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Other funds

Other funds

The following overview contains the main funding bodies for documentary filmmakers seeking support for their projects.

Global

• Alter-Ciné Foundation (for young filmmakers born and living in Africa, Asia or Latin America)

• Catapult Film Fund (development funding for international projects)

• CNC Aide aux cinémas du monde (French co-producer required)

• Claims Conference Grant (film grants as part of their ongoing support for Holocaust education, documentation and research)

• CrossCurrent International Doc Funds (supports doc projects by filmmakers from, and telling stories of, underrepresented and marginalized communities around the world)

Doc Society Climate Story Fund (production and impact grants to creative storytelling projects; feature docs, shorts, web series, animations)

Doha Film Institute (post-production grants)

Francophonie (companies or individuals from OIF member states only)

Hubert Bals Fund (curatorial fund dedicated to supporting filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe in every stage of the filmmaking process; part of IFFR and mainly focused on fiction films)

• IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund (provides production funds to documentary films using journalistic research practice while still making cinematic and artistically rigorous work)

International Television Service (ITVS) grants (documentary funding and co-production support)

Impact Partners Films (funding independent documentary storytelling worldwide)

JustFilms by Ford Foundation (supports artist-driven film and new media storytelling projects that explore aspects of inequality, as well as the organizations and networks that support these projects)

Perspective Fund (production grants, impact planning & campaign grant and film participants grant)

The Redford Center (supports environmental filmmakers and frontline stories that drive solutions for people and the planet)

SCAM Brouillon d’un rêve (development fund, applications in French only)

Sundance Institute Documentary Fund (supports the work of nonfiction filmmakers from around the globe)

SFFILM Documentary Film Fund (supports engaging documentaries in post-production)

Sorfond Norwegian South Film Fund (Norwegian co-producer required)

Visions Sud Est (supports film productions from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, aims at making them visible worldwide and guarantees their distribution in Switzerland)

• The Whickers (Supports director-led documentaries from emerging filmmakers and audio documentary-makers worldwide and offers development grants for independent documentary filmmakers from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and (West) Asia)

World Cinema Fund by Berlinale (supports exclusively the production and distribution of feature films and feature-length documentaries; focused on the following regions and countries: Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Caucasus as well as Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia and Sri Lanka)

Africa

Africalia (supports creative projects across the African continent)

Africa No Filter (grants to African storytellers and content creators with a goal to give space to voices that are historically misrepresented and under-represented across the continent)

AFAC (supports creative documentary films in the Arab region)

Documentary Africa (development, production, post-production and impact of documentary films grants to filmmakers and producers from the African continent)

Doha film Institute (development, production and post-production grants for MENA filmmakers)

Docubox (supports East African filmmakers)

Hot Docs-Blue Ice Docs Funds (provides development grants and production grants to four to ten projects annually)

Asia

Asian Cinema Fund (post-production, script development and documentary grants for Korean and Asian films)

Alternativa Film Project (supports feature-length films from all Asian countries and short films from Southeast Asia)

Doha film Institute (development, production and post-production grants for MENA filmmakers)

SGIFF Southeast Asian Documentary Grant (supports Southeast Asian documentary filmmakers with four mid-length or feature documentaries grants annually)

Purin Pictures (supports independent cinema in Southeast Asia)

Europe

BFI Doc Society Fund (supports creative and hybrid feature documentaries films by diverse, emerging voices from all over the UK)

DOKweb (supporting creative documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe)

• Ji.hlava Film Fund (provides in-kind grants for visual and sound post-production of documentary and hybrid films at the stage of production or post-production)

Creative Europe Media Programme (MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe programme is designed to support European film and other audiovisual industries)

Latin America & the Caribbean

Programma IBERMEDIA (supports co-production projects by companies from Latin America, Spain and Portugal)

William Greaves Fund (for mid-career nonfiction storytellers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities in the United States, as well as filmmakers from Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Colombia with a particular interest in those who identify as being of Indigenous and/or of African descent)

North America

CrossCurrent Canada Doc Fund (supports short and feature-length documentaries from emerging and sophomore Canadian filmmakers who are Indigenous, Francophone, Deaf and/or have a disability, racialized and/or persons of colour)

Catapult Film Fund (research grant for US based filmmakers only)

Canada Media Fund (Canada only)

Center for American Asian Media (supports Asian American film and media projects from independent producers through two funds, the CAAM Documentary Fund and the CAAM Documentaries for Social Change Fund)

Indigenous Screen Office (Canada only)

Rogers Group of Funds (Canada only)

Telefilm (Canada only)

William Greaves Fund (for mid-career nonfiction storytellers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities in the United States, as well as filmmakers from Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Colombia with a particular interest in those who identify as being of Indigenous and/or of African descent)

Women, non-binary & LGBTQ+

Chicken & Egg Pictures (supports women and gender nonconforming filmmakers, worldwide)

Frameline Completion Fund (awards grants to emerging and established filmmakers to complete projects that represent and reflect LGBTQ+ life, worldwide)

New Voices Filmmaker Grant (supports documentary, narrative, animated or episodic projects by and about the LGBTQ+ community, US only)

Inside Out RE: Focus Fund (provides direct financial support to LGBTQ women and non-binary filmmakers, worldwide)

Filmmakers with disabilities

NAI (Nonfiction Access Initiative): Direct Access Fund (underwrites disabled media makers who practice fact-based storytelling, including but not limited to: documentary, nonfiction podcasting, new media, immersive, and other types of nonfiction practice, and are currently working on a project at any stage)

Crowdfunding

Databases