Los Angeles, CA - A diverse range of projects and artists on the frontlines of nonfiction storytelling received nearly $2 million in grants from Sundance Institute, furthering their work across a broad array of subjects and forms.Works originate in 26 countries and six continents, and teams include Academy Award nominees (Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar, Richard Rowley, Jon Else and David France), and first-time feature filmmakers (Cody Lucich, Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas, Nadia Shihab, Bing Liu, T Cooper, Sandi Tan, Hana Mire, Jon Kasbe, Jonathan Bogar n and Elan Bogar n). Funding for audience engagement goes to series including The Keepers and films such as The Force, Sembene! and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson. Subject matters are as wide-ranging as the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis and the summer camp origins of the modern disability rights movement to a deadly fire in a 1980s Romanian nightclub and an innovative life skills program at Mojave Desert high school.
The Fund celebrates both tried-and-true and new areas of focus in this granting period, with projects selected as part of an ongoing rolling call over the past year. The inaugural Spotlight on Storytellers Award provides artist grants designed specifically for storytellers from under-represented communities (primarily filmmakers of color, women and gender-nonconforming artists) who stand at critical junctures of their careers. Now in its tenth year, the Stories of Change Content Fund, Sundance Institute's creative partnership with the Skoll Foundation, continues to support social impact filmmakers with $337,000 awarded to six projects across genres and at varying states of development.
The artists and projects selected in this round of funding are at the forefront of bold, innovative and impactful nonfiction storytelling, said Tabitha Jackson, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. At this critical time for the role of the fearless independent voice, we hope that this granting and ongoing creative support will be catalytic in ensuring that the work of these dedicated artists will be made and seen.
The projects have been funded at various stages, including 16 in development, 16 in production, 21 in post-production and five for Audience Engagement, designed to develop a project's marketing, publicity, and distribution campaigns.
Sundance Institute has a long history and firm commitment to championing the most distinctive nonfiction films from around the world. Recent films supported include I Am Not Your Negro, Last Men in Aleppo, An Insignificant Man, Casting JonBenet, Strong Island, Hooligan Sparrow, Newtown, and Weiner. More information is available at sundance.org/documentary.
The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program is made possible by founding support from Open Society Foundations. Generous additional support is provided by Skoll Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; The Charles Engelhard Foundation; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; Arcus Foundation; The Kendeda Fund; Genuine Article Pictures; CNN Films; Discovery Channel; National Geographic; Bertha Foundation; Cinereach; Time Warner Foundation; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Anonymous; Compton Foundation; SundanceNow; Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman; Joan and Lewis Platt Foundation; Code Blue Foundation; Candescent Films; EarthSense Foundation; PBS; and WNET New York Public Media.
DEVELOPMENT
After a Revolution (United Kingdom, Italy, Libya)
Director: Giovanni Buccomini
Producers: Al Morrow and Naziha Arebi
Filmed over five years, After a Revolution is the intimate story of a brother and sister who fought on opposite sides of the Libyan revolution, a close up on the country's traumatic course from rebellion, to elections to the edge of civil war.
Akicita (United States)
Director: Cody Lucich
Producers: Heather Rae, Gingger Shankar and Ben Dupris
In the shadow of the largest Native American political occupation since Wounded Knee thousands of water protectors from around the world have descended on Standing Rock, North Dakota to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
Kendeda Fund
Bisbee 17 (United States)
Director: Robert Greene
Producers: Bennett Elliott, Susan Bedusa and Douglas Tirola
Bisbee '17 will follow characters in Bisbee, Arizona as they commemorate the 100th anniversary of the controversial Bisbee Deportation, where 1200 striking miners were violently exiled from town.
The Blue Wall: Killing Laquan McDonald (United States)
Director: Richard Rowley
Producers: Jacqueline Soohen and Jamie Kalven
The Blue Wall is the feature documentary account of the Chicago police killing of Laquan McDonald. The film is a forensic examination of a shooting, an anatomy of a coverup, and a portrait of a city torn apart in the aftermath.
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Brainiacs (United States)
Director: Laura Nix
Producers: Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Laura Nix
Meet the brightest young minds on the planet as they participate in the world's most prestigious high school science competition, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). These passionate innovators are creating cutting-edge solutions to confront the world's most pressing environmental threats - found right in their own backyards - while navigating the doubts and insecurities that mark adolescence.
Discovery Fellow | Kendeda Fund
A Cops and Robbers Story (United Kingdom)
Director: Ilinca Calugareanu
Producer: Mara Adina
Growing up in Queens in the 70s, Corey Pegues played Cops and Robbers like all the other kids on the block but he never expected to become both.
The Gold Rush Project (United States)
Director: Jon Else
Producer: Camille Servan-Schreiber
The making of a new John Adams opera about nativism during the California Gold
