The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the 2024 grant recipients for the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, supporting the work of nonfiction filmmakers globally.
This year, 28 projects have been selected to receive an unrestricted grant, with the total granting pool standing at $1,450,000 — almost half a million dollars more than last year’s fund thanks to increased support for our granting. This granting cycle’s recipients represent all stages of the process, with five projects in development, 15 in production, seven in post-production, and one completed project in its impact campaign. The Documentary Fund seeks to serve as a stable source of support for inventive nonfiction works that create cultural and social impact by tackling a variety of timely and pressing issues. Grants are made possible by Open Society Foundations, John Templeton Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Sony Music Entertainment thanks to Sony Music’s Global Justice Fund.
In 2024, thanks to new support from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute is able to increase the size of the Documentary Fund’s granting pool by $500,000 per year. Through this new generous support the Fund is providing grants that support innovative and daring nonfiction storytelling projects aligned with Templeton’s mission of supporting interdisciplinary research and catalyzing conversations that inspire awe and wonder.
The Fund includes the first grantees selected by the Sundance Institute | Sony Music Vision Initiative, a new partnership between the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Sony Music Entertainment, funded by Sony Music’s Global Social Justice Fund. Through granting and engagement opportunities, including educational sessions on music in film, this initiative is aimed at elevating documentary film projects by BIPOC filmmakers that demonstrate a significant music component or innovative approach to audio and sound.
“It has always been critical to the Sundance’s mission to uplift talented and underrepresented voices seeking to create thoughtful and thought-provoking work that elevates and advances cultural dialogue, and we are thrilled to celebrate the variety of perspectives and approaches this year’s grantees bring to the table with their projects,” said Paola Mottura, Documentary Film Fund Director and Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs. “During this challenging time for our industry, we are grateful to be able to deepen our support for the global documentary community. This work is urgent and it is an honor to be a part of these talented artists’ journeys and help them get closer to connecting with their audiences. We’re appreciative of our partners in making this support possible and we look forward to experiencing these risk-taking works.”
The Documentary Fund prioritizes the support of artists from historically marginalized communities and seeks to amplify global voices telling crucial stories. More than half of the grant proposals came from outside the U.S., with the final group of grantees representing 25 countries. The majority of projects (92%) receiving grants are directed by artists from communities that have been traditionally marginalized and 60% are from first-time feature directors.
Through careful craft and fearless vision, projects in this year’s slate have the power to instill resilience through family and community legacies, transcend new frontiers in ritual and belief, spotlight the impact of grassroots activism, explore tender reconnections with loved ones through the arts, and empower personal expression in the face of oppressive policies and governments.
While many of the projects supported this year are from early-career filmmakers, this cycle of granting also supports projects from mid-career storytellers, including: Hawa, produced by Christian Popp, who also produced Becoming Cary Grant (2017); House of Earth directed by Ljubomir Stefanov (Honeyland, 2019); Leap of Faith directed by Nicholas Ma, who produced Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018); Stallions directed by Rita Baghdadi (Sirens, 2022); Untitled Philippines Project, the fifth feature from filmmaker PJ Raval (Call Her Ganda, 2018); and The First Plantation, directed by Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, who produced T, the 2020 winner of the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale.
Previously supported projects have included: All That Breathes; American Factory; The Battle for Laikipia; Collective; Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Mija; Minding the Gap; The Mole Agent; No Other Land; Nocturnes; Strong Island; Sugarcane; The Territory; Time; and Union.
2024 Documentary Fund Grantees:
DEVELOPMENT
Basketball Heaven (U.S.A.)
Director/Producer: Resita Cox
A poetic portrait of the historic Black community in Kinston, North Carolina. From surviving catastrophic floods to a poorly funded education system, Kinston remains the single greatest producer of NBA talent in the world.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, U.K., Argentina)
Directors: Jonathan Qu, Kevin Feiyang Li
Producers: Jonathan Qu, Kevin Feiyang Li, Nicholas de Pencier
Following a battle with cancer, a Christian astrophysicist races to build his last great balloon telescope to unravel the mysteries of dark matter and the artistry of God. If ignorance is truly bliss, then why do we explore the unknown?
