Film Funders

Film Markets & Pitching Platforms   

Berlin International Film Festival – European Film Market The European Film Market is one of the top three meeting places of the international film and media industries. Its close links with the Berlinale as a public film festival, and its position at the heart of Berlin’s vivid creative economy, are defining characteristics of the Berlinale’s film market. 

Cannes Film Festival – Marché du Film At the heart of the world’s most prestigious film festival, the Marché du Film welcomes participants from all over the world every year. To date, it represents the largest international gathering of professionals in the film industry. 

CoPro – The Israeli Content Marketing Foundation CoPro, the Israeli Content Marketing Foundation, is dedicated exclusively to marketing Israeli content. For over 20 years, it has promoted and marketed Israeli documentary and animation films in the global market.

HotDocs Conference & Market With exceptional professional development, networking, and business opportunities, Hot Docs is perfect for doc professionals at all career levels. 

IDFA Forum & DocLab Forum IDFA Forum is one of the most influential meeting places for filmmakers, creators, and producers working on ground-breaking creative documentaries and new media projects. 

IFFR CineMart CineMart is IFFR Pro’s co-production market, where a carefully curated lineup of projects in development are presented to international industry representatives. Bold independent feature film projects are launched onto the market alongside BoostNL projects as part of a five-month development programme, and Immersive (XR) projects. 

Sheffield Doc Fest – Meet Market Sheffield DocFest is the UK’s leading documentary festival and one of the world’s most influential markets for documentary projects.  

Sarajevo Film Festival –  CineLink Co-production Market CineLink Industry Days, Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry section, is a primary hub for Southeast European film professionals and has played a crucial role in the expansion of cinematic co-production in the region. 

Venice Gap Financing Market The Venice Gap-Financing Market (VGFM) focuses on projects and producers that are facing difficulties to complete their financing. To be eligible, the films and feature documentaries must have secured 70% of their budget and the immersive projects 30%. 

Residencies & Workshops  

Cannes Residence The Résidence du Festival welcomes every year in Paris a dozen young foreign directors who work there on their first or second fictional feature film project, in two sessions lasting four and a half months (from October 1st to mid-February, and from the end of February to mid-July). 

Chicken & Egg Pictures – (Egg)celerator Lab The (Egg)celerator Lab is focused on identifying and supporting nonfiction directors working on their first or second feature-length documentary. This program brings together ten projects, with a special focus on stories by self-identifying women and gender nonconforming directors. 

JFI Filmmaker in Residence The JFI Filmmakers in Residence Program is a year-long, competitive artist residency that provides creative, marketing, and production support for emerging and established filmmakers whose documentary projects explore and expand thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity.  

Locarno Open Doors For 20 years, Open Doors has been championing filmmaking from regions where independent cinema is especially challenging, building bridges for collaboration across regions, countries and continents.  

LIM | Less is More LIM | Less is More has been set up to empower a generation of filmmakers intent on opening new avenues and finding new audiences by tackling new issues. Our motto is Igor Stravinsky’s “The more art is bound by limitations, the freer it is“. 

Sam Spiegel International Film Lab The JSFL supports story tellers whose voices need to be heard and creates opportunities for a multitude of stories to reach audiences. Since its launch in 2011, The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab has become a leading force in the development of groundbreaking feature films by some of the world’s most promising talents. 

Torino Film Lab ScriptLab is a screenwriting programme for fiction feature films, both original ideas and adaptations, in early stages of development. It also trains film professionals interested in the process of Story Editing. 

Funders  

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants primarily to support original research and education related to science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics.  

Candid (Funder Database) For a combined 88 years, Foundation Center and GuideStar each helped change the world by giving people the information they needed to do good. Every year, millions of nonprofits spend trillions of dollars around the world. We find out where that money comes from, where it goes, and why it matters.  

Blavatnik Family Foundation The Blavatnik Family Foundation supports world-class art and cultural institutions and programs that preserve and promote the beauty and history of creativity and innovation. 

Fledgling Fund Fledgling is a small private foundation founded by Diana Barrett that is focused on improving the lives of vulnerable populations.   Guided by her vision that film and other creative media projects can educate, engage and mobilize us around entrenched and complex social issues that affect the most vulnerable, we focused the majority of our resources on maximizing the impact of social issue documentary film.  

