Sundance Documentary Film Program
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Twenty Nonfiction Film Projects Receive Grants from Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
Twenty nonfiction feature projects have been awarded grants totaling $600,000 by the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program in its latest funding round. The grants target projects in all phases of filmmaking, from development to distribution and impact. Disability, feminist history, globalization, grief and loss, and housing inequality are among the subjects and, notes the press release, “… eight out of the ten U.S. films granted are helmed by at least one BIPOC director. This statistic reflects the fund’s commitment to emerging artists whose voices have been historically marginalized in hegemonic Western societies. Globally, half of the projects supported have international […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 27, 2021 -
Carrie Lozano Announced as Sundance’s New Director, Documentary Film Program
Carrie Lozano — award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, lecturer and co-founder of the International Documentary Association’s Enterprise Documentary Fund — was announced today as the new Director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. She succeeds interim director Kristin Feeley and prior director Tabitha Jackson, who became the head of the Sundance Film Festival this past January. From the press release: As Documentary Film Program Director, Lozano will elevate and support nonfiction filmmakers worldwide at all stages of creating and distributing new cinematic work. She will also work to advance and elevate the health of the independent nonfiction field, ensuring that […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2020 -
Sundance Institute Announces 22 Documentary Fund Grantees
The Sundance Institute announced today the 22 projects from filmmakers all over the world that will receive funding from its Documentary Fund. Filmmakers from 19 countries with projects in all stages of production will receive unrestricted grant support totaling $525,000. “At Sundance Institute, we know that these unprecedented times demand creative and nimble support,” said Documentary Film Program interim Director, Kristin Feeley, and Documentary Film Fund Director, Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs in a press release. “We’re fortunate to have a collaborative and strong network of partners that allow us to ensure material support for these filmmakers as they develop bold new work, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2020 -
Sundance Institute Announces Documentary Fund Grantees Totaling $1.5 Million
The Sundance Institute announced today $1.5 million in grants to 47 nonfiction film projects hailing from 27 countries. The grants, which include specialized grants administered by The Kendeda Fund and the Stories of Change Fund, support films across development, production, post-production and audience engagement. From the press release: “These grantees comprise a snapshot of the boldest visions in nonfiction storytelling today,” said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Director of the Documentary Film Program’s Film Fund. “From the intimate to the epic, their scopes and ambitions illuminate not only the world around us, but new ways of seeing, telling and showing.” Today’s slate of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2019 -
Sundance Institute Announces Documentary Fund and Stories of Change Grantees
The Sundance Institute today announced the 25 nonfiction films that will receive Documentary Fund and Stories of Change grants. The grants span all the way from initial project development to audience building, and the list includes custom grants from The Kendeda Fund, which supports projects dealing with environmental themes as well as gun violence. Stories of Change grants, a creative partnership with The Skoll Foundation, support social entrepreneurs and independent storytellers. Reports the Sundance Institute, “the supported projects come from Canada, Chile, China, Estonia, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Poland, South Africa and the United States. 21 projects, or 84%, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2019 -
Lucrecia Martel’s First Doc Chocobar, A Collaboration Between Sundance and London’s ICA, Among New Sundance Documentary Film Program Grants
Among the 33 non-fiction works comprising the recently announced Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and Stories of Change Grantees is a particularly noteworthy project that’s both the debut documentary by a major international auteur as well as a first-time collaboration between the Sundance Institute and the U.K.’s Institute for Contemporary Art. Chocobar (working title), currently in development, is the first non-fiction film from Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, whose Zama is bound to top many U.S. critic ten-best lists later this year. It tells the story of murdered photographer and land rights activist Javier Chocobar, slain while fighting the removal of his […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2018 -
Sundance Announces 2018 Art of Nonfiction Fellows and Grantees
The Sundance Institute today announced the four filmmakers and six grantees who comprise the 2018 Art of Nonfiction program. Launched in 2018, Art of Nonfiction is the Institutes’s program “working at the vanguard of inventive artistic practice in story, craft and form.” This year’s Art of Nonfiction Fellows are Deborah Stratman, Natalia Almada, Sam Green and Sky Hopinka. Grantees are Jem Cohen, Kevin Jerome Everson, Kevin B. Lee and Chloé Galibert-Laîné, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Leilah Weinraub. “This year’s cohort reflects our continuing desire to explore the space in between,” said Tabitha Jackson, Director of the Documentary Film Program, in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2018 -
Sundance Announces New “Art of Nonfiction” Initiative Supporting Innovative Documentary Filmmaking
“There has been a very vibrant conversation over the last several years about content in documentary,” says Tabitha Jackson, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. “And when I came to Sundance two years ago, I said, ‘I want to help make a conversation about form and process as loud and vibrant as the one going on about content.’” Announced today by the Sundance Institute is the first step in that process, a new “Art of Nonfiction” initiative that, over the course of a year, supports a curated group of filmmakers exploring creative formal, story and craft possibilities in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2016 -
The 5 Minor Epiphanies of the 2015 IDFA Forum
The IDFA Forum is one of the oldest pitch roundtables in the world specifically for documentaries. It’s a yearly event that gathers some of the biggest broadcasters in Europe, Canada, and the US, as well as other financiers, foundations, and distributors to hear about some of the most compelling new documentaries that are being produced independently. The format that is used at the Central Pitch is a seven-minute pitch followed by a seven-minute response from many of the broadcasting Commissioning Editors. The vibe is very collegial and only occasionally contentious, as filmmakers justify their choices and explain their projects in […]
by Eli Brown on Dec 3, 2015 -
“The Lingua Franca of Non-Fiction Filmmaking Should be the Language of Cinema, Not Grant Applications”: Sundance Documentary Film Program Director Tabitha Jackson at DOC NYC
“We have to make artful films,” declared Tabitha Jackson at this morning’s DOC NYC keynote. Her thoughtful and engaging address — accompanied, half-jokingly, by what she dubbed her first attempt at Powerpoint — was filled not with statistics about audience reach or NGO partnerships but instead illustrations drawn from documentaries as well as poetry, visual art and experimental films. Indeed, this Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program — one of the field’s most important funders — could not have been clearer about the direction she intends to bring to the program when she said, to applause, “The lingua franca […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 17, 2014
