Creative Partnerships

The Documentary Film Program has partnered with organizations across the world to offer a range of opportunities to advance the important work of independent storytellers.

Stories of Change/Skoll Foundation

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Skoll Foundation have partnered in a $3 million, three-year partnership, Stories of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary. The program is designed to explore the role of film in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship and the global Stories of Change Convenings. Click here to learn more about this parntership and the supported films.

The Cinereach Project

The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute is a $1.5 million three-year grant funded by Cinereach to support a unique and flexible resource pool for documentary and feature film projects with themes that evoke global cultural exchange and social impact. Beginning in 2009 for a three-year period, the grant gives support to a minimum of 12 films from a “new generation of socially conscious artists.”

This program includes an invitation only discretionary fund to support feature and documentary film projects in urgent need of support. Additionally, the project will establish a special Fellowship for emerging directors committed to global cultural exchange and social impact. The Fellowship, for both documentary and fiction filmmakers, will provide the Fellows access to the multitude of Sundance Institute resources, as well as special funding and support from Cinereach. 

Grant support was provided to documentary feature projects, which will receive a grant and support from the Documentary Film Program and Cinereach. Projects include:

Fall 2011

The Kill Team (development)
Director: Dan Kraus

The Shadow World (development)
Director: Johan Grimonprez

Spring 2011

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (Production/Post-production)
Director: Alison Klayman

Remote Area Medical (development)
Director: Jeff Reichert

Untitled Egyptian Film (development)
Director: Mai Iskander

Fall 2010

God Loves Uganda (development)
Director: Roger Ross Williams

If A Tree Falls (Production/Post-production)
Director: Marshall Curry

Spring 2010

The State of Arizona (development)
Directors: Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini

The Great Invisible (development)
Director: Margaret Brown

Queen of Versailles (development)
Director: Lauren Greenfield

Fall 2009

25 To Life (Production/Post-production)
Director: Michael Brown

Gasland (Production/Post-production)
Director: Josh Fox

The Fire This Time (development)
Director: Blair Doroshwalther

About Cinereach
Cinereach is a not-for-profit film production company and foundation that champions vital stories, artfully told. Created and led by young philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and filmmakers, Cinereach empowers fiction and nonfiction filmmakers from all over the world through Grants & Awards, The Reach Film Fellowship, an internal Productions department, and through partnerships with Sundance Institute and other organizations. Since 2006, Cinereach has disbursed more than $4.5 million in grant funds to more than 90 projects at the intersection of engaging storytelling, visual artistry, and vital subject matter. For information on grants given directly by Cinereach, please visit their website.

Good Pitch

The Good Pitch is a unique opportunity for a selected group of filmmakers to pitch their films and associated outreach campaign to an invited audience of foundations, NGOs, campaigners, advertising agencies, brands, and media in order to maximize its impact. In 2009, the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation partnered with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to take this one-day event on its first North American tour. So far, the Good Pitch has taken place as part of the TDF at Hot Docs in Toronto, the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Documentary Festival, the Good Pitch at Independent Film Week, and the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC)

The Arab Fund Documentary Film Program is a partnership between the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP). This program is dedicated to supporting contemporary nonfiction films produced by filmmakers targeting audiences in the Arab World. In the spring of 2010, 15 documentaries in all stages of development, production, and postproduction were selected by a committee of independent international and regional experts.

About AFAC
The Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) is a nonprofit organization providing direct financial assistance to independent artists and cultural institutions across the Arab World. AFAC aims at stimulating and supporting artistic creativity and freedom of cultural expression in the Arab World.