SFFILM is thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2024 SFFILM Rainin Grant, the flagship artist development program offered by SFFILM Makers in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Twenty-three filmmaking teams have been shortlisted as contenders to receive funding and professional support for their narrative projects at different stages of production.
The SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US. It supports films that address social justice issues—the distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges—in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme or setting. Awards are made to multiple projects once a year, for screenwriting, development and post-production. Recipients are offered a cash grant of up to $25,000, residency at FilmHouse and SFFILM’s premier artist residency space.
The program is open to filmmakers from anywhere in the world who can commit to spending time developing the film in San Francisco. Applications for next year will open in early 2025.
2024 SFFILM Rainin Grant Finalists
- The Matriarch — Zandashé Brown, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
A young woman, haunted by her mother’s long battle with psychosis, struggles to reconnect after her unexpected recovery. When the death of an estranged family matriarch brings them back to their ancestral home in rural Louisiana, she forms a mysterious connection with her late grandmother—one that threatens to unravel her own grip on reality. - S.Q.A.G. (Short Quiet Asian Girl) — Benedict Chiu, Director/Producer/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
A S.Q.A.G. (short quiet Asian girl), in a desperate effort to upend her anonymity, disguises as another student to take a test in her place, only to stumble upon a Secret Society that specializes in underground cheating operations. - Fonzel and Gloria — Christopher Cole, Director/Screenwriter; Devin Tusa, Producer; George Rush, Producer; Caroline Kaplan, Producer (Development)
When an aging one-hit wonder is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she enlists her rapper grandson on a crime-filled bumbling romp from Los Angeles to Oakland. - Strangers — Karishma Dev Dube, Director/Producer/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
Pari and Tara are complete strangers, until a chance encounter on a New York City subway platform instigates inexplicable and profound connections between them. Set between New Delhi and New York, the film explores how these two women quietly unravel in tandem: with lovers, at home and in public. - Rainbow Girls — Nana Fobi Duffor, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
As San Francisco’s tech boom gentrifies their city, three young black trans women decide to take matters into their own hands, staging a string of robberies targeting the city’s most exclusive luxury brand stores. - Requiem for a Glacier — Stephanie Falkeis, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
When a young glaciologist returns to her remote ancestral village to assess the local glacier for its prospective use as a ski resort, she is confronted by her estranged eco-activist mother who is willing to defend the glacier from destruction at all cost. A feminist anti-western set in a dying landscape. - Dreamland — Joie Estrella Horwitz, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
A love story blooms during the night shift in a slaughterhouse, where phantoms of the future sit with ghosts of the past. - Karolina and Udochi Dance in the Woods at Dusk! — Osinachi Ibe, Director/Producer/Screenwriter; Thomas Ethan Harris, Producer; Megan Carlson, Producer(Development)
During their first summer apart, two childhood best friends discover they have fallen in love with each other and embark on a spiritual journey that changes them forever. - From a Crooked Rib — Idil Ibrahim, Director/Producer/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
Set against the backdrop of pre-independence Somalia, From a Crooked Rib follows independent yet naive Ebla (18) who dreams of life outside her suffocating village. When her grandfather promises her hand in marriage to Giumaleh, the oldest man in the village, Ebla makes a decision that alters the course of her life. - Mucho Power — Fernando Frias de la Parra, Director/Screenwriter/Producer; Gerry Kim, Producer/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
When a Korean immigrant opens up a store in a Mexican neighborhood outside of downtown Chicago, he expects that his hard work will translate into success. But his dreams can’t keep up with how quickly the world is changing around him. - Rosemead — Eric Lin, Director; Mynette Louie, Producer; Andrew Corkin, Producer; Lucy Liu, Producer (Post-Production)
