SOUTHERN DOCUMENTARY FUND

The Southern Documentary Fund offers up to $15,000 to support documentary projects in the production phase that highlight stories rooted in the American South. Open to independent filmmakers living and working in the region, this grant prioritizes diverse perspectives and underrepresented voices.

Apply here:sdf.submittable.com

Deadline: August 15, 2025

FUND FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

The Fund for Investigative Journalism provides grants and other support for reporters to produce high-quality, unbiased, nonpartisan investigative stories that have an impact.

Freelance journalists, staff reporters and media outlets are eligible for grants, and their investigations can be for print, online or broadcast stories, books, documentaries or podcasts.

Grants proposals are reviewed three to four times a year. Grants awards go up to $10,000. The next deadline is September 8th.

Apply here.

FEMALE FILM CLUB GLOBAL FILM FUND

The Female Film Club Global Film Fund is awarding €10,000 to one short film.This global initiative supports female voices through funding as well as through mentorship, and international industry exposure.

The deadline is September 7th.

Apply here.

ENDURING DEMOCRACY: THE MONTEREY PETITION NOW STREAMING

The award-winning documentary, ENDURING DEMOCRACY: THE MONTEREY PETITION, by DAVID SCHENDEL, is now streaming on the PBS website and apps.

The timely and urgent film tells the story of a group of fearless women in Monterey and Carmel California that stood up to government endorsed racism against Japanese Americans during WW2. 

HOLDING UP THE SKY SCREENING

HOLDING UP THE SKY, produced and directed by BOB NESSON, will be screening on Wednesday, September 10 at 6:30 PM ET at The Somerville Theater in Davis Square, Somerville, MA.

From prison to purpose, HOLDING UP THE SKY follows Ed and Jimmy, two formerly incarcerated men working to rebuild their lives while still bound by the constraints of lifetime parole. Their stories reveal the transformative power of second chances through education and community—and the persistent systemic barriers to reentry that persist. A Q&A with director Bob Nesson and special guests will follow the screening.

Watch the trailer and learn more about the film HERE.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/C7icKWrBLQ6ZBVCGA

WATER FOR LIFE UPDATES

AGUA ES VIDA, the Spanish language version of WATER FOR LIFE, directed and produced by WILL PARINELLO and produced by RICK TEJADA-FLORES and MARIA JOSE CALDERON, screened at Bronx Documentary Center's Latin American Film & Foto Festival on Saturday, August 2, Terraza 7, Elmhurst, NY. Filmmaker Will Parrinello was there there for a Q&A after the screening.

WATER FOR LIFE will also be screening on September 22 at the Ford Foundation (320 East 43rd Street, NYC).

Following, there will be a panel discussion with Kerry Kennedy, President of RFK Human Rights, Goldman Prize laureates Fransisco Pineda and Marcel Gomes, and WILL PARINELLO.

WATER FOR LIFE explores the collision of water rights, Indigenous beliefs, and resource extraction through the lives of three Latin American community leaders. The right to clean water is a global issue—in Latin America it has become a matter of life and death.

Narrated by Mexican actor Diego Luna with the original song Ko (Water) sung by Grammy Award-winning Mexican Mixtec singer Lila Downs and Chilean Mapuche singer-songwriter Daniela Millaleo. 

Produced in Association with Center For Independent Documentary and Latino Public Broadcasting with Major Funding from Ford Foundation /JustFilms.

Watch the trailer!

EL SINGO VACÍO UPDATES

EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign) produced and directed by KATHRYN RAMEY was awarded the Richard Werbner award by the Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival.

The film is now distributed in the United States by Third World Newsreel and in Europe by LightCone. 

The film also screened at Zumzeig in Barcelona and at ECRA in Brasil. 

EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign) is a feature length cinematic essay interrogating the 120-year US occupation of Puerto Rico and the filmmaker’s bizarre connection to it via her surname, RAMEY, to reveal how US democratic narratives effectively obscure her capitalist/military domination of the islands.

NO BABY ON BOARD UPDATES

NO BABY ON BOARD, produced and directed by JULIA KOTS, the partially-animated feature documentary directed by Julia Kots, premiered on June 19 to a sold out screening at the 2025 Bentonville Film Festival. 

Watch the trailer here.

When filmmaker Julia Kots chooses not to have kids and instead donates her frozen eggs, she sets out to document other childless women’s stories. Intertwining their deeply personal testimonies with her own journey, NO BABY ON BOARD provides an intimate look at the complex reasons leading more women to opt out of motherhood.

