Filmmakers Kiran Deol and Jon K. Jones have been selected by SFFILM to receive Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowships, which will support the development of their narrative feature screenplays. The grants are part of Sloan’s “efforts to support programs that cultivate and champion films exploring scientific or technological themes and characters,” according to a press release. The fellowships come with $35,000 grants, virtual residencies at SFFILM’s Film House, access to SFFILM’s Artist Development programs, and connections to a science advisor and others in the Bay Area science and tech communities. From the press release: From an open call for […]

The Sundance Institute announced today the full program — all categories! — for its 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Unspooling January 28 – February 3, the festival will occur both online, via a “feature-rich, Sundance-built online platform,” as well as, public health and safety requirements permitting, in person at Satellite Screens at venues across the country. Selected are 72 feature films from 29 countries, with 38 first-time feature filmmakers in the mix. Fourteen of the films and projects were supported in some way by Sundance Institute, and 66 features are world premieres. These films were chosen from 14,092 submissions including 3,500 feature-length films. […]

SFFILM, in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, announced today eight new recipients of its SFFILM Rainin grants along with two recipients of its new SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant. The grants provide early stage screenwriting and development support, with the latter grant a new pilot program “to provide additional support to Rainin applicants whose films specifically address stories from the disability community.” Among the grant winners are two projects from filmmakers appearing on Filmmaker‘s 2019 25 New Faces: Sephora Woldu and Alison O’Daniel. O’Daniel also interviewed Sound of Metal‘s Darius Marder in our current issue. The SFFILM Rainin […]

The first trailer for Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, which has been scoring critic’s nods all season (it just place first in Indiewire’s critic’s poll), just dropped. Wrote Steve Dollar out of the New York Film Festival, “McDormand’s performance, which maps as much brooding interiority as it surveys Fran’s uncertain road ahead, is the unvarnished, flinty thing Oscar nominations are made of, and the mutual intensity of focus that she shares with Zhao locks in on the most minor of details. It’s a story of ‘how’ as much as ‘why,’ and the way scenes build up out of the smallest moments, glances, […]

Eli Daughdrill, who posted here in 2017 during the crowdfunding campaign for his new feature, Faith, now sees that film finished, in release, and with a new trailer. It’s a picture about faith and religion that, as Lindsey Dunn writes at 1 of My Stories, avoids the tropes of faith-based storytelling and “offers representation of a Christian in crisis in a way that feels authentic, refreshing, and uncomfortable.” Check out the trailer above and find the film on-demand through Vertical Entertainment at iTunes, Amazon Video and more.

The Sundance Institute announced details of its 2021 edition — plans that will see Sundance offer titles to home audiences via a custom-designed online platform while socially-distanced live events (continent upon local health and safety guidelines at the time of the screenings) will occur in Park City, Utah as well as at a number of “satellite screens” across the country. Running January 28 – February 3, 2021, the Sundance Film Festival will stream its more than 70 features in three-hour blocks throughout the day, with films beginning simultaneously “to preserve the energy of a Festival,” according to the press release. […]

The Slamdance Film Festival announced today the 132 features, shorts and episodic programs that will comprise its hybrid 2021 edition. Running February 12-25, the festival is billing the program “its most accessible festival ever,” and with good reason. All films, Q&A’s and panels will be available on Slamdance.com, AppleTV, Roku, Firestick and YouTube; “early adopter” passes will be free until December 31; and regular passes are only $10. Additionally, there’s a new section, Unstoppable, showcasing creators with disabilities. The festival’s live component will consist of a two-night drive-in presentation in Joshua Tree open to the public on February 13th and […]

SFFILM, in partnership with the Westridge Foundation, announced today the six films that will receive a total of $100,000 in funding as part of the SFFILM Westridge granting program. One of the few grants available to narrative filmmakers in the development phase, a SFILM Westridge grant helps “protect filmmakers’ creative processes, and allows them the time and space to concentrate properly on crafting their story, structure, characters, and themes, and refining their projects before diving into financing, production, and beyond.” SFFILM and the Westridge Foundation also announce that this sixth edition will the last for this grant, which was initiated […]

Artist and filmmaker Alison Nguyen — selected for Filmmaker‘s 2018 25 New Faces and a contributor to this Summer’s Pandemic Diaries — is showing new work featuring her Andra8, “a computer-generated woman based on the artist’s physicality.” As part of her current virtual exhibition at the Hartnett Gallery, i broke my mind at the link in the bio (running through December 18), Nguyen will screen today, Monday, November 23, her new my favorite software is being here, which captures the data-driven emotional rhythms and perceptive swings of her virtual creation. The piece, which is highly recommended, screens free today 6:30 PM Eastern […]

Opening in theaters and on demand January 15, 2021 from Magnolia Pictures is the debut feature from documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, Some Kind of Heaven. Featured in Filmmaker‘s 2019 25 New Faces, Oppenheim makes documentaries that are as attuned to their subjects’ interior lives — their fears, dreams, insecurities and aspirations — as to their physical surroundings. “How fantasy informs the way people live their lives, the camera has to do the same,” he told me when I interviewed him. “The only way to get into these people’s lives and their stories is to accurately depict the headspace they are […]