Current Fiscal Sponsor Projects
Filmmakers Collaborative SF is honored to serve as fiscal sponsor for the following projects:
Following the death of her mother, a Filipina experiences visions of her mother, taking her on a cultural and emotional pilgrimage back to her roots.
In a story that connects two centuries, Berkeley-based historian and artist, Barnali, spearheads a grassroots campaign to rename a street after Kala Bagai, an unsung South Asian woman who organized communities in California against intense racial discrimination in the early 1910s. In the process, Barnali discovers her own political power.
Queer photographer Jill Posener’s fearless compulsion to document provides us with intimate views of radical feminist London, Bay Area 90s lesbian culture, and contemporary unhoused East Bay communities. A lifelong rebel, she has always felt “at odds”, and now contemplates where she may fit for her final chapter.
City Folx is a comedy web series chronicling two under-employed Drag Kings’ struggle to hold onto their Mission area apartment.
An Iraq-veteran cyclist training for Vermont’s most grueling gravel race risks her closest relationships to come out, transition, and be her true self at age 51.
A 1960s housewife and mother discovers her Cherokee heritage and defies her husband—and her Cherokee father—to immerse herself in her newfound culture.
This documentary film series is a deep dive into the life of The Committee, San Francisco's radical comedy troupe that introduced the counterculture of the 1960s to mainstream America, pioneered an artform, and helped shape modern American satire.
Counted Out investigates the biggest crises of our time through an unexpected lens: math.
Dead Jeni is the vengeful avatar of the abandoned, broken, and bullied—and tonight, she hunts.
A rebellious Indian-American teenage musician tries to bridge the cultural divide with his immigrant STEM dad, and finds his artistic voice in the process.
The Emerald Triangle explores the world’s favorite illegal drug, how it became legal, and its impact on our culture. Focusing on the heartland of cannabis, it tells the story of the original growers, how they survived everything… except legalization.
The life and legacy of Johnny Otis: the Godfather of R&B, composer, bandleader, disc jockey, civil rights activist, preacher, and artist, who grew up in a Greek immigrant family, but defined himself as African-American.
Fiddles on Fire explores the exploding popularity of fiddle music by following eight contemporary fiddlers whose excellence in their tradition-based fiddle styles has inspired audiences the world over.
A film about the economic theory that turns everything you thought you knew about money, debt, and taxes upside down.
How do we heal ourselves in the natural world? The necessity to nurture the earth and understand the power our natural world holds to heal us, as well as the capacity (and urgent necessity) we hold to sustain our planet... this is the journey into FOOLS’ PARADISE (lost?).
Fossil Foolish (working title) tells the story of two North American nations giving lip service to a clean energy transition while simultaneously ramping up fossil fuel exploitation.
From Sea to Shining Sea tells the fascinating story of Katharine Lee Bates, poet, professor, and progressive advocate; an unsung hero best known for authoring America the Beautiful who was deeply committed to the beauty and principles of our country.
A one-hour portrait film of James Cahill, who transformed the way the world looks at Chinese and Japanese art.
Filmed over eight years, Grains of Sand accompanies the filmmaker's mother and mother-in-law, artists and close friends, as they enter their ninth decade. Through conversation, memories and artwork, they explore together the lifelong project of becoming oneself.
Two young boys experience the nuanced difficulties of racism when one of them enters a foster home.
By delegating the intimate aspects death and dying, we relinquish an essential part of what makes us human. What transformational wisdom is accessed when we dare to engage tangibly with mortality again?
The Highway is a short animated film that recreates a highway protest against police violence in miniature toy scale, along with scenes from historic, cultural, and mythological antecedents in American and Western culture.
A film that captures the tumultuous times and drama of the first organized march on Washington.
At the crossroads between the streets and the churches of San Francisco, In God We Trust follows the intimate journeys of Dawn, Tony, Terry and Harry as they fight to forge their place in a city ravaged by inequalities and for whom “God” has become the ultimate companion.
Three 90-year-old soldiers recount their experiences of life, death and loss on the European front during World War II in this powerful meditation on memory, trauma, and the brutality of war.
Through the life and work of acclaimed author and poet Alejandro Murguia, Keeper of the Fire, a half-hour documentary nearing completion, explores the roles activist writers and poets play in the fight for a just and equitable world.
Emma’s Revolution is the dynamic, award-winning activist duo of Pat Humphries and Sandy O. Performing at the frontlines of justice movements for over twenty years, their songs have been sung for the Dalai Lama, praised by Pete Seeger, covered by Holly Near and sung around the world. This is their story.
The Last Forests is a visually compelling, high stakes film following the decline of California’s kelp forests, the communities impacted by their decline, and the ongoing effort to save them from collapse.
A feature-length documentary about the life and work of the acclaimed filmmaker Les Blank.
After dropping out of art school and nearly taking his own life, a small act of kindness sets Gary Bukovnik on an unimaginable path: his watercolor paintings of flowers become celebrated worldwide, raising millions for nonprofits and proving that staying true to one's creative calling can transform one’s life.
