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Announcing the Winter 2015 Short Film Production Fund Recipients!

by ScreenCraft - updated on August 23, 2017

After thorough deliberations, leading development consultancy and screenplay discovery platform ScreenCraft and Santa Monica-based media financier BondIt have announced the recipients of the Winter 2015 Short Film Production Fund:

  • Goldblooded, written by Sam Kozel and to be directed by Tom Botchii
  • 911written by Dani Bailes and to be directed by Alexis Korycinski.

Loosely based on the fable The Man Who Laid the Golden EggGoldblooded centers on a desperate man who discovers that his blood contains traces of pure gold and who must stay one step ahead of those who would kill him to harvest it.

ScreenCraft and Bondit have awarded Goldblooded a $10,000 production grant and will actively develop the project with Botchii and his creative team. Botchii’s debut short film, Eleven Minutes, was shot in his hometown of Sacramento, CA and has been accepted into over 50 film festivals worldwide. After garnering several best of festival wins, Botchii moved to Los Angeles where he now lives and works as an editor.

911 is a charged, contained dramatic thriller that centers on a young, fresh-on-the-job emergency call operator who finds her abilities and her beliefs tested when she takes a life-changing call. According to Korycinski and Bailes, the project is "an exploration on the values of our society, the charged debate on gun control, and the psyche created when undervalued workers are constantly placed in high-stress situations."

ScreenCraft and Bondit have awarded 911 a $5,000 production grant and will offer production and postproduction support and resources. In 2013, Bailes was selected to attend the Yale Writer’s Conference in New Haven. She has been published in the Fractal Literary Magazine, and her screenplays and teleplays have placed in the Austin Film Festival, Tracking Board Pilot Launchpad, and Final Draft Big Break contests.

Korycinski, meanwhile, has been featured on IndieWire and as part of the 40th class of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, she directed the short film The Haircut, starring Bailey Noble (True Blood) and Molly Quinn (Castle), which premiered at AFI FEST (2014). The film has been selected for 35 film festivals, garnering awards at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Seattle Shorts Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, Burbank International Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, Veterans Film Festival and Caucus Gold Circle: The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors Awards Dinner. She received grants for The Haircut from The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors Foundation, Creative District, Impact First Films and the Panavision New Filmmaker Program.

Special mention and congratulations goes to Benjamin Cleary who was selected as the winter quarter runner-up for his short screenplay Trumpet, which was named the winner of the BlueCat short screenplay competition in 2012. Benjamin completed a Screenwriting Masters at the London Film School in 2011, and in 2015, he wrote and directed his first short film, Stutterer, which recently won the Oscar for Best Short Film (Live Action) at the 88th annual Academy Awards on February 28th, 2016.

The Short Film Production Fund, administered biannually, offer production grants per year in amounts up to $30,000 to talented filmmakers for short film and online series that display originality, vision & exceptional development potential. Additionally, the program offers matching funds up to $5,000 for crowdfunding campaigns, while ScreenCraft pledges ongoing creative development and BondIt and Buffalo 8 Productions pledge production guidance and resources.

The previous grant recipient was filmmaker Natasja Fourie, announced last year here.

The late deadline for the current quarter of the Short Film Production Fund is March 31st, 2016.

 

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