LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 10 projects selected for the inaugural 2025 Sundance Institute Filmmakers Fund sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve. The fund provides $120,000 grants to artists from all backgrounds working on feature-length films worldwide. Recipients come from six Institute programs: the Feature Film Program, the Documentary Film Program, the Indigenous Program, Catalyst, the Artist Accelerator Program, and Ignite.
The grant is part of the Institute's Artist Accelerator Program, which promotes artist development through yearlong fellowships, funding, and ongoing artist support.
We are thrilled to announce the inaugural grantees of the Sundance Institute Filmmakers Fund sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve, said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Director, Artist Accelerator Program and Women at Sundance Institute. This partnership allows us to provide artists with critical support, empowering them to take bold creative risks and bring their powerful stories to life. These 10 projects represent the diversity, innovation, and artistic excellence that are at the heart of the artists we support at Sundance Institute. We are deeply grateful to Chase Sapphire Reserve for sharing our commitment to uplifting independent voices and helping us build a more vibrant future for storytelling.
The 2025 grantees and their selected projects are:
Roni Jo Draper (Co-director) and Marissa Lila Kongao (Co-director and Cinematographer) with WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE | NE-KAH NUUE'M MEHL MECH (U.S.A.): Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a balanced ecosystem. In the past century, settlers banned fire, and the environment and people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to heal the land.
Roni Jo Draper, Ph.D., is a member of the Yurok tribe, from the village of Weitchpec on the Klamath River. Her experience as a queer Yurok woman has influenced her work as a teacher, scholar, and artist. Draper explores storytelling practices as a way to understand humanity.
Marissa Lila Kongao is a multicultural documentarian and psychedelic healer who was raised in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Their work as a director and producer for film and television centers marginalized perspectives who use storytelling to heal.
Cris Gris (Director) with forward (U.S.A.): After moving to a working-class part of the Hamptons, Latinx teen Ana finds herself drawn to enigmatic Bella, who spends her summer nights roller-skating. As their romance deepens, Ana must navigate the tender terrain of love and identity in a world that feels irreparably divided.
Cris Gris is a Mexican filmmaker whose work has screened at Berlinale, Cannes, and Morelia (Special Jury Award). A Sundance Institute and Film Independent Fellow, she's directed for HBO Max's Vgly, ViX's She Walks Alone, and Amazon Prime Video's Cometierra (Eartheater).
Kawenn here Devery Jacobs (Writer-director) with High Steel (Canada, U.S.A.): A Mohawk man splits his time between his reservation with his family and Manhattan, where he ironworks 60 stories above the ground. When he falls for a young photographer in the city, his identity is challenged and he must keep his double life a secret or risk losing everything.
Kawenn here Devery Jacobs is an award-winning actor, writer, and filmmaker, mainly known for her work in the groundbreaking series Reservation Dogs. Jacobs is currently writing her debut feature film, High Steel, which was selected as part of the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab.
Masami Kawai (Writer-director and Producer) with Valley of the Tall Grass (U.S.A.): When a TV/VCR combo set is thrown out, it survives and circulates through the lives of Indigenous families. In this multicharacter tapestry, rambunctious sisters, struggling artists, a metal scrapper, and his skater daughter intersect and find connection through this seemingly obsolete object.
Masami Kawai is a Los Angeles-born filmmaker who lives in Eugene, Oregon. She's of Ryukyuan descent from the island of Amami. Her work integrates issues of race, Indigeneity, class, and what it means to be an immigrant/settler in the United States.
Khaula Haider Malik (Writer-director) with Alien Nation (U.S.A.): After retiring, a Pakistani immigrant and his wife pursue a mysterious light in the skies over America. As they meet fellow seekers, their search for alien life reveals the distance between them - and what it means to navigate love, belonging, and wonder in a place that may never feel like home.
Khaula Malik tells character-driven stories grounded in humor, eccentricity, and pathos. She co-produced Apple TV+'s Girls State; is in post-production on her first feature documentary, The Nobles; and is currently filming No. 1 Fan, a documentary about an NFL memorabilia collector.
Mackie Mallison (Writer-director and Producer) with Everything Must Go (U.S.A.): A Japanese American family united by anxiety disorders and vivid daydreams struggles to let go of their dying matriarch.
Mackie Mallison is a filmmaker living in Brooklyn, New York. He is a Sundance Institute fellow, Film at Lincoln Center fellow, and one of Filmmaker magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Mallison's short films have screened at SXSW, NYFF, Palm Springs, and BFI and were acquired by The Criterion Channel.
Efra n Mojica (Co-director) and Rebecca Zweig (Co-director and Producer) with Jaripeo (Mexico, U.S.A.): At the rural jaripeos - a regional style of rodeo - in Michoac n, Mexico, a hypermasculine tradition is rife with hidden queer encounters.
Efra n Mojica is a photographer, filmmaker, and performance artist from Michoac n whose work has shown in galleries internationally. Their filmmaking is heavily influenced by their work as a conceptual artist, which exp
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LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 10 projects selected for the inaugural 2025 Sundance Institute Filmmakers Fund sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve. The fund provides $120,000 grants to artists from all backgrounds working on feature-length films worldwide. Recipients come from six Institute programs: the Feature Film Program, the Documentary Film Program, the Indigenous Program, Catalyst, the Artist Accelerator Program, and Ignite.