Like Heaven Without God is a documentary about five Berkeley residents in a homeless RV community who struggle to survive on the margins of society. As a public program expires, they are forced to move out of the parking lot they have called home over the past year.
Iconic chef Martin Yan charmed audiences with his infectious smile and impossibly fast knife skills, shaping American television and cuisine when the odds were stacked against him.
An American filmmaker reunites his family in the Stone Age Italian city of caves and extreme poverty that his grandfather fled a century ago.
The Movement and the “Madman” chronicles the untold story of the mass movement that helped limit and end the long and brutal war in Vietnam, proving that nonviolent protest movements can make a difference.
Norton I, Emperor of America, Protector of Mexico, was an immigrant, a tycoon, a bankrupt, a fantasist, a mascot, a campaigner, a visionary and monarch. This film explores Norton’s legend, in his own time and ours.
PARAMITA is a poetic personal documentary bearing testament to the story of Prajna Paramita Choudhury, a first generaton South Asian American queer woman, as she comes out to her family and steps onto a spiritual journey that embodies Buddhist liberation practices, earth based mysticism and connection to nature as a pathway for collective healing.
Aging actor Scot Free performed comedy drag under the name Pippi Lovestocking starting in the early 1990s. After paying tribute to his recently deceased life-long friend in front of hundreds, he collapsed. A cardiac event then led to Scot becoming a quad amputee. This is his story.
A SF Bay Area based immigrant woman filmmaker searches for 'home' among intentional and radical communities in California as she wrestles with the legacy of her Iranian father and the rich, distinct culture she left behind.
In 1966, an obscure Beat poet was catapulted into the national spotlight when her self-published book of poems, The Love Book, was seized by police and subjected to San Francisco’s longest obscenity trial in history. POET ON TRIAL is the timely story of forgotten poet Lenore Kandel and her fight for artistic freedom.
When artist and filmmaker Mabel Valdiviezo reunites with her family in Peru after sixteen years of silence, she confronts childhood memories and her troubled past as an immigrant in the United States. Diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, Mabel embarks on a deeply emotional journey to heal her fractured family ties, using her art as a bridge between two worlds.
The Public Housing Story (working title) follows residents throughout the country fighting to stop the demolition and privatization of public housing, illuminating the nationwide struggle to keep public housing public.
From a garage startup to 27 Gold and Platinum Records, A QUIET REVOLUTION explores the genre-bending history of a record label that developed a new sound and musical movement.
Re-Present Media’s purpose is to humanize media representations of underrepresented communities through a focus on personal stories from those communities in documentary film and nonfiction media.
In 1993, California, a young immigrant mother has a dream to start a new life for herself and her family. The first step is to make her first encyclopedia sale.
A visionary Buddhist Monk, hailing from the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, embarked on an extraordinary journey to California, defying all odds to establish one of the Bay Area's largest Tibetan Monasteries—an invaluable sanctuary preserving the endangered Tibetan culture, traditions, and language.
Saving the Bay 2 shows how San Francisco Bay is now growing after 150 years of shrinking due to human intervention.
SEARCHING FOR SABIHA follows an American journalist’s quest to uncover the astonishing story of her grandmother-- modern Turkey’s first professional female journalist. What she discovers is a trailblazer’s high stakes fight for democracy that’s remarkably relevant almost 100 years later as authoritarian leaders rise around the globe, even in democratic strongholds like the United States.
In the shadow of technological innovation, San Franciscans struggle to preserve neighborhood cinemas during a global pandemic, shifting social behavior, and a domineering streaming industry. Will they be able to keep the theatrical experience alive?
After years of caring for her cancer-ridden fiancé, a young woman must confront her feelings of guilt and grief to come to terms with the end of their relationship.
Combining the majestic music of JS Bach with the composer’s uniquely expressive autograph manuscripts, filmmaker and violinist Paul Festa presents the first fully realized films of the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin on the three-hundredth anniversary of their composition.
A documentary profile of Stewart Udall, who left a profound legacy of conservation and environmental justice as Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Sweetness & Power is the story of how Europe's taste for sugar transformed the world and developed a model of agriculture and labor that is defining our current and future existence.
Tails of the City is a cheerful, heartwarming short film about a neighborhood park that has become a touchstone for dogs, their owners, and families - finding love, laughter, and friendship in the process.
Through simple story telling and songs, four friends are introduced to ideas which build their emotional intelligence, self-awareness and social skills, while encouraging positive communication methods.
We Outside explores the big BMX wheelie bike scene–a renegade bicycle movement that offers a critical outlet for youth and adults to push themselves physically, find role models, and build community.
WHITEWASHED is the story of Eugenics, as promoted by Leland Stanford Jr. University's first president, David Starr Jordan, and how this theory's history was covered up and only recently revealed.
An intimate portrait of the D’Vious Wayz Motorcycle Club, Oakland’s first Black all-women motorcycle club.