SFFILM Grantees

Let’s congratulate the 2024 SFFILM Rainin Grant recipients including Half Orange written and directed by Alejandra Vasquez and The Matriarch written and directed by Zandashé Brown along with Krishnan Shah Foundation Grant recipient Nico Opper for Searching for Mateo. Congrats everyone!

The Matriarch — Zandashé Brown, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
A young woman, haunted by her mother’s long battle with psychosis, struggles to reconnect after her unexpected recovery. When the death of an estranged family matriarch brings them back to their ancestral home in rural Louisiana, she forms a mysterious connection with her late grandmother—one that threatens to unravel her own grip on reality.

Half Orange — Alejandra Vasquez, Director/Screenwriter (Screenwriting)
Lucia navigates life as a teenager born to now-divorced teenaged parents, shuttled between her mother’s place in rural Texas and her father’s suburban life in California. As she turns 16, Lucia finds herself in a coming-of-age story about three people, only two of those people happen to be her parents.

Searching for Mateo — Nico Opper, Director/Screenwriter; Maria F. León, Producer (Development)
A queer couple from the Bay Area take their 10-year-old adopted son on vacation to Honduras, where his birth family is from, hoping to strengthen his connection to his roots. But when he suddenly disappears, the entire family must navigate the complexities of love, loss and belonging that bind them.