Sontenish Myers (LEFT) and Samina Akbari
Alumni Samina Akbari and Sontenish Myers are SFFILM Rainin Grant finalists.
SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US, and supports films that address social justice issues in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme, or setting. Akbari and Myers are two of only thirteen filmmakers shortlisted to receive screenwriting and development grants (respectively) for their projects.
Samina Akbari’s Anees: Haunted by her father’s passing in the childhood home they now inhabit, Zehra returns to protect her sister and young nephew from a sinister presence that threatens the only family she has left. Set in the captivating world of the Shia Muslim-American community, Anees is a meditation on the inheritance of trauma and the relationships that continue after death.
Sontenish Myers’s Stampede: On a southern plantation in the 1800s, a young slave girl named Lena has telekinetic powers she cannot yet control. Lena must keep her powers under wraps when she is separated from her mother to be a house girl, in close quarters with the master’s wife Elizabeth.
Find a full list at Medium.