Roy W. Dean Grant Summer 2014 Finalists

Since 1992, From the Heart Productions has supported filmmakers with cash and substantial professional discounts from our film industry partners, averaging an estimated $30,000 per filmmaker. The Roy W. Dean grants program, with several annual deadlines, has grown into one of the most sought after competitions in the world.

Its Roy W. Dean Grant funds unique films that make a contribution to society. It gives filmmakers with great stories, told with passion, the funding to get their projects started or completed.

Roy W. Dean 2015 Spring Grants are now being accepted! Deadline: April 30th

Summer 2014 Finalists

*Winner is highlighted in gold. Top 5 finalists are highlighted in red.

	Film Name	Type	Filmmaker	Description
	5 Women: 4 Seasons	Doc	Molly Kreuzman	Five courageous young women live primitively in the Oregon Cascade Mountains and emerge a year later unexpectedly and powerfully transformed.
	A Holy Rascal Goes to a Death Cafe	Doc	Cathy Zheutlin	Jack meets old man death and dances from fear to acceptance; four terminally ill people face death with courage, love and humor.
	A Photographic Memory	Doc	Rachel Elizabeth Seed	A young photographer strives to find the mother she never knew, and subsequently herself, through tracking down iconic photographers her late mother interviewed decades before.
	America’s Blues	Doc	Patrick Branson	America’s Blues is the story of the impact that Blues Music has had on our society, our culture, and the entertainment industry
	Banner on the Moon	Doc	Renee Sotile	A college instructor challenges herself to become the first female to climb Mount Everest and finish the Iditarod — all while fighting a rare fatal disease.
	Chair(s)	Short	Jon Stout	A man brings in a chair from the street and it starts doing strange things. As he ponders this new stranger in his life, he comes to terms with his own dark past.
	Christmas Dance	Short	Ping-Wen Wang	A lonely old woman with Alzheimer’s enters a dream world, where she has one last chance to reconcile with her daughter before she forgets everything.
	Copper	Doc	AJ Oscarson	Copper explores how people balance addiction with survival, and the way Denver’s street economies function when drugs and scrap metal serve as acceptable currency.
	Dead in the Water	Doc	David Wittkowner	Dead in the Water is about the extinction of the fishing industry in America and how its effecting a city that relies on it.
	Generation Zapped	Doc	Sabine EL Gemayel/Carolyn Chen	Two moms expose the chilling facts about the hazards of wireless radiation on the next generation.
	Heel	Doc	Ruth Villatoro	Boys on probation in a secured facility foster “unadoptable” rescued dogs. A story of second chances as the dogs teach the boys about forgiveness and love while the boys teach the dogs the domestic skills to be adopted.
	In Search Of America: Inshallah	Short	Danish Renzu	A dependent Pakistani housewife comes to America to find her husband but is instead forced to find her emancipation
	Inside Peace	Doc	Cynthia Fitzpatrick	Hardened criminals, plagued by a lifetime of violence, addiction and bad choices, find their way to the Peace Class in a Texas jail where they struggle to change, discover their humanity and try to beat the odds, as they put their lives back together from the inside out.
	Living with Coyote	Doc	Priya Shelly	A story of the American West’s on going battle with the coyote, one of the most hated predators in the nation.
	Lone Man’s Land	Doc	Ezra Gentle	Cowboys, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and how the west was undone.
	Look Like Laury, Sounds Like Laury	Doc	Pamela Hogan	What would you do if you started to disappear? The poignant, sometimes funny of the year the unthinkable happened to NYC actress Laury Sacks.
	Not the Same: Families after War	Doc	Stephanie Howard	Life will never be the same for families of wounded vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
	Preserving Paradise	Doc	Paul Stoutenburgh	The story of a team’s journey to find solutions to the deforestation of tropical rain forests
	The First Lady of Burlesque	Doc	Craig Jackson	A story about aging, identity and second changes, this documentary confronts our societal fears of growing old while following an 80-year-old burlesque icon, Miss April March.
	The Real Trial of the 20th Century	Doc	Robert Richter	Documentary focuses on the sensationalized murder trial of Black Panther Party Co-Founder Huey Newton in the volatile summer of 1968.
	The Zodiac Dater	FF	Natasha Paris	When an author’s astrology-obsessed fiancée dumps him for being skeptical of her passion, he writes a book teaching guys how to beat the astrological system, but faces unexpected disastrous consequences.
	Two Sisters	Short	Sandra Oh	The harrowing story of two North Korean sisters’ perilous journey as they attempt to defect to South Korea.

2014 Summer Grant Winner!

A Photographic Memory By Elizabeth Rachel Seed

Thirty years after her mother, Sheila Turner-Seed’s, death, photographer Rachel Elizabeth Seed discovers her work—interviews with some of the greatest photographers of the 20th Century, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model and W. Eugene Smith—in her father’s garage. When she threads the audio reels and presses play, she hears her mother’s voice for the first time since she was a baby. Rachel finds it familiar and comforting, and is transformed by the experience. Wanting to know more about her mother and to revitalize and honor her work, Rachel revisits the photographers, as well as her mother’s friends and family, to learn who she was while also looking at how photography can help preserve memory and reconnect us with those we have lost. Through this process, Rachel reconnects to her mother by discovering how much they have in common: their looks, ambition, career paths, and desire to settle down and have a family. However, in order to move on with her own life, Rachel comes to realize she must set herself apart from Sheila, and to do that must find out if she has the same genetic predisposition to early death that took her mother’s life. Rachel’s ability to forge her own path hinges on these medical results.

Roy W. Dean Grant – Summer Film Grant Winners

2014 – Rachel Elizabeth Seed for A Photographic Memory

2013 – Jason Grant Smith for I Voted? – A Non-Partisan Documentary

2012 – Alicia Brauns for The Mosaic of Life

2011 – Leslie Neale for Unlikely Friends

2010 – Sara Maamouri & Jesse Deeter for Burned

2009 – Lori Miller for Shakespeare High

2008 – Karin Mak for Red Dust

2007 – Chelo Alavarez for Sold in America