An immigrant mother in California’s San Gabriel Valley takes desperate measures to help her unstable teenage son as she uncovers his obsession with mass shootings. Inspired by true events. - Honeyjoon — Lilian T. Mehrel, Director/Screenwriter (Post-Production)
Kurdish-Persian Lela and her American daughter June take a trip to the romantic Azores after their major loss—with polar opposite ideas about the trip, grief and June’s bikini. Between happy honeymooners, Woman Life Freedom and their hot tour guide João, they find each other…coming back to life. - Daraluz — Asia Nichols, Writer/Director (Screenwriting)
Returning home to honor her late mother in one of Mexico’s most religious states, a forlorn puppeteer becomes afflicted by a recurring pregnancy and must confront a fabled tunnel mummy hellbent on forcing the birth. - Searching for Mateo — Nico Opper, Director/Screenwriter; Maria F. León, Producer (Development)
A queer couple from the Bay Area take their 10-year-old adopted son on vacation to Honduras, where his birth family is from, hoping to strengthen his connection to his roots. But when he suddenly disappears, the entire family must navigate the complexities of love, loss and belonging that bind them. - Pangea Ultima — Estevan Padilla, Director/Screenwriter (Development)
Determined to heal their fractured family, a misguided brother and sister take drastic action, kidnapping their estranged parents in a bid for forced reconciliation. - Love Visa — PJ Raval, Director/Co-writer; Eileen Cabiling, Co-writer; Derek Nguyen, Producer (Screenwriting)
When Filipino hottie Jon Jon arrives in Texas to marry his Black closeted online lover Harvey, their relationship is put to the test by familial obligations and the social stigmas of a transactional marriage, all while attempting to fit into the American dream. - If we don’t burn, how do we light up the night — Kim Torres, Director; Alejandra Vargas Carballo, Producer (Post-Production)
In a realm where mystique weaves through the ordinary, thirteen-year-old Laura ventures into a secluded town, haunted by tales of a beast that preys on women. When she meets the radiant Daniela, their friendship quietly—but surely—takes her on a journey that unravels the true nature of the beast. - Fishtank — Wendi Tang, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
Jules, a 28-year-old Chinese-American woman grappling with her troubled past and present, vomits living goldfish whenever she’s triggered. Haunted by her unstable reality, Jules must face the darkest secret she’s been hiding from the world and uncover the truth behind it. - SummerWinterSummer — Thy Tran, Director/Producer/Screenwriter (Development)
Grappling with a heartbreak, a gay, Vietnamese American creative drifts through the cycle of disappointment, rejection and quiet despair, spiraling into self-destruction until he confronts the weight of familial scars and rediscovers his true self. - Half Orange — Alejandra Vasquez, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
Lucia navigates life as a teenager born to now-divorced teenaged parents, shuttled between her mother’s place in rural Texas and her father’s suburban life in California. As she turns 16, Lucia finds herself in a coming-of-age story about three people, only two of those people happen to be her parents. - Mouna Tharangam (A Silent Wave) — Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda, Director; Janani Vijayanathan, Producer (Development)
In Post-Roe Texas, Amal, an Indian-American woman, grapples with an unexpected pregnancy when her path crosses with a newlywed Indian immigrant, Charulata. Their love sparks a journey of sexual awakening, cultural clash and profound choices as the specter of abortion looms large. - No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds: A Queer-Inclusive Memoir — LaTajh Weaver, Director/Screenwriter; Sean Gillane, Producer (Screenwriting)
An escape room master builds an inescapable puzzle room for tourists, while trying to comprehend their own sense of belonging within Oakland’s surreal, radicalized Queer scene. - Sweeping Graves — Kevin D. Wong, Director/Screenwriter; Vanessa Gentry, Producer/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
A gentrification ghost story, Sweeping Graves is a modern-day folk tale that tells the story of Brandon, a San Francisco realtor who buys a property in Chinatown and evicts the tenants, intent on flipping it. But as Brandon begins to renovate the building, he starts to suspect that not all of the previous inhabitants have left—and that driving them out may cost him more than he ever bargained for.
