SFFILM announced the recipients of the 2025 SFFILM Rainin Grant, the leading program of the organization’s expanding narrative film grant programs anchored by its flagship partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Recipients receive an unrestricted cash grant of up to $25,000 for screenwriting, development or post-production, and a two-month residency at FilmHouse, SFFILM’s premier artist residency space. In addition, the SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant, now in its fifth cycle, is being awarded to three projects. Recipients of these grants will also receive SFFILM’s artist development support and access to FilmHouse.
2025 SFFILM Rainin Grantees
- Abracadabra TV Repair—Sahand Nikoukar, Screenwriter/Director (Development)
In 1995 San Francisco, Iranian immigrant Omid finds work as a driver for a TV Repair shop, but during a routine delivery the van gets stolen with a big-screen television inside. Omid and his eight-year-old son must now find the stolen big-screen and deliver it in time for the Super Bowl—to keep his job and stay in the country. Their frantic search becomes a journey through the underbelly of 1990s San Francisco and a heartfelt portrait of the immigrant pursuit of belonging, dignity and the American Dream. - Ancestor—Meera Angelica Joshi, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
When a medium predicts the mysterious illness of Rani’s father and connects it to an Ancestor in purgatory, Rani and her family must decide whether to heed the warnings of the pundit or trust in Western medicine. This clash of Rani’s two worlds as an Indian-Australian adolescent challenges the concept of her identity and what she knows about life and death. - The Ballad of Tita and the Machines—Miguel Angel Caballero, Screenwriter/Director/Producer; Luis Antonio Aldana, Writer/Producer; Helena Sardinha, Poducer; Rafael Thomaseto, Producer (Screenwriting)
In a near-future in California, on the brink of full AI automation, a 65-year-old Mexican strawberry picker risks everything to lead a labor uprising against the AI humanoids built to replace her. - Bangbang Teahouse—Courtney Loo, Screenwriter/Director; David Karp, Producer (Development)
Mimi and Hayley, a Chinese American music duo, stop at absolutely nothing to convince their label to release their long-awaited album over a raucous, self-destructive 48 hours in New York City—all while waging a seemingly losing battle to hold on to each other. - Boat People—Al’Ikens Plancher, Screenwriter/Director; Robert A. Maylor, Producer (Screenwriting)
Inspired by true events, a Haitian refugee fights to survive the inhumane conditions at Guantánamo Bay. - Debaters—Alex Heller, Screenwriter/Director; Eugene Sun Park, Producer (Development)
Over the course of a high school debate season, the ambitious team captain and her fumbling coach discover that growing up—at every age—means reckoning with the parents that raised you. - dream boy—Set Hernandez, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
After a weekend of getting high together sparks their unlikely friendship, a closeted, undocumented teenager is caught off-guard when he catches feels for his high school’s basketball superstar. But even with the hallucinatory world he conjures up about their romance, it’s clear from the get-go: his dream boy will never like him back. - La Finca—Sofia Camargo, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
On a rural estate in the Colombian Andes, a mother and her teenage daughter become entangled in their housekeeper’s secret pregnancy. As a fragile bond forms between the three, class differences and unspoken rules quietly begin to pull them apart. - How to Stop the Sky from Wanting—Santos Arrué, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
After 30 years in the US, 57-year-old Geronimo is deported to his country of origin, Guatemala. Separated from his family and forced to live in exile, he joins a migrant theater group in hopes of finding his way back home. - None Die of Heartbreak—Shuli Huang, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
Two young men in a long-distance relationship struggle to stay oblivious to their failed romance. - pecan.—Nolam Plaas, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
Junie and his father, Kenny, attempt to live up to expectations of being men, but end up destroying the relationships they cherish the most, in the process. Even their own. - Rainbow Girls—Nana Duffuor, Screenwriter/Director; Yaél Bermudez, Producer (Screenwriting)
As San Francisco’s tech boom gentrifies their city, a group of friends decide to take matters into their own hands, launching a string of robberies targeting the city’s most exclusive luxury brands. - Ruby Road—Talia Lugacy, Screenwriter/Director; Noah Lang, Producer; Julian West, Producer (Post-Production)