Ford Foundation – JustFilms The Ford Foundation seeks to reduce inequality in all of its forms, and artist-driven documentary and emerging media projects are crucial to this effort. As part of the Creativity and Free Expression program, JustFilms funds social justice storytelling and the 21st-century arts infrastructure that supports it.  

Gesher Multicultural Film Fund The Gesher Multicultural Film Fund (GMFF) is a non-profit organization. The public funding that GMFF receives is intended for the support of original cinema by Israeli filmmakers.  

Impact Partners Impact Partners is dedicated to funding independent documentary storytelling that entertains audiences, engages with pressing social issues, and propels the art of cinema forward 

Irving Harris Foundation The Irving Harris Foundation enhances the quality of life for children, families and communities by advancing human potential, social justice and equity, and creative experience and expression. 

Jerome Foundation Production grants of up to $30,000 for all stages of production, supporting early career film, video, and digital production directors based in New York and Minnesota.  

Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona The Elliot S. Goldman Israel Scholarship Fund and the Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Fund are endowment funds that provide an annual scholarship to one individual towards a trip to Israel. 

Jewish Story Partners Jewish Story Partners stimulates and supports the highest caliber independent films that use fresh, nuanced perspectives to tell stories about the diverse spectrum of Jewish experiences, cultures, and encounters. 

IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund The IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund provides production funds to feature-length documentary films taking on in-depth explorations of original, contemporary stories and integrating journalistic fpractice into the filmmaking process. 

ITVS  Funding and support to complete a single nonfiction program for broadcast on public television—whether you’re an emerging filmmaker or a veteran producer. 

JFI Completion Grant  

The JFI Completion Grants Program provides finishing funds to emerging and established filmmakers for original stories that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, memory, and identity. 

Konrad Adenauer Foundation The culture department of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation has three main areas of work: visual arts and culture, literature and cultural policy. All three areas have one goal in common: getting people talking – about art, culture and thus also about the important social developments of our time. 

Koret Foundation Since 1980, Koret has given more than $700 million in grants in the Bay Area, Israel, and around the world. The Foundation has developed a long-term approach to funding educational opportunities, arts and cultural initiatives, Jewish community projects, and programs that help the most vulnerable among us.  

Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation The Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation is dedicated to continuing the longstanding philanthropic activities of the family. The Foundation’s grantmaking is focused in the areas of Mental Health, Scientific Research, the Jewish Community, and Social Justice. 

Makor Fund for Israeli Films The Makor Foundation supports the independent Israeli production of documentary films, narrative shorts, animated shorts, and works created with new technologies for current and developing medias. 

Maimonides Fund Mass media has the power to shape how one sees the world and oneself. We support media that shares Jewish stories and ideas to generate openness and engagement with Jewish content. 

The Miller / Packan Fund The Miller / Packan Film Fund supports documentaries that Educate, Inspire and Enrich. The Fund is financed through the Rogovy Foundation. We believe in the transformational power that comes from enlightening narratives and inspiring characters. 

Movies that Matter Impact Grant Movies that Matter offer a start-up grant for new human rights film events and an impact grant for existing events that want to increase their impact or want to add to new activities to their programs. These events can take various forms, such as human rights film festival LGBTQI film festivals and mobile cinema projects.  

Nash Family Foundation The mission of the Nash Family Foundation is rooted in continuing the philanthropic values of Ruth and Jack Nash. This means the Foundation is devoted to advancing life-long learning and supporting the disadvantaged. The Foundation only considers grant applications from organizations they are familiar with or that operate in one of the following locations: the Manitowoc (Wisconsin), Cleveland, Boston, or Washington, DC Metropolitan areas. 

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts is dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York’s citizens.  

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts awards grants to nonprofit organizations, creative writers and translators, state arts agencies, and regional arts organizations in support of arts projects across the country. 

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities supports research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. 