THE QUILTERS STREAMING ON NETFLIX

THE QUILTERS, produced and directed by JENIFER MCSHANE began streaming on Netflix May 16th! 

Netflix will be making the film available in 191 countries and 32 languages.

THE QUILTERS provides us with a unique opportunity to observe how art can restore an individual’s view of themselves and others. The film follows the daily life inside the prison sewing room and the progress of several quilts from design through production and into the arms of a foster child.

Watch the trailer here.

SPIA MEDIA UPDATES

SPIA MEDIA and Tockwotton Fox Point Cape Verdean Heritage team's new website "Down the Point" has been launched. There you can view the Blue Collar Rhody, an interactive exhibition including the WTB: Moc webisodes documentary photographs of Liane Brandon. 

In 2016, SPIA MEDIA PRODUCTIONS migrated thirty years of historical, educational, and archival film and video content about the history of Cape Verde and the Tockwotton Fox Point Cape Verdean community to digital formats and platforms. The SPIA Media documentary collection is available on Kanopy, a leading streaming video service providing quality educational content to schools, colleges, universities, and libraries.

NANCY DREW: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN ICON KICKSTARTER UPDATES

NANCY DREW: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN ICON'S Kickstarter campaign began June 30 and ended July 30. They met their first goal of $50,000 in just 11 days as well as a subsequent stretch-goal of $95,000 to help replace the $350,000 of funding lost when their NEH grant was cancelled by the administration in April.  

NANCY DREW: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN ICON, produced and directed by CATHLEEN O'CONNELL, explores the cultural influence of America’s favorite “girl” detective, who for nearly 100 years, has inspired generations to be brave, curious and bold. Weaving together interviews with leading historians and famous fans, archival footage, animation, and vérité footage of “real life” Nancy Drews both young and old, the documentary investigates the history behind this iconic figure.

TEN TIMES BETTER NOW STREAMING

TEN TIMES BETTER, produced and directed by JENNIFER LIN and produced by JON FUNABIKI and CORY STIEG, is now streaming on PBS's American Masters Shorts. Click here to watch. It will also be featured as a selections for AARP's "Movies for Grown Ups" on September 10th.

George Lee was a pioneering Asian dancer who originated a featured role in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker 70 years ago as a teenage immigrant from China. He has been a prodigy, a refugee, an immigrant and a pioneer in the dance world. Now, up until his passing on April 20, 2025, he had been a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas, a humble and beloved figure at the Four Queens Hotel & Casino who worked five days a week.

TEN TIMES BETTER tells George Lee’s uniquely American story of perseverance in the face of hardship, of talent overcoming long odds, and a reminder of the remarkable lives behind the anonymous faces all around us.

WHERE ART MEETS JUSTICE

WHERE ART MEETS JUSTICE, directed by MARY ANN BRAUBACH and produced by ALBIE SACHS, has found distribution through GoodDocs.

Prior to reaching a distribution deal, the film premiered in South Africa for the Constitutional Courts celebration of the SA’s 30th anniversary of the first democratic Constitution. 

WHERE ART MEETS JUSTICE explores the intersection of art, law, and activism in South Africa's post-apartheid democracy. The film features Justices Albie Sachs and Yvonne Mokgoro, who discuss how art played a crucial role in the country's transition and the development of its legal system. 

BEFORE THE MOON FALLS UPDATES

BEFORE THE MOON FALLS, produced and directed by KIMBERLEE BRASSFORD, had its world premiere at the Doc Edge Festival in Auckland, New Zealand on June 28 with a sold-out screening. The film was also recognized with the Best International Feature award.

The film has had subsequent screenings through the festival in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.

In May 2024, news of a murder in the Polynesian nation of Samoa rocked the Pacific. The perpetrator—Sia Figiel—was a trailblazing novelist and poet who won international acclaim for being the first to write about the difficult realities Samoan girls and women face. The victim was her friend, who was also a poet.

This film was a portrait of Sia Figiel eight years in the making when the murder happened. Now it offers an in-depth and thought-provoking look at Sia’s journey leading up to the tragedy, illuminating the complexity of untreated mental illness and the devastating toll it can exact on individuals, families and entire communities.

Watch the trailer here.

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER PREMIERE

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER, produced and directed by MARISA FOX, premiered at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on Aug 2nd.