Stallions (Morocco)
Director: Rita Baghdadi
Producers: Rita Baghdadi, Sahar Yousefi
A crew of stallion riders make dreams come true on the coast of Morocco.
Strange Sea (Azerbaijan)
Director: Lala Aliyeva
Producer: Aysel Akhundova
In the depths of the Caspian Sea, the whispers of its dark past intertwine with the tales of ordinary life. Strange Sea paints an impressionistic portrait of Azerbaijan mirrored in the disappearing Caspian Sea, which has defined its identity for decades.
The Blue Sweater with a Yellow Hole (Ukraine, France, Czech Republic)
Director: Tetiana Khodakivska
Producers: Elena Saulich, Tetiana Khodakivska, Maxim Asadchiy
Questioning the propaganda in the modern world, the documentary follows Ukrainian children Kira, Taisa, and Artem, as they paint their memories about time in Russian ‘re-education’ camps. The animated scenes immerse the viewers into the children’s shifting identity experiences.
PRODUCTION
#WhileBlack (U.S.A., Canada)
Directors: Sidney Fussell, Jennifer Holness
Producers: Ann Shin, Geeta Gandbhir
Witnesses who filmed viral videos of injustice reveal the true cost of going viral while Black, as social platforms turn their pain into profit.
Afromystic (U.S.A., Nigeria, Brazil)
Director: Seyi Adebanjo
Producers: Seyi Adebanjo, Nala Simone Toussaint, Bryan E. Glover, Felix Endara, Zackary Drucker
Afromystic is a lyrical documentary that follows LGBTQ+ Yorùbá practitioners across the waters of Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States in a quest for post-colonial liberation — by way of Indigenous religion.
Untitled Africa Project
Director/Producer: withheld
Coach Emily (U.S.A.)
Director: Pallavi Somusetty
Producers: Debra Wilson Cary, Jen Gilomen, Pallavi Somusetty
As rock climbing coach Emily Taylor fearlessly trains a group of BIPOC kids to conquer the pervasive discrimination they face in the outdoors, she embarks on a profound journey of self-care, while working to dismantle an industry rife with systemic racism.
Conscious (U.K.)
Director: Suki Chan
Producers: Aimara Reques, Teresa Grimes
Conscious is an optimistic, cinematic experience, taking us closer to understanding the strength and frailty of the human mind. What can a neuroscientist and three people living with dementia tell us about the nature of consciousness in a technological age?
Dreams of a Dark Sky (India)
Director: Anmol Tikoo
Producers: Mikaela Beardsley, Raghu Karnad
As Ladakh is flooded with light, engineers in Hanle work with astronomers and nomadic communities to create a sanctuary for darkness and starlight. But the dark sky holds a different dream for each of them. What will they discover about themselves, others, and the cosmos as they embrace the dark?
The First Plantation (Barbados, U.S.A.)
Director: Jason Fitzroy Jeffers
Producer: Darcy McKinnon
A documentary on reparations becomes unexpectedly personal when a filmmaker returns home to Barbados to tell the story of Drax Hall, the oldest continuously operated sugar plantation in the Americas, recently inherited by a wealthy British politician descended from the slave master who founded it.
Good Fire (U.S.A., Greece)
Directors: Roni Jo Draper, Marissa Lila
Producers: Jenn Lee Smith, Nicole Docta
Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a healthy and balanced ecosystem. Over the past 100 years, settlers banned that fire, and the environment and the people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to the land in order to heal the world.
House of Earth (North Macedonia, U.S.A.)
Director: Ljubomir Stefanov
Producer: Maya E. Rudolph
Pinky returns to Shutka, the Roma community she’s been running from for years, and navigates her biological family and queer kin’s visions of home and belonging. A transgender woman nearing the end of her sex work career, Pinky radically reimagines her future as a matriarch and community leader.
Jaripeo (Mexico, U.S.A.)
Directors: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
Producers: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig, Sarah Strunin
At the rural rodeos in Michoacán, México, a hypermasculine tradition is rife with hidden queer encounters. Guided by director Efraín, Jaripeo follows two rancheros as they navigate desire, machismo, and mass migration from one rodeo season to the next.
Supported by the Sundance Institute | Sony Music Vision Initiative
Life in the Shadows (Afghanistan, Belgium, Germany)
Director: K.D.
