Overview  |  Eligibility  |  Application Guidelines | Apply Online

Eligibility

SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants are open to independent filmmakers and film projects that satisfy all of 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.
  
• 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
  - 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 strong connection to the San Francisco Bay Area and uplift the Bay Area film community in one or more of the following ways:
  - The filmmaker is a current resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, to be defined throughout this document as a resident of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo or Santa Clara counties.
  - The film was or will be shot in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  - A majority of the cast or crew lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  - A significant percentage of preproduction, production or postproduction budget will be spent in the Bay Area.
  
• 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.
  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.

Learn more about the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.