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER traces a daughter’s search for her late mother’s hidden Holocaust past. Marisa Fox knew her mother as Tamar Fromer, a fiery redhead who often boasted of her years in the Israeli underground and army. But whenever Fox pressed her about her childhood, Tamar avoided the topic, claiming she fled her native Poland shortly after the Nazis invaded, unlike her mother and most of her family who were murdered in Auschwitz. Some 20 years after Tamar’s death, Fox discovers her mother’s writing under a different name in a diary at Yad Vashem, also penned by 60 Jewish girls, trafficked as Nazi slaves to a women’s camp. Fox sets out on a global search to uncover her mother’s secret identity and past, unearthing a buried chapter of Holocaust history, giving voice to women largely omitted from Shoah narratives, and breaking a two-generation silence.

JAMHURIYAT MET CROWDFUNDING GOAL

JAMHURIYAT, directed by NOVITA SINGH and produced by TERRIE SAMUNDRA has raised $7000 and successfully completed its crowdfunding campaign on Seed and Spark.

In a time where democracies worldwide are under threat, JAMHURIYAT is a story of marginalized farmers and labourers, their year long struggle to bring down the most arrogant government in the history of this country to its knees and how that struggle impacts them and their ideas of hope and change.

Click here to watch the trailer.

THIRSTY UPDATES

THIRSTY, directed by EMILY ABT, was released worldwide by Gravitas Ventures and began streaming on June 6th.

“Thirsty” follows the campaign of a tenacious attorney as she strives to unseat the incumbent mayor of Oakland. Driven by her rough upbringing and altruistic desires, Audrey is willing to endure the relentless demands of campaign life. This is a woman who fights to win.

Watch the trailer here.

BECOMING US UPDATE

CID filmmaker LOI ALMERON and her project BECOMING US have been selected for the Sundance Institute Producers Lab fellowship.

The Producers Lab is the focal point of the program and kicks off a yearlong fellowship, creating a community for fiction and nonfiction film producers as they network and participate in professional development opportunities while working on a feature-length project.

BECOMING US is a deeply personal, character-driven documentary about the film's director, ELI HILLER, and his donor-conceived siblings who find one another through a DNA test, discovering their newfound biological father in the process.

QUEER2QUEER WINS NLGJA AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN DIGITAL VIDEO

QUEER2QUEER — a four-part video series featuring intergenerational conversations between LGBTQ+ activists — has been named the winner of the 2025 Excellence in Digital Video Award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.

Created by the CURED documentary team (PATRICK SAMMON, JULIE SANDLER, and BENNETT SINGER) in collaboration with The Future Perfect Project, QUEER2QUEER explores the power of dialogue across generations, spotlighting the experiences, insights, and resilience of LGBTQ+ changemakers. 

NLGJA is a journalist-led organization dedicated to advancing fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ+ people, communities, and issues. The Digital Video Award honors outstanding LGBTQ+ digital content. Queer2Queer is now streaming on OUTtv and at q2qtalks.com. 

RENEGADES UPDATES

The first six episodes of RENEGADES are now available with open captions, on-screen ASL interpretation, audio description, extended audio description, and descriptive transcripts on the American Masters YouTube channel, PBS.org, and the PBS App. Free educational resources are also available through PBS LearningMedia. The series can additionally be purchased on Amazon Prime and AppleTV.

RENEGADES launched in October 2024 with an accessible, sold-out premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. To date, the series has garnered over 1.5 million views on American Masters’ YouTube channel—more than half of which are for versions with accessibility features.

Produced by DAY AL-MOHAMED, AMANDA UPSON, and CHARLOTTE MANGIN, RENEGADES has won four Telly Awards and a Webby Award for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging. The series has been accepted into several festivals, including the International Queer Women of Color Film Festival (June 2025) and the upcoming Superfest Disability Film Festival (October 2025).

RENEGADES is currently fundraising for a second season. Click here to contribute and sign up for our newsletter here.

An anthology of short documentary films, RENEGADES, highlights the lives of diverse, lesser-known historical figures with disabilities—exploring not only their contributions to U.S. society, but also the concept of disability culture, which celebrates the distinctiveness of the disabled experience.

CREDIBLE FEAR SNEAK PEEK

Asylum seekers, like all immigrants, are under attack. Looking for a way to help? DC area folks can support the feature length documentary CREDIBLE FEAR, produced and directed by GABRIELLE EWING at a work-in-progress screening at Immigrant Food in Ballston. Join the team for food, drinks, a sneak peek screening, and a Q&A. Buy tickets here.

For the last seven years, CREDIBLE FEAR has followed the journey of a mother and daughter from Guatemala seeking asylum in the US. Proceeds will support production of the final scene this fall.