LOS ANGELES - As part of the nonprofit Sundance Institutes continued commitment to supporting artists from historically excluded communities, the Institute announced today its latest grantees for both the Uprise Grant Fund and Arts Organization Grants. The Uprise Grant Fund supports BIPOC artists whose careers and creative development have been harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirty-eight U.S.-based artists of color have been selected for Uprise Grants that will enable them to sustain their creative practice, ensuring that these critical stories and voices are not erased. Unrestricted grants total $184,000, with individual amounts ranging up to $5,000 based on stated need. Eighty percent of Uprise artist grantees work in traditional film disciplines, and 20% work primarily in emerging media or theater disciplines. Recipients were selected via a robust review process by a culturally abundant group of external reviewers and panelists. The Institute also announced $240,000 in Arts Organization Grants to 18 U.S.-based BIPOC-led arts organizations and collectives. Each of these organizations work in film, theater, or emerging media, and will receive a grant between $5,000 and $20,000, with levels determined based on the organization's demonstrated track record of impact within their priority communities, and the stated need and the operating budget of the organization. Funding will be used to strengthen the organizations themselves in their ongoing work and/or be directly regranted to artists. The selected organizations all applied following a field-wide nomination process by trusted and long-standing partners, including peer arts organizations, foundations, and Sundance Institute alumni artists.
The mission of the Uprise Grant Fund is a direct manifestation of the values of the Outreach & Inclusion Program and Sundance Institute as a whole. Since the pandemic began, among our top priorities has been to move unrestricted resources into those communities of artists that have been so disproportionately harmed, in order to combat the erasure of these powerful voices from our culture, said Karim Ahmad, Sundance Institute Director of Outreach & Inclusion. Our Arts Organizations Grant is similarly a commitment to economic justice in the arts by supporting these mighty BIPOC-led arts organizations whose continued existence and impact are deeply necessary to uplift and sustain those artists that are most marginalized in the field.
The funding of other organizations is a continuation of the organizational granting that began last year as part of Sundance Institute's Respond and Reimagine Plan, affirming the Institute's commitment and belief in the urgency of a strong, vibrant ecosystem of organizations dedicated to serving BIPOC artist communities.
The Uprise Grant Fund will continue next year supporting artist sustainability for BIPOC storytellers with the upcoming cycle opening applications in the spring.
The Inaugural Uprise Grant Fund Recipients Are: Yasmin Almanaseer Yasmin Almanaseer is a queer, Black, and Arab-American writer born in Tallahassee, Florida, and raised in the North Bay of California. He is a former Outfest Fellow, a 2020 Topple Disruptors Fellow and most recently, a WarnerMedia Access Fellow.
Fatimah Asghar A poet, a fiction writer, and a filmmaker, Fatimah Asghar is the author of If They Come For Us, the co-editor of Halal If You Hear Me, and the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls.
Hadeel Assali Hadeel Assali is an anthropologist, filmmaker, and former engineer. She is currently working on her first feature-length documentary.
Lena Chen Lena Chen creates feminist performance and socially engaged art. She founded Heal Her, an expressive arts initiative supporting survivors of gender-based violence. She earned a B.A. in sociology from Harvard University and is a MFA candidate at Carnegie Mellon University.
Edyka Chilom Edyka Chilom is a queer indigenous mestiza cultural worker born to migrant activists from the occupied territories of the Zacateco (Mexico) and Lenca (El Salvador) peoples. Currently she's based east of the Arkikosa River (Texas). Learn more at Edykachilome.com.
Dominic Col n Dominic was an inaugural Latinx TV List finalist. Currently Dominic has projects in development at Hulu, 20th TV, and Anthony Hemingway Productions. He is repped by CAA & Artists First.
Min Ding Min Ding was born and raised in China. She received her MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University. She is an award-winning filmmaker currently residing in Brooklyn and developing her first feature film, A Self Combing Woman.
Mandolin Eisenberg Mandolin Justice Eisenberg (M.J. Rain Song) is Indigenous to Taos Pueblo, descending from ancestors who fought with their lives to shape their own story in one of the oldest inhabited places in the United States. She is a Storyteller by blood and Director at heart. She is a 2018 Sundance Full Circle Fellow.
Ash Goh Hua Ash Goh Hua is a filmmaker and cultural worker from Singapore, based in New York. They create documentaries informed by the politics of abolition and autonomy, utilizing a subversively collaborative filmmaking process to build collective power.
Leandro Fabrizi Leandro Fabrizi R os was director, producer, and cinematographer on the public television series Zona Franca. He is a video journalist for the Center for Investigative Journalism, and he has been behind the most in-depth reports on Puerto Rico's debt and fiscal crisis.
Kayla Farrish Kayla Farrish is a filmmaker, director, and choreographer interested in narrative immersive works pushing through film, live performance, sound score, and text. She produces films and hybrid works revealing hidden perspectives, uprooting history, with radical imagination and liberation.
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