Sundance Institute announced today the recipients of this year’s Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, which awarded unrestricted grants with a total granting pool standing at $1,450,000 to 28 projects. From the press release:

The Documentary Fund prioritizes the support of artists from historically marginalized communities and seeks to amplify global voices telling crucial stories. More than half of the grant proposals came from outside the U.S., with the final group of grantees representing 25 countries. The majority of projects (92%) receiving grants are directed by artists from communities that have been traditionally marginalized and 60% are from first-time feature directors.

Through careful craft and fearless vision, projects in this year’s slate have the power to instill resilience through family and community legacies, transcend new frontiers in ritual and belief, spotlight the impact of grassroots activism, explore tender reconnections with loved ones through the arts, and empower personal expression in the face of oppressive policies and governments.

While many of the projects supported this year are from early-career filmmakers, this cycle of granting also supports projects from mid-career storytellers, including: Hawa, produced by Christian Popp, who also produced Becoming Cary Grant (2017); House of Earth directed by Ljubomir Stefanov (Honeyland, 2019); Leap of Faith directed by Nicholas Ma, who produced Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018); Stallions directed by Rita Baghdadi (Sirens, 2022); Untitled Philippines Project, the fifth feature from filmmaker PJ Raval (Call Her Ganda, 2018); and The First Plantation, directed by Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, who produced T, the 2020 winner of the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale.

Previously supported projects have included: All That Breathes; American Factory; The Battle for Laikipia; Collective; Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Mija; Minding the Gap; The Mole Agent; No Other Land; Nocturnes; Strong Island; Sugarcane; The Territory; Time; and Union.

2024 Documentary Fund Grantees:

DEVELOPMENT

Basketball Heaven (U.S.A.)

Director/Producer: Resita Cox

A poetic portrait of the historic Black community in Kinston, North Carolina. From surviving catastrophic floods to a poorly funded education system, Kinston remains the single greatest producer of NBA talent in the world. 

Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, U.K., Argentina)

Directors: Jonathan Qu, Kevin Feiyang Li

Producers: Jonathan Qu, Kevin Feiyang Li, Nicholas de Pencier

Following a battle with cancer, a Christian astrophysicist races to build his last great balloon telescope to unravel the mysteries of dark matter and the artistry of God. If ignorance is truly bliss, then why do we explore the unknown?

Stallions (Morocco)

Director: Rita Baghdadi

Producers: Rita Baghdadi, Sahar Yousefi

A crew of stallion riders make dreams come true on the coast of Morocco.

Strange Sea (Azerbaijan)

Director: Lala Aliyeva

Producer: Aysel Akhundova 

In the depths of the Caspian Sea, the whispers of its dark past intertwine with the tales of ordinary life. Strange Sea paints an impressionistic portrait of Azerbaijan mirrored in the disappearing Caspian Sea, which has defined its identity for decades.

The Blue Sweater with a Yellow Hole (Ukraine, France, Czech Republic)

Director: Tetiana Khodakivska

Producers: Elena Saulich, Tetiana Khodakivska, Maxim Asadchiy

Questioning the propaganda in the modern world, the documentary follows Ukrainian children Kira, Taisa, and Artem, as they paint their memories about time in Russian ‘re-education’ camps. The animated scenes immerse the viewers into the children’s shifting identity experiences.

PRODUCTION

#WhileBlack (U.S.A., Canada)

Directors: Sidney Fussell, Jennifer Holness

Producers: Ann Shin, Geeta Gandbhir

Witnesses who filmed viral videos of injustice reveal the true cost of going viral while Black, as social platforms turn their pain into profit.

Afromystic (U.S.A., Nigeria, Brazil)

Director: Seyi Adebanjo

Producers: Seyi Adebanjo, Nala Simone Toussaint, Bryan E. Glover, Felix Endara, Zackary Drucker

Afromystic is a lyrical documentary that follows LGBTQ+ Yorùbá practitioners across the waters of Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States in a quest for post-colonial liberation — by way of Indigenous religion.

Untitled Africa Project

Director/Producer: withheld

Coach Emily (U.S.A.)

Director: Pallavi Somusetty

Producers: Debra Wilson Cary, Jen Gilomen, Pallavi Somusetty

As rock climbing coach Emily Taylor fearlessly trains a group of BIPOC kids to conquer the pervasive discrimination they face in the outdoors, she embarks on a profound journey of self-care, while working to dismantle an industry rife with systemic racism.

Conscious (U.K.)

Director: Suki Chan

Producers: Aimara Reques, Teresa Grimes

Conscious is an optimistic, cinematic experience, taking us closer to understanding the strength and frailty of the human mind. What can a neuroscientist and three people living with dementia tell us about the nature of consciousness in a technological age?

Dreams of a Dark Sky (India)

Director: Anmol Tikoo

Producers: Mikaela Beardsley, Raghu Karnad

As Ladakh is flooded with light, engineers in Hanle work with astronomers and nomadic communities to create a sanctuary for darkness and starlight. But the dark sky holds a different dream for each of them. What will they discover about themselves, others, and the cosmos as they embrace the dark?

The First Plantation (Barbados, U.S.A.)

