The San Francisco Film Society, in partnership with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, today announced that Tom Gilroy has been awarded the 2015 Djerassi Residency Award / San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship, for continuing development of his script Our Lady of the Snow.

The Djerassi Residency Award / San Francisco Film Society Screenwriting Fellowship provides uninterrupted time for work, reflection and collegial interaction, making this award unique in its capacity to provide a screenwriter with an inspiring and supportive environment in a stunningly beautiful rural location. Located 40 miles south of San Francisco in the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean, this residency offers living and work-studio accommodations and all meals from September 8 through October 7, 2015, at no cost to the recipient.

"To be awarded the Djerassi Residency is to receive both a short-term and long-term gift," said Gilroy. "In the short term, immersion in the colony's legendary natural beauty in September is perfect timing to complete the long journey that began last year with my script Our Lady Of The Snow receiving the SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant. In the long term, to be in the presence of such an accomplished and varied group of fellow artists supplies the much needed affirmation any artist needs to keep up the fight and remember we are right and justified to do what we do -- no small feat."

WINNER

Tom Gilroy
Tom Gilroy has written and directed three award winning films: the short Touch Base; the critically-acclaimed feature Spring Forward starring Liev Schreiber, Ned Beatty and Campbell Scott; and The Cold Lands, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale and its US premiere at the Sarasota Film Festival. Gilroy is also the director of the shorts It Happened Today (commissioned by REM) and Mr. Sycamore. A 2014 recipient of a San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant for screenwriting, Tom is also a three-time fellow to the MacDowell Colony, a two-time fellow to the Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Labs, and a mentor at both the Hamptons Screenwriting Lab and the Sundance Creative Producer's Lab. A frequent film professor at Columbia University, Tom has also published three books of haiku, and his political columns appear frequently in the Huffington Post.

Our Lady Of The Snow
When the Bishop decides to sell a gothic convent isolated in the snowy woods, the elderly nuns living there begin to have ecstatic visions, which he dismisses as faked. But as the visions spread to the convent's teenaged atheist cook, inexplicable supernatural events follow, with no one sure of their cause.

Previous recipients of the Djerassi Residency Award are Lea Nakonechny (2014) for her dramatic thriller A Sweeter World, Joshua Zeman (2013) for his scientific drama Collider, Julie Tosh (2012) for her science fiction-infused family drama Program Rose, Adam Chanzit (2011) for his psychological thriller The 15th Stone and Kathryn Mockler (2010) for her project Weak People Are Fun to Torment.

For more information visit sffs.org/Filmmaker360/Grants or djerassi.org.