Recent Sundance entry Heightened Scrutiny is among recipients of the Frameline Completion Fund supporting films centring on LGBTQ+ people and their communities.
Frameline, the media and arts nonprofit and San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival host, also announced grants to Kani Lapuerta’s Niñxs, a documentary about a rural trans adolescence in Mexico that receives its world premiere next month at Visions du Réel Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland; and Brazil-set love story Only Good Things from Daniel Nolasco.
The award to Heightened Scrutiny marks the third time director Sam Heder has received a Frameline Completion Fund grant after Disclosure (2020) and Kate Bornstein Is A Queer & Pleasant Danger (2014). Heder’s new documentary follows lawyer and trans rights activist Chase Strangio.
Four short projects were also selected for 2025 Frameline Completion Fund grants: Budget Paradise by LaTajh Simmons-Weaver; Grandmai Nai Who Played Favorites (ចៅសំណព្វចិត្ត) by Chheangkea, who won the Sundance short film jury award for international fiction; Rainbow Girls by Nana Duffuor; and The Roaming Center For Magnetic Alternatives by Brydie O’Connor.
The Fund jury comprises LGBTQ+ filmmakers Natalie Jasmine Harris (New York), Renato Sircilli (Brazil), and Hao Zhou (China-born, US-based). Special mentions went to A Body to Live In by Angelo Madsen, Poreless by Harris Doran, and Ride Or Die by Josalynn Smith.
Since 1991 Frameline has awarded $692,500 to 197 projects including Dee Rees’ Pariah, Rose Troche’s Go Fish, Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca, Cynthia Wade’s Freeheld, and Jennifer Reeder’s Signature Move.
Frameline’s executive director Allegra Madsen said, “At a time when other sources of funding are being pulled or radically changed, queer arts organisations like Frameline must continue the work of uplifting LGBTQ+ creatives. If we don’t tell our own stories — and support our own stories — no-one else will.”
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