Ford Foundation
Orlando Bagwell, Director, Freedom of Expression—Education, Creativity and Free Expression Program
• We want good narratives. We want films that can have impact.
• The filmmakers are the storytellers. We link you with others to help do other parts like the web part or the social issue action. We build a connected community.
• How do you want to move people? Ford Foundation wants to know and to be active in how you do that, finding strategic partners.
• Interested in using narrative to try to move people to take action about things they care deeply about.
• Interested in how media and documentary can become a critical part of the Foundation’s vision for social change.
• We’re trying to provide a connected community of all our grantees, not just the media ones, but the social justice grantees also. The media work is the one area in our foundation that is underlying all other parts of the foundation.
• We want filmmakers to be filmmakers. We fund Sundance, ITVS, Active Voice, Witness. We bring them to the community of all the people we work with. The idea is that we want to bring you, the filmmaker, to a connected community that is going to serve what you do. We don’t expect you to do it all yourself.
Cinereach
Philipp Engelhorn, Executive Director and Co-Founder
• We are a grant-making organization that funds social issue documentaries done in an artful way. Less advocacy-based, more subtle storytelling. Often allows both sides of the issue to embrace the film. Did Jesus Camp.
• We tend to get involved early on in projects.
• The questions we ask when considering a project: What is the filmmaking craft? Is the story being artfully told? Is there a real passion from the filmmaker? Is it going to be entertaining? Is it a great piece of filmmaking? That’s our top criteria. And then we look at the issue being addressed. We favor story over message, character over agenda, complexity over duality.
• One of our projects, FilmAid, was working with refugees to help them make their own films. We did not mandate what the films were about. We just provided some training and let them create. Then we had a film festival in refugee camps, and the films also travelled.
Sundance Institute
Patricia Finneran, Managing Producer, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
• We look for quality of storytelling, potential for social impact, the creative vision of the filmmaker, track record. We don’t look at distribution strategies.
• Sundance’s mandate is still to support feature-length cinematic storytelling. They we partner with other foundations and organizations to work on other aspects. The inter-connections with the foundation community are very strong. Starting to get in with one entity leads you to introductions and relationships with others.
They fund, present and promote documentaries and dramas on public television and cable and innovative new media projects on the web. Their tagline: Diverse stories. Independent filmmakers. Award-winning documentaries. On TV, online and in communities.
Also check the Foundation Center, Arts Engine and Grantmakers in Film & Electronic Media.
No comments:
Post a Comment