National Fund of the Republic Austria for the Victims of National Socialism Since 1996, the National Fund has been sponsoring projects in accordance with its legislative mandate. All groups of victims are taken into consideration for funding. When awarding project funding, the surviving victims of National Socialism are given priority. As a result, social, medical and psychotherapeutic projects which are of immediate benefit to the victims are particularly well funded. In addition, funding is awarded for projects that serve academic research into National Socialism and the fates of its victims, that remember Nazi injustices or safeguard the memory of the victims. Particular emphasis is placed on educational projects. 

The New Fund for Cinema and TV (NFCT) Established in 1993, the New Fund for Cinema and Television (NFCT) is an Israeli non-governmental organization positioned at the intersection of cinema and social change.  Through our financial and professional support to filmmakers, we cultivate artistic excellence and contribute to the creation of outstanding films on a broad array of issues. 

Open Society Foundations – Soros Arts Fellowship The Soros Arts Fellowship supports innovative mid-career artists and cultural producers advancing social change around the world. 

Perspective Fund Perspective Fund supports a range of projects and organizations that are dedicated to using storytelling for social change, with a focus on documentary-driven efforts. Our current grantmaking falls in two key areas: documentaries and infrastructure. 

Righteous Persons Foundation For more than two decades, RPF has funded innovative approaches that inspire activism for social justice, help bring people together across lines of difference; unlock the power of art and storytelling; make Jewish history and tradition more accessible; and ensure that the moral lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten. 

Samuel Rubin Foundation The Foundation’s mission is to carry on the vision of its founder, Samuel Rubin, whose life was dedicated to the pursuit of peace and justice and the search for an equitable reallocation of the world’s resources.  

Slovin Foundation The Slovin Foundation prioritizes Jewish organizations with a strong focus on history, religion and New York City. 

Women in Film Foundation Film Finishing Fund Promising women-directed films are awarded grants enabling them to complete production, going on to gain distribution and win top awards. 

Editing Workshops & Consultancy 

Docu Rough Cut Boutique  (projects from Southeast Europe) Organized by Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center, Docu Rough Cut Boutique is a regional platform dedicated to documentary projects in the advanced phase of the editing process. 

dok.incubator A tailor-made documentary workshop from rough-cut to release/  

Rough Cut Service Online consultancy service for filmmakers who often work alone and in countries where support for documentary filmmakers is small, but also for experienced filmmakers in need of a fresh, professional eye.  

Fiscal Sponsors 

Fractured Atlas New York based fiscal sponsor that helps individual artists and arts organizations at every level of the cultural ecosystem, in every creative medium by providing fundraising tools, educational resources, and personalized support. 

International Documentary Association (IDA) For almost 30 years IDA’s fiscal sponsorship program has been helping independent documentary projects of all types get funded, finished, and seen. 

National Center for Jewish Film As a fiscal sponsor, The National Center for Jewish Film serves as a non-profit tax-exempt umbrella organization that accepts and administers contributions made to select film projects. 

Women Make Movies Fiscal sponsorship is the largest component of the WMM Production Assistance Program. It’s designed for women filmmakers who are actively fundraising for their film and need 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt status. 

Short Film Opportunities 

CineSud CineSud is the film hub for talent and industry professionals in the heart of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.  

European Short Pitch European Short Pitch, initiated by NISI MASA – European Network of Young Cinema, is an annual program aimed at discovering and supporting young European talents in the development of their short films, and fostering coproduction and collaboration between industry professionals from all over Europe. 

Inter Film Script Pitch International pitching forum for short films organized by the Inter Film Festival.  
 

ITVS Short Form Open Call Short-Form Open Call offers development and co-production funding to help you complete your short nonfiction film or series for distribution on public media’s web-based platforms. 

Shore Scripts Short Film Fund The Shore Scripts Short Film Fund offers an opportunity for emerging screenwriters and filmmakers to have their short films financed and produced, and create a calling card to help them progress in the industry as a writer, or writer/director. We will finance and produce two short films through our Fall Season of the Fund. 

Talents and Short Film Market Talents and Short Film Market (TSFM), previously known as Torino Short Film Market, was founded in 2016 as an international market primarily focused on the short film ecosystem. TSFM aims to promote the growth of the short film industry in Europe and worldwide. 

Want to submit your fund or organization? Click here.