Director: Jason Fitzroy Jeffers

Producer: Darcy McKinnon

A documentary on reparations becomes unexpectedly personal when a filmmaker returns home to Barbados to tell the story of Drax Hall, the oldest continuously operated sugar plantation in the Americas, recently inherited by a wealthy British politician descended from the slave master who founded it.

Good Fire (U.S.A., Greece)

Directors: Roni Jo Draper, Marissa Lila

Producers: Jenn Lee Smith, Nicole Docta

Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a healthy and balanced ecosystem. Over the past 100 years, settlers banned that fire, and the environment and the people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to the land in order to heal the world.

House of Earth (North Macedonia, U.S.A.)

Director: Ljubomir Stefanov

Producer: Maya E. Rudolph

Pinky returns to Shutka, the Roma community she’s been running from for years, and navigates her biological family and queer kin’s visions of home and belonging. A transgender woman nearing the end of her sex work career, Pinky radically reimagines her future as a matriarch and community leader.

Jaripeo (Mexico, U.S.A.)

Directors: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig

Producers: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig, Sarah Strunin

At the rural rodeos in Michoacán, México, a hypermasculine tradition is rife with hidden queer encounters. Guided by director Efraín, Jaripeo follows two rancheros as they navigate desire, machismo, and mass migration from one rodeo season to the next.

Supported by the Sundance Institute | Sony Music Vision Initiative

Life in the Shadows (Afghanistan, Belgium, Germany)

Director: K.D.

Producer: Ilyas Yourish

Years after K’s classmates were massacred in his school, he records the lives of Machid, who attends the same school, and Khatima, who works in the cemetery where the dead students are buried.

Mother Wit (U.S.A.)

Directors/Producers: Rajvi Desai, Te Shima Brennen

Three Black trans women grieve the death of their matriarch and mentor who had fought all her life to set them on a path of education, excellence and liberation, as they fight to fulfill the promises they made to her.

Timepass (India, U.S.A.)

Director: Roopa Gogineni

Producer: Trevor Snapp 

Following the death of her grandfather, a radical humanist and longtime village doctor, a filmmaker returns to her ancestral South Indian home to confront the gilded statue built in his honor.

Untitled Philippines Project (Philippines, U.S.A.)

Director: PJ Raval

Producers: Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, Annie Small

A new feature documentary by PJ Raval.

Walker (U.S.A.)

Director: Amy Bench

Producers: Amy Bench, Mei Kennedy, Monique Walton

Walker is a verité portrait of a deaf advocate and father from Baton Rouge, Louisiana — who is driven by his family’s experiences of incarceration and deafness to help others in his community affected by the prison system. Walker is an intimate exploration into family, activism, and personal healing.

POST-PRODUCTION

Art After-Life (U.S.A., Argentina)

Director: David Romberg 

Producers: David Romberg, Rachel Dengiz, Adrian Elzy

Osvaldo Romberg was a Latin American artist who pushed the limits of the avant-garde. Years later, his son employs generative AI technology to converse with him, after his death.

Backside (U.S.A.)

Director: Raúl Paz Pastrana

Producers: Gabriella García Pardo, Patricia Alvarez Astacio 

Following a racing season from beginning to end, Backside captures the daily work, friendship, dreams, and expertise of the under-recognized migrant workers behind the Kentucky Derby. 

Blacked Out Dreams (U.S.A.)

Director: Adeleke Omitowoju

Producer: Steven Pargett

Blacked Out Dreams is a film about how rapid school closures and a water crisis force three normal kids to live in very abnormal conditions. The film follows two siblings as they navigate towards graduating from the last remaining public high school in a city divided by race, and plagued by poverty.

Cais (Brazil)

Director: Safira Moreira

Producer: Flávia Santana

Two months after the passing of her mother Angélica, Safira travels to search for her mother in other landscapes. In a river route, the film travels through cities bathed by the Paraguaçu River (Bahia) and the Alegre River (Maranhão), to dive in new perspectives on memory, time, birth, life, and death.

Hawa (France, The Netherlands, Afghanistan, Qatar)

Directors: Najiba Noori, Ali Rasul Noori

Producers: Christian Popp, Hasse van Nunen 

Forty years after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa is eager to finally begin an independent life and to be literate. However, with the return of the Taliban to power, her dreams, and those of her daughter and granddaughter are shattered.

Leap of Faith (U.S.A.)

Director: Nicholas Ma

Producers: Nicholas Ma, Morgan Neville

Troubled by our fractured society, 12 midwestern Christian leaders tackle the most controversial questions of today to discover whether we can belong to each other in a challenging and divisive world.

Vestibule (U.S.A.)

Director: Riley Hooper

Producers: Caitlin Mae Burke, Bryn Silverman

Filmmaker Riley Hooper documents her decade-long journey with Vestibulodynia, a vulvar disorder. What begins as a singular mission to have pain-free sex becomes a multigenerational story about sexual health, pleasure, and agency, told through imaginative dance sequences and intimate voiceover.

IMPACT

Songs from the Hole (U.S.A.)

Director: Contessa Gayles

Producers: Contessa Gayles, Richie Reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe

An incarcerated musician struggles for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary visual album composed behind bars.

Supported by the Sundance Institute | Sony Music Vision Initiative