25 Projects, 84% Directed or Produced by Women, Receive Over $750,000 in Grants
Los Angeles, CA - 25 nonfiction films from 12 countries are the latest Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and Stories of Change Grantees, announced today. This support includes unrestricted grants to films in the development, production, post-production and audience engagement stages, and is made possible by founding support from Open Society Foundations.
Today's slate of grantees includes custom grants from The Kendeda Fund, providing specific support for projects addressing environmental themes and the challenges of gun violence and the Stories of Change Fund, a creative partnership with the Skoll Foundation, supporting social entrepreneurs and independent storytellers.
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%, have a woman director or producer.
This slate of grantees comprises many languages. said Tabitha Jackson, Director of the Documentary Film Program, The languages of the 12 countries from which they come, but even more excitingly to us, the different cinematic languages being deployed to express and grapple with the world in which we find ourselves.
Documentary Fund grantees that went on to screen at this year's Sundance Film Festival include Advocate, American Factory, The Edge of Democracy, Hail Satan?, The Infiltrators, Jawline, One Child Nation, Midnight Family, and Midnight Traveler.
The latest grantees, presented by production stage and grantor, are:
DEVELOPMENT Ancestors in the Archives (United States)
Dir. Zack Khalil, Adam Khalil
Prod. Steve Holmgren, Franny Alfano
Ancestors in the Archives follows the fight to return and rebury indigenous human remains which have been imprisoned in the sterile archives of settler-colonial museums and universities. The film lays bare the history of indigenous collections, and takes a critical look at the reasoning that justified unearthing and collecting them in the first place.
Blood Peach (United States)
Dir. Zuri Obi
Prod. Zuri Obi
Wild peaches grow lush along the Mississippi River yet remain untouched by the people of Natchez- they know the bloody past that feeds this strange fruit. blood peach is an experimental documentary unearthing an oral history that took root in the collective memory of a small Southern town.
Light of the Setting Sun (United States)
Dir. Vicky Du
Prod. Vicky Du
In Light of the Setting Sun, the filmmaker investigates how trauma has proliferated throughout her family since the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 to the present, from the East to the West.
Little Ethiopia (United Kingdom / United States)
Dir. Maya Hawke, Joe Bini
Prod. Mara Adina
Maya Hawke and Joe Bini co-direct an autobiographical hybrid feature film centred around one of the most significant days in their relationship. Masterfully jumping through time, we are guided through the deepest, darkest parts of their lives together and apart, The story is uniquely told through two highly personal, independent and subjective perspectives, touching on themes of love, sexuality and the distrust between women and men in the #metoo era.
Return to Oaxacalifornia (Mexico / United States)
Dir. Trisha Ziff
Prod. Vangie Griego, Isabel del R o
Meet the Mejia family, twenty-one years later. Who are they today? Explore their worlds, dreams and contradictions; Fresno to Oaxaca. A road trip crossing three generations, two cultures and one border.
River of Grass (United States)
Dir. Sasha Wortzel
A time traveling guide channeled by the land recounts the Everglades' violent past and warns of Floridas precarious future. Told through Miami journalist Marjory Stoneman Douglass The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), the film explores how Florida's vulnerability to climate change is historically rooted in the Everglades' ongoing legacies of colonization.
Seeds (United States)
Dir. Brittany Shyne
Seeds is an ethnographic portrait of a centennial African American farm in Thomasville, Georgia. Using lyrical black and white imagery this meditative film examines the decline of generational black farmers and the significance of owning land.
PRODUCTION 499 Years (Mexico / United States / Germany)
Dir. Rodrigo Reyes
Prod. Inti Cordera, Andrew Houchens
499 Years explores the brutal legacy of colonialism in Mexico nearly five centuries after Cortez arrived in the Aztec Empire. Bold, unique, and strikingly cinematic, the film confronts how past traumas continue to affect contemporary reality, challenging us to seek ways to forgive, heal and overcome our shared histories of violence.
Los rboles nos cuentan (The Trees Tell Us) (Chile)
Dir. Carlos Sep lveda
Prod. Macarena Monr s, Karin Cuyul
Mar a (73) is a farmer afflicted by a lung cancer caused by chemical pollution of the surrounding factories in a town of Ventanas, Chile. She will try to save her fields, leading us to magical spaces where the trees and their past come to life.
El compromiso de las sombras (Mexico)
Dir. Sandra Luz Lopez Barroso
Prod. Maricarmen Merino Mora, Karla Bukantz
Lizbeth orchestrates the funerary rituals in her Afro-Mexican community, where the toll for victims of violence and organized crime continuously increases. She will guide us through this reality and help us reflect on the importance of saying goodbye to our loved ones.
The Inventory (Mexico / United States)
Dir. Ilana Coleman
Prod. Jamie Gon alves, Makena Buchanan
Families seek justice for their forcibly disappeared relatives in M xico, while a fictionalized committee of linguists perform an inventory of the dictionary.
The Last Relic (Estonia / Poland)
Dir. Marianna Kaat
A spirited Left Block activist and Yekaterinburg Univ
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25 Projects, 84% Directed or Produced by Women, Receive Over $750,000 in Grants 
