The San Francisco Film Society has announced the six finallists for the sixth annual SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant.

The $15,000 grant will be awarded to a screenwriter who has been practicing for at least five years and who has previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay.

The grant is open to writers residing in the US whose project “expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to the subject.”

Priority is given to writers whose previous short or feature screenplays have successfully been produced into finished films. The finallists were selected from submissions received in response to a nationwide call for entries and the winner will be announced in mid-October.

The finallists are: A Sayeeda Clarke and Micah Shaffer for White; Jed Cowley for Let’s Talk About Slavery; Rola Nashef for Nadia’s House; Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet for Hinterland; Tom Putnam for Dark Divide; and Bethany Ashton Wolf for Midnight Juliet.

Sundance Institute has set up the first day-long ShortsLab on short-form documentary open to Los Angeles-area filmmakers on September 13 at the Cinefamily.

ShortsLab L.A. offers a one-day seminar of screenings and discussions with insight and access into short-form documentary story development, production and exhibition.

Features speakers include Room 237 director Rodney Ascher, Kirby Dick, Lucy Walker and Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program director Tabitha Jackson.

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