We are delighted to announce that LFS graduate Reem Morsi has been awarded one of the Spring 2016 San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants.
The grant, worth $35,000 in support of her screenwriting, is awarded to help promising filmmakers in the next stages of their narrative feature films.
Reem's winning script BOOTLEG, on which she will be working as the writer/director, is a satirical dramatic comedy about a Muslim woman, in a sexually unfulfilling marriage, who discovers sexual pleasure through sex toys and decides to go back to Egypt to start an underground sex toy manufacturing business.
Morsi’s film credits include THEIR FEAST (Cannes Short Film Corner, TIFF, BBC Film Festival, Cine Sud), THE PATH (screened at various film venues) NOSTALGIA (screened at WIFT Fest/Vancouver), among others. Morsi is at the end of her Residency at the Canadian Film Centre’s (CFCP2015alumna) Directors’ Lab.
“We are excited to support the diverse voices in our community and bring in new voices from elsewhere to join them... The projects up for review in this round were remarkably diverse in style, themes and origin. We are immensely excited to continue to support international artists with this award, and we firmly believe that this prize strengthens the local filmmaking community—regardless of where projects are set and produced”, jury members have said of the awards.
The panelists who reviewed the finalists’ submissions include Noah Cowan, Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society; Robert Kessel, SVP of Production at Participant Productions; Jennifer Rainin, Chief Executive Officer of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation; Michele Turnure-Salleo, Director of Filmmaker360; and Nina Yang Bongiovi, Producing Partner at Significant Productions.
SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grants are awarded twice annually to socially-minded narrative feature films that will elevate the Bay Area's filmmaking culture. More than $3.5 million has been awarded since the launch of the program in 2009.