Reverse Angle:
SFFILM announces filmmaking grants.
The semiannual SFFilm/Rainin Filmmaking Grants have awarded more than $4.5 million since 2009. SFFilm recently announced this year’s nine filmmaking projects get to split $225,000.
The recipient projects are: “All About Nina,” “American Babylon,” “Fremont,” “Jules of Light and Dark,” “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “Me, My Mom and Sharmila,” “Monsters and Men,” “Mr. Rob” and “Raja.” Additionally, “Sorry to Bother You” received a $25,000 loan.
“Babylon” is set in Oakland just before 9/11. “Fremont,” per its title, is set in the Bay Area, its protagonist a former Afghan translator for the U.S. military now writing fortunes for a San Francisco cookie factory.
“Last Black Man” involves a man hoping to reclaim the Victorian his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco; the ongoing changes in the city are a key theme.
Past awardees of these grants from SFFilm in partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation include “Short Term 12,” “Fruitvale Station” and the Oscar-nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”
Applications for the Spring 2018 round are now being accepted. For more information about grant applications, visit www.sffilm.org/ makers.
Following the announcement of those grant recipients, SFFilm announced a new grant program in conjunction with Westridge Foundation aimed at supporting narrative features with social-issue bents in their nascent stages.
The grants will come in $20,000 to $25,000 allotments to be awarded to four to five projects twice annually. The SFFilm/Westridge Grants will total $200,000 a year. Applications are open now and the first recipients will be announced in May 2018.
SFFilm Director of Artist Development Caroline von Kühn said Westridge Foundation’s “clear vision for this program and their understanding of the real needs of independent filmmakers today make them perfect partners, and it’s thrilling to be aligned in support of artists telling important social issue stories. We can’t wait to get started finding next year’s breakthrough talent and giving them the help they need to build the proper foundations for their films.”
Trivia question
New Zealand director Taika Waititi secured the “Thor: Ragnarok” job with the help of a sizzle reel featuring Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” which now figures as a kind of theme song for Thor. He hired Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo to score the film. But which ’70s’80s band has he said he would have asked to score “Ragnarok,” had its lead singer still been alive?
Still indie
Waititi’s “Thor: Ragnarok” is tearing up the worldwide box office, with more than $650 million in its first two weeks. In case his fans were worried blockbuster success had gone to the heretofore quirky indie comedy maker’s head, Waititi just made an announcement that has to assuage those fears.
Waititi is rumored to be making the long-awaited live-action “Akira” (saying he would cast “Asian teenagers”). He’s open to directing another Thor movie, though he has said to multiple reporters, “I would just consider it to be ‘Ragnarok 2’; It wouldn’t feel like ‘Thor 4’ to me. It would feel like the second outing of this new version of Thor.”
When Build Series NYC asked if he could return to low-budget filmmaking after all this, he said, “One for them, one for you.”
He confirmed later he will reunite with Jemaine Clement of “Flight of the Conchords” for a sequel to their much-loved, nobudget faux doc, “What We Do in the Shadows.” The follow-up to that low-key look at a group of vampires will be called “We’re Wolves.”
Waititi paused to make sure the pun was clear.
Clement will co-write and codirect. There is no timeline.
Waititi’s last three Rotten Tomatoes ratings: “What We Do in the Shadows” — 96 percent; “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” — 97 percent; “Thor: Ragnarok” — 93 percent.
Waititi confirming “We’re Wolves” during the Build Series NYC interview is at http://tinyurl.com/ybhdv9g6
Waititi impersonating Jeff Goldblum is viewable at http:// tinyurl.com/y7sb2rcg
Trivia answer
Queen, who contributed memorable rock songs to “Highlander” and completely scored “Flash Gordon.”