantee. For more information visit favelarising.com

OVERVIEW
The San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants will disburse a series of annual grants over the next five years totaling $3 million for narrative feature films.

The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants support films that through plot, character, theme or setting significantly explore human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender and sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time. This bold, unprecedented initiative will help realize the Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s visionary goals at the same time as it consolidates the Film Society’s position as a national leader in support of cinematic work that celebrates humanity in all its variety and vitality.

“The Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s mission is to fund inspiring, world-changing work,” said Jennifer Rainin, KRF founder and president. “We are thrilled to partner with the San Francisco Film Society to harness the power and influence of film for positive social change and to support the vibrant Bay Area film community.”

“The Film Society is supremely proud and grateful to be entering into this extraordinary partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation,” said Graham Leggat, SFFS executive director. “The Foundation’s enlightened patronage promises to have a transformative effect on Bay Area film culture.” The grants, which run 2009–13, will be awarded in the spring and fall of each year.

The SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants provides tangible encouragement and support to meaningful projects and benefits the local economy. In addition to the cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through the Film Society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services programs.

Additional Benefits to Grant Recipients

• Automatic consideration for a FilmHouse Residency of up to six months
• Feature articles on SF360.org when the winner is announced, when the project is in production and when the project is exhibited
• Opportunity to present work-in-progress at SFFS Film Arts Forum
• Waiver of fiscal sponsorship fee, with full access to fiscal sponsorship services including proposal and budget review, consultation and referral regarding production, exhibition, distribution and marketing and networking opportunities
• Discounted Industry pass to SFIFF
• Invitations to SFFS private events in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Park City, Cannes and Toronto

SPRING AND FALL 2010 GRANTS
A total of $190,000 for Spring and a total of $225,000 for Fall will be disbursed in 2010.

ELIGIBILITY
SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants are open to independent filmmakers and film projects that satisfy the following criteria:

• Applicant must be in a key creative role for the film: screenwriter, producer or director.
• Applicant must be an SFFS member at the Filmmaker Pro level or above or must pay the $35 administrative fee.
• Applicant must be at least 18 years old.
• Applicant must be actively engaged in a narrative feature film project in one of the following phases: Screenwriting/Script development, Preproduction, Production, Postproduction
• Film must significantly feature a plot, character, theme or setting that reveals or explores human and civil rights, antidiscrimination, gender issues, sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues of our time.
• Applicants or film must have a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area and uplift the Bay Area film community in one or more of the following ways:
  1) A significant percentage of the screenwriting, or preproduction, or production or postproduction budget will be spent in the Bay Area.
  2) The film was or will be shot in the San Francisco Bay Area; or a majority of the cast or crew lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  3) If applying for screenwriting, the applicant must reside in the Bay Area.
  4) The filmmaker is a current resident of the San Francisco Bay Area (a resident of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo or Santa Clara counties).
  5) It is to your advantage to request funds for the stage of your project to be carried out in the San Francisco Bay Area. For example, if postproduction operation will take place San Francisco, you should specifically apply for postproduction funds.
• Project budgets shall be $3 million or under including screenwriting/script development, above-the-line, preproduction, production, postproduction and initial distribution and marketing costs.
• Projects must be consistent with SFFS’s mission and represent an imaginative contribution to the moving image art form.
• Projects and applicants may be considered for more than one KRF Filmmaking Grant over time.
• If applying for screenwriting: you may apply if you are co-writing a screenplay. However, the principal writer must be a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Priority will be given to

• Projects that demonstrate viable financial support and promise a high likelihood of being brought to completion
• Projects that are vibrant, intelligent, moving and innovative
• Projects based, shot or engaged in pre- or postproduction in the San Francisco Bay Area
• In the case of applications for screenwriting/script development, applicants who live in the San Francisco Bay Area
• For first-time filmmaking applicants, projects with team members that demonstrate track records of filmmaking success.

Evaluation Criteria

• Project has strong and recognizable social justice value, contributing, for example, to a greater public appreciation of a disenfranchised group, identifying an area where social change is needed or bringing to light a difficult or inspirational story, condition or issue.
• Project clearly demonstrates a net economic gain for the Bay Area filmmaking community.
• Filmmaker has clearly articulated his or her intended goals for the grant, how those accomplishments will be measured and what the next steps will be for the project.
• Filmmaker demonstrates how the project will impact short- and long-term professional and artistic goals.

Restrictions

• Filmmaker may not be a SFFS or KRF employee or member of any SFFS or KRF board.
• Filmmaker may not be a full-time student.
• Project is not work for hire.
• Project is not a documentary.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES

• LOI opens January 6, 2010
• LOI deadline is February 5, 2010
• Finalists are invited to submit additional materials February 26, 2010.
• Additional materials deadline for finalists is March 18, 2010.
• Winner will be announced in early May, 2010.
  

How to Apply
Submit a Letter of Inquiry on the SFFS Web site and pay the $35 administrative fee here.
Finalists will be asked to submit the following:

Screenwriting/script development

• 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 screenplay (short or feature). These do not have to be the first ten pages. Please submit what you believe to be the best ten pages.
• A work sample explanation
• Please note: screenwriters applying for the SFFS/KRF Grant must be the principal writer on the project, and must also reside in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Preproduction

• A three to ten page treatment
• A minimum of ten pages of the script you are applying for
• Work Sample: A ten-minute sample on DVD that plays on a TV (links will not be accepted) a previous work (short or feature)
• A work sample explanation
• Full budget including money raised to date

Production

• A three to ten page treatment
• A minimum of ten pages of the script you are applying for
• Work Sample: A ten-minute sample on DVD that plays on a TV (links will not be accepted) a previous work (short or feature)
• A work sample explanation
• Full budget including money raised to date

Postproduction

• A three to ten page treatment
• A minimum of ten pages of the script you are applying for
• Work Sample One: A ten-minute sample on DVD that plays on a TV (links will not be accepted) a previous work (short or feature)
• Work Sample Two: A ten minute sample on DVD of work-in –progress.
• A work sample explanation
• Full budget including money raised to date

NOTE: Filmmakers with incomplete applications will not be considered. Please check your DVDs to make sure they work on a television ahead of time.

Work samples and full application must be received by 5:00 pm on, or postmarked by March 18, 2010 for the Spring 2010 grant cycle to:

SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants
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 three months, and then again six months, from the date of the grant award.

Giving Back and Supporting Bay Area Film Culture
All grant recipients will be required to:

• Include acknowledgment of “San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation” in the credits of the final product. If a grant represents ten percent or more of project budget, credit will be above the line.
• Offer SFFS the first look at finished work and first right of refusal for potential premiere at the SFIFF or other SFFS exhibition venues in the Bay Area.

In addition, all grant recipients will be expected to support the San Francisco Film Society and KRF Filmmaking Grants program in one or more of the following ways:

• Write an article or participate in an interview about your work for one or more publications.
• Lead a workshop or professional development course in your area of expertise.
• Meet with filmmakers to discuss work.
• Show a work-in-progress or present your project at an appropriate forum.
• Participate in SFFS Golden Gate Awards prescreening activities.
• Mentor or otherwise assist filmmakers who participate after you in these programs.
• Participate in community outreach activities around the issues addressed by the film.

APPLY ONLINE
Access online application.

Learn more about the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.