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Film Independent announced today the recipient of the first annual Sloan Producers Grant. The organization also announced the fellows selected for Film Independent’s annual Producers Lab, which runs in Los Angeles from October 22 through December 6, 2007. Ram Bergman (Brick) will teach the Lab, which is sponsored by Technicolor. The Sloan Producers Grant was awarded to Monique Caulfield, who is producing the feature film Basmati Blues, a comedy with musical elements about love, adventure, and genetically-modified rice. The film is written and to be directed by Danny Baron; among the musical artists with songs in the film are Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson, Taj Mahal, Cornershop, Sonu Nigam, and Anoushka Shankar. As the recipient of the Sloan Producers Grant, Caulfield will receive a $25,000 development grant, admission to Film Independent’s 2007 Producers Lab, and year-round support from Film Independent. The grant is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which seeks to create and develop new scripts and films about science and technology and to see them into commercial production with national and international distribution. It has screenplay development programs with the Tribeca, Sundance and Hamptons Film Festivals, as well as other select independent partners and film schools. Two other projects accepted into the Producers Lab were singled out as honorable mentions for the Sloan Producers Grant: Gretchen Somerfeld and David Baxter’s project Face Value, about actress-inventor Heddy Lamar; and Minh Nguyen-Vo and Julien Favre’s film Point of Reference. “Monique Caulfield’s Basmati Blues truly reflects the spirit of the Sloan Producers Grant and Film Independent – diverse, imaginative and original,” said Dawn Hudson, Executive Director of Film Independent. “Monique and the future recipients of this new grant will be able to draw from the vast resources that Film Independent has to offer.” “We are delighted to partner with Film Independent in launching this inaugural Producers Grant for a feature film with science and technology themes and/or characters, and we were thrilled by the high calibre of submissions,” said Doron Weber, Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “With its musical and comical elements and its multicultural cast of characters, Basmati Blues takes a fresh and slyly irreverent approach to a serious subject, showing that science and technology can be fodder for entertainment, illumination and, we hope, box office success.” Film Independent’s Producers Lab began in 2001. Sponsored by Technicolor, the intensive seven-week program is designed to assist producers working in independent film improve their craft and move their current projects into production. The Lab has been taught by such producers as Effie T. Brown (Rocket Science), Eric d’Arbeloff (Lovely and Amazing), Matthew Greenfield (The Good Girl), Gina Kwon (Me and You and Everyone We Know), Shelby Stone (Lackawanna Blues), and Alison Dickey (Piggie). This year’s guest speakers will include writer/director Stephanie Allain (Black Snake Moan), writer/director/producer Scott Prendergast (Kabluey), attorney Craig Emanuel (Loeb & Loeb), producer Julie Lynn (The Jane Austen Book Club), and producer Sam Kitt (Love and Basketball). The Film Independent Producers Lab participants were chosen based on the strength of screenwriter’s submitted script and application, and an interview process.
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