Facing a terminal illness and no way to pay for care, a former school-bus driver sets off in her yellow mini-bus through Appalachia and the Northeast—on a final, haunting journey to reconcile with her past, her fractured family and the forgotten America that shaped them all. - Saca Tu Lengua (Stick Out Your Tongue)—Melina Valdez, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
After her stepfather’s funeral, a teenage girl is caught between loyalty and identity when her mother suspects their beloved in-laws of stealing his extensive gun collection. - Three Islands—Juan Luis Matos, Co-Screenwriter/Director; Monica Sorelle, Co-Screenwriter/Producer; Robert Colom-Vargas, Co-Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
The lives of three men are upended as fate and circumstance bring them together to navigate the realities of carceral societies, their emotional blindspots and uncertain futures following an immigrant father’s release from prison into his son’s apartment. - Verano—Leo Aguirre, Screenwriter/Director; Jeff Kardesch, Producer (Development)
An unruly teenager’s summer plans are upended when his parents decide to foster an adolescent from Central America who is seeking asylum in the US. As the two teens realize they must share more than just a bedroom, they are forced to confront their differences amid their harsh realities. - The Voyagers—Walé Oyejide, Screenwriter/Director (Post-Production)
As the souls of drowned migrants possess a small town, an immigrant woman who speaks with the dead searches for the companion she lost at sea.
2025 SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers With Disabilities Grantees
- A Girl Got Her Hand Blown Up in Dolores Park—Roisin Isner, Screenwriter/Director (Screenwriting)
After a shocking bomb attack leaves her permanently disabled, a 17-year-old amputee investigates a teenage underworld of friends, enemies and suspects. - All In My Head—Marti Hines, Director; Sophia Williams, Producer (Post-Production)
After her own multiple sclerosis diagnosis, filmmaker Marti Hines sets out on a global journey to spotlight the untold stories of five Black women living with the disease—including Paralympic champion Kadeena Cox. Centered on Kadeena’s fierce pursuit of greatness, this documentary unearths resilience, sisterhood and the fight for visibility in a system that too often looks the other way. - Vestibule—Riley Hooper, Director; Caitlin Mae Burke, Producer; Bryn Silverman, Producer (Post-Production)
Vestibule is the story of one woman’s fight for sexual health, pleasure and bodily autonomy. Through imaginative dance sequences and intimate voiceover, Riley chronicles her decade-long journey with Vestibulodynia, a vulvovaginal disorder. What begins as a quest for pain-free sex becomes a multigenerational story of resilience, dignity and self-discovery.
About The SFFILM Rainin Grant
The SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US. The program 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, and benefit the Bay Area filmmaking community in a professional and economic capacity. Awards are made to multiple projects once a year, for screenwriting, development and post-production. In addition to a cash grant of up to $25,000, recipients receive access to the FilmHouse and benefit from SFFILM’s comprehensive and dynamic artist development programs. SFFILM Rainin Grant program applications will open again in 2026.
Since 2009, the SFFILM Rainin Grant program has funded more than 300 film projects, including Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake, Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟), Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama, Fernando Frias’s I’m No Longer Here, Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men, Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals, Chloé Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. Supported films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, South by Southwest, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival and many more.
The SFFILM Rainin Filmmaker with Disabilities Grant supports filmmakers who identify as having a disability with films that specifically address stories within the disability community. Notable projects supported through this program include Julie Forrest Wyman’s The Tallest Dwarf (2025 SXSW World Premiere, 2025 Festival), Vivien Hillgrove’s Vivien’s Wild Ride (2025 San Francisco International Film Festival World Premiere), Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves (2023 Sundance Premiere, 2025 Festival) and Reid Davenport’s I Didn’t See You There (2022 Sundance Premiere, 2022 Festival). In addition to cash grants of up to $10,000, recipients secure a one-year residency at FilmHouse and benefit from SFFILM’s comprehensive and dynamic artist development programs. The SFFILM Rainin Filmmakers with Disabilities Grant is by invitation only.
