February 11, 2009

The San Francisco Foundation Awards $110,000 to Filmmakers and Photographers

(SAN FRANCISCO) – Wednesday, February 11, 2009 – The San Francisco Foundation has awarded $100,000 in grants to five documentary filmmakers and $10,000 to the winner of the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship. 

The newly launched San Francisco Foundation Bay Area Documentary Fund invests in documentary projects by experienced filmmakers with an esteemed body of previously created work. These films explore issues that have been historically underexposed, misinterpreted, or ignored, and that are pertinent to the five Bay Area counties the Foundation serves. The awarded film projects address one or more of The San Francisco Foundation’s program areas: Community Development, Community Health, Education, Environment, Social Justice, and Arts and Culture. The proposals submitted were reviewed by a panel of filmmakers and experts in the field. The following five films were funded, from a pool of 57 submissions:

• Helen De Michiel’s “Eating With Your Eyes,” a one-hour documentary about Berkeley’s School Lunch Initiative and changing how children eat. $22,500
• Christian Bruno’s “Strand: A Natural History of Cinema,” a feature-length documentary charting the demise of San Francisco's movie theater culture. $22,500
• Yoav Potash's "Crime After Crime," a documentary about an incarcerated survivor of brutal domestic violence, and the Bay Area attorneys who work pro-bono in an effort to set her free. $22,500
• David Weismann’s & Bill Weber’s “San Francisco AIDS,” a documentary about the Bay Area’s experience of the AIDS epidemic. $22,500
• Abby Ginzberg’s “Cruz Reynoso: A Man for All Seasons,” a documentary about the first Hispanic to be appointed to the California Supreme court. $10,000

The Bay Area Documentary Fund is part of The San Francisco Foundation’s Fund for Artists. Forging an innovative collaborative effort between Bay Area Community Foundations, individual donors, and the Irvine, Hewlett, Surdna, and Ford Foundations, the Fund for Artists supports the endeavors of individual artists through commissions, artists' residencies, awards, advocacy, workshops, promotional instruction, and networking support. 

The winner of the eighth John Gutmann Photography Fellowship is Alessandra Sanguinetti, of New York City. The Fellowship selects an emerging artist in the field of creative photography who exhibits professional accomplishment, serious artistic commitment, and financial need. Along with the prestige and recognition of receiving the award, this year’s fellowship includes a $10,000 prize.

Alessandra was born in New York City in 1968 and currently lives and works in both Buenos Aires and New York City. Her work has been exhibited extensively abroad, including a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art (Buenos Aires), and is part of several collections including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and the International Center of Photography (New York). She has received numerous grants and prizes, including the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award.

The world-renowned artist, John Gutmann, who passed away in 1998, established the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Trust at The San Francisco Foundation. Gutmann began his career in Berlin during the early 1930s and emigrated to San Francisco when the Nazis banned his exhibitions and forbade him to teach. For more than 60 years thereafter, he was a recognized presence in the cultural life of San Francisco as a painter, educator, collector, and, most prominently, as an international photographer. He had exhibited in numerous institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland). He also taught at San Francisco State University over a 37 year period until his retirement in 1973. He founded the department of photography in 1946, one of the first on a college campus.

The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF) is the community foundation serving the Bay Area since 1948. Through the generosity and vision of our family of donors, TSFF awarded grants totaling more than $776 million over the past ten years. Bringing together donors and building on community assets through grantmaking, leveraging, public policy, advocacy, and leadership development, TSFF works in the areas of community health, education, arts and culture, community development, social justice, and the environment. The San Francisco Foundation serves San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo Counties.