Shore Scripts Announces Spring 2025 Short Film Fund Grant Recipients
The Californer/10317774

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- Shore Scripts announces its Winners of the Spring 2025 Short Film Fund, which awards a $15,000 cash production grant to one unproduced script and $4,000 in finishing funds to a short film in post-production.

Paper Daughter, written by Cameron Kwan, is a stop-motion animation about a young Chinese woman who grapples with the guilt of using the identity of a deceased girl to immigrate to the United States via Angel Island in 1926. Kwan is a Chinese American director specializing in stop motion animation. She began her career on the Emmy-winning preschool series Tumble Leaf before joining forces with her business partners to found their independent animation studio Apartment D.

The Truth About Space, written and directed by Jeremiah Towolawi and produced by Emily Radakovic, follows a young man when he is released from prison and has to face up to the lie that his estranged daughter has been led to believe—that he was in space. Towolawi is a British-Nigerian writer-director who is passionate about telling bold stories that tackle pertinent social issues. His short film Pepper Soup premiered at the Women of The Lens Film Festival and is used for counsellor training by PETALS, a baby loss charity.

More on The Californer

• Ex-Teacher's 'Checkpoint' Innovation Makes Shoe-Tying As Easy As Video Games for Kids
• Holiday Inn Express North Hollywood Burbank Area Announces Conversion to Hampton Inn North Hollywood
• NeighborWorks Week 2025: Cabrillo EDC Brings Vital Resources to Resident
• Pray the News Launches to Transform American Christians' Relationship with News
• California awards over $15 million to apprenticeship programs connecting youth to high-paying jobs

The prize packages also include industry guidance from two-time Oscar-nominated producer, Maria Gracia Turgeon (FAUVE, Brotherhood), camera equipment rental provided by ARRI Rental, film festival strategy consultancy from Tribeca programmer, filmmaker, and Academy member Kimberley Browning, and more.

Shore Scripts' first Short Film Fund grant was awarded in 2016 for Salam, written and directed by Claire Fowler, which premiered at Tribeca in 2018 and went on to win a BAFTA Cymru in 2020. Other alumni include Nora Kirkpatrick (Daisy Jones and the Six, A Tree Fell in the Woods), Sam Baron (Chloe, Lockwood & Co), and Anthony Florez (Deputy, Dark Winds). One of Shore Scripts' current short films, Who Are You, Nanu? written and directed by Anjini Taneja Azhar, premiered earlier this year at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Shore Scripts was founded in 2012 by filmmaker David Beazley to connect emerging writers with the film and television industry and provide much-needed support as they advance their careers. Since the inception of the Short Film Fund, Shore Scripts has greenlit 24 commissioned short films (http://www.shorescripts.com/history-of-the-short-film-fund/).

More on The Californer

• Dovinto Announces Sponsorship of Sold-Out BHCC Summer Garden Party
• FlutterFlow to Host Developer Conference, FFDC 2025, in San Francisco
• California: Three years after the end of Roe, Governor Newsom, First Partner sound the alarm on Trump's "Big, Beautiful" plan to defund Planned Parenthood
• California needs more than groundwater to ensure water sustainability
• California National Guard fire crews operating at just 40% capacity due to Trump's illegal Guard deployment

For press inquiries, please contact Short Film Fund Manager, Julia Morizawa, at julia@shorescripts.com.