by the El Reportero’s staff
Matthew Lessner, director of The Woods
The San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation today announced the five winners and two honorable mentions of the fifth round of SFFS/KRF filmmaking grants. The grants are awarded twice annually to filmmakers for narrative feature films with social justice themes that will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community.
Carlton Evans and Matthew Lessner (Ross), $50,000 for screenwriting; Aurora Guerrero (Mosquita y Mari), $88,000 for postproduction; Adam Keker (National Park), $35,000 for screenwriting; Timothy Kelly (The Cherokee Word for Water), $75,000 for production; Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of a Southern Wild), $55,000 for postproduction. Honorable Mentions went to: John Dilly (Rubbish), development and Ian Olds (The Western Habit), screenwriting.
This satirical attack on young, modern, globally conscious citizens tells the story of eight grown-up American children creating utopian society as best they can. With gorgeous Super 16 footage and an eclectic soundtrack featuring Dirty Projectors, Sun Araw, and Lucky Dragons, filmmaker Matthew Lessner playfully subverts counterculture films of the seventies while questioning the shortcomings of his own complacent generation. In a world where new technologies merely distract us from reality, the greatest revolution can only begin by leaving everything behind.
SFFS/KRF filmmaking grants support work by local filmmakers as well as attract projects of the highest quality to the Bay Area, providing tangible encouragement and support to meaningful projects and benefiting the local economy. In addition to a cash grant, recipients will receive various benefits through the film society’s comprehensive and dynamic filmmaker services programs.
For more information visit sffs.org/Filmmaker-Services/Grants-and-Prizes.
Black tide to release second album “Post Mortem” on August 23
Miami brings us one of the most acclaimed new heavy rock bands of the United States. During its short career, Black Tide, a quartet consisting of 3 Latinos and one American, has already been on the Warped tour, at the main stage of the Ozz Fest, at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival together with Slipknot and Disturbed, has shared the stage with legendary groups like Iron Maiden and Metallica, and has been the opening act for the veteran band Avenged Sevenfold.
After the spectacular debut the band has made with its first album, Black Tide is ready to present its second record called “Post Mortem” which will be released on August 23 on the DGC/Interscope label. In support of this release, the group is getting ready to conquer America by performing at the prestigious Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival which will kick off at Camden, New Jersey, on August 26.
A long tour featuring 32 shows will take the band all over the country, where they will again share the stage with Avenged Sevenfold besides other heavy rock groups like Bullet For My Valentine and Sevendust, among others.
The band -Gabriel García (guitar, vocals), Steven Spence (drums), Austin Díaz (guitar), Zakk Sandler (bass)- with Latino roots that stem from Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, made their debut on the English-language rock scene with their first album “Light From Above” (2008) while they were still teenagers.
That first record earned Black Tide an unprecedented attention from prestigious international magazines such as Rolling Stone and the British magazine Kerrang! which lauded the group as “Best International Newcomer”. Several tracks from their debut album have also succesfully been featured in numerous videogames, from Rock Band to NHL 09.
After intense pre-production, they hit a New York studio with Wilbur (Lamb of God) and GGGarth Richardson [Rage Against the Machine, Mudvayne] in May 2010 and worked towards crafting this cohesive
and dynamic second outing.
“We grew as writers, musicians, people and friends,” says Gabe Garcia. “Most importantly, we became more of a family. Everything about our operation nezuela.