Producer: Ilyas Yourish
Years after K’s classmates were massacred in his school, he records the lives of Machid, who attends the same school, and Khatima, who works in the cemetery where the dead students are buried.
Mother Wit (U.S.A.)
Directors/Producers: Rajvi Desai, Te Shima Brennen
Three Black trans women grieve the death of their matriarch and mentor who had fought all her life to set them on a path of education, excellence and liberation, as they fight to fulfill the promises they made to her.
Timepass (India, U.S.A.)
Director: Roopa Gogineni
Producer: Trevor Snapp
Following the death of her grandfather, a radical humanist and longtime village doctor, a filmmaker returns to her ancestral South Indian home to confront the gilded statue built in his honor.
Untitled Philippines Project (Philippines, U.S.A.)
Director: PJ Raval
Producers: Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, Annie Small
A new feature documentary by PJ Raval.
Walker (U.S.A.)
Director: Amy Bench
Producers: Amy Bench, Mei Kennedy, Monique Walton
Walker is a verité portrait of a deaf advocate and father from Baton Rouge, Louisiana — who is driven by his family’s experiences of incarceration and deafness to help others in his community affected by the prison system. Walker is an intimate exploration into family, activism, and personal healing.
POST-PRODUCTION
Art After-Life (U.S.A., Argentina)
Director: David Romberg
Producers: David Romberg, Rachel Dengiz, Adrian Elzy
Osvaldo Romberg was a Latin American artist who pushed the limits of the avant-garde. Years later, his son employs generative AI technology to converse with him, after his death.
Backside (U.S.A.)
Director: Raúl Paz Pastrana
Producers: Gabriella García Pardo, Patricia Alvarez Astacio
Following a racing season from beginning to end, Backside captures the daily work, friendship, dreams, and expertise of the under-recognized migrant workers behind the Kentucky Derby.
Blacked Out Dreams (U.S.A.)
Director: Adeleke Omitowoju
Producer: Steven Pargett
Blacked Out Dreams is a film about how rapid school closures and a water crisis force three normal kids to live in very abnormal conditions. The film follows two siblings as they navigate towards graduating from the last remaining public high school in a city divided by race, and plagued by poverty.
Cais (Brazil)
Director: Safira Moreira
Producer: Flávia Santana
Two months after the passing of her mother Angélica, Safira travels to search for her mother in other landscapes. In a river route, the film travels through cities bathed by the Paraguaçu River (Bahia) and the Alegre River (Maranhão), to dive in new perspectives on memory, time, birth, life, and death.
Hawa (France, The Netherlands, Afghanistan, Qatar)
Directors: Najiba Noori, Ali Rasul Noori
Producers: Christian Popp, Hasse van Nunen
Forty years after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa is eager to finally begin an independent life and to be literate. However, with the return of the Taliban to power, her dreams, and those of her daughter and granddaughter are shattered.
Leap of Faith (U.S.A.)
Director: Nicholas Ma
Producers: Nicholas Ma, Morgan Neville
Troubled by our fractured society, 12 midwestern Christian leaders tackle the most controversial questions of today to discover whether we can belong to each other in a challenging and divisive world.
Vestibule (U.S.A.)
Director: Riley Hooper
Producers: Caitlin Mae Burke, Bryn Silverman
Filmmaker Riley Hooper documents her decade-long journey with Vestibulodynia, a vulvar disorder. What begins as a singular mission to have pain-free sex becomes a multigenerational story about sexual health, pleasure, and agency, told through imaginative dance sequences and intimate voiceover.
IMPACT
Songs from the Hole (U.S.A.)
Director: Contessa Gayles
Producers: Contessa Gayles, Richie Reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe
An incarcerated musician struggles for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary visual album composed behind bars.
Supported by the Sundance Institute | Sony Music Vision Initiative
The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program is made possible by founding support from the Open Society Foundations. Generous additional support is provided by John Templeton Foundation; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Sandbox Films; The Asian American Foundation (TAAF); The Charles Engelhard Foundation; Facet; Sony Music Group; Violet Spitzer-Lucas and the Spitzer Family Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman; EarthSense Foundation; and Adobe.
