Working Films
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Grants
10
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Total Awarded
$3,067,000
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Years
2010 - 2024
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Categories
Grants
2024 ( 9 months)
$20,000
Working Films is a nonprofit organization that supports documentary filmmakers and social movement organizations to create and use nonfiction multimedia storytelling to create dialogue, connect communities, and advance social justice and environmental protection. Indie Media Arts South (IMAS) is a regional collective of arts organizations, film festivals, and media makers working to strengthen the independent sector across the greater South, with a focus on equity and sustainability. This grant supports IMAS member Working Films to organize convenings for the collective at film festivals around the American South, to build community, connections, and visibility for IMAS.
2023 (3 years)
$300,000
Documentary Accountability Working Group
Working Films is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the strategic use of documentary films to increase civic engagement and shift culture at the local, state, and national levels. It serves as the fiscal sponsor of the Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG), a group of documentary film industry professionals working to advance ethical and accountable filmmaking practices. This grant supports the activities of DAWG to engage with documentary filmmakers, film support institutions and broadcasters, and people featured in documentary films to elevate the values and accountability-based practices in the documentary film field, resulting in more representative and powerful stories that illuminate complex social issues for the general public.
2022 ( 2 months)
$10,000
Working Films is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the strategic use of documentary films to increase civic engagement and shift culture at the local, state, and national levels. It serves as the organizational home of the Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG), a group of documentary film industry professionals working to advance ethical and accountable filmmaking practices. This grant supports travel for working group members to present the DAWG values-based framework at two documentary film festivals in the Fall of 2022 to targeted and influential audiences of documentary professionals.
2022 (3 years)
$675,000
Working Films is a nonprofit organization that supports documentary filmmakers and social movement organizations to create and use nonfiction multimedia storytelling to create dialogue, connect communities, and advance social justice and environmental protection. Its programs include Docs in Action, which supports cohorts of short documentary films about thematic issues with grants and distribution support made through a participatory process; Impact Kickstart, which provides strategy support and funding to documentary filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds to craft social impact distribution strategies; and Rural Cinema, which trains leaders from organizations serving rural communities to use documentary film to advance social and environmental justice. This award supports general operations. The outcomes of Working Films’ work are stronger connections between documentary filmmakers and social justice movement organizations, greater visibility for values-based and accountable filmmaking practices, and more opportunities for audiences to engage with social issue documentary films.
2021 ( 4 months)
$35,000
Working Films is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the strategic use of documentary films to increase civic engagement and shift culture at the local, state, and national levels. It serves as the organizational home of the Documentary Accountability Working Group, a group of documentary film industry professionals working to advance ethical and accountable filmmaking practices. The Documentary Accountability Working Group is developing a values framework that asserts a method of accountability to those most impacted by documentary films – protagonists, peer filmmakers, funders, and audiences. The intended outcomes of this work are that a wide array of nonfiction filmmakers are better able to make decisions in the creation of their films that will contribute to more just, inclusive, and accurate narratives.
2020 (2 years)
$525,000
Working Films is a nonprofit organization that strategically uses and deploys documentaries to increase civic engagement and shift culture at the local, state, and national levels. Working Films offers funding and in-kind support to underrepresented filmmakers and leads conversations and trainings with nonprofits to ensure that nonfiction media is effectively leveraged as a critical resource for social movement organizations’ strategies for culture change. Through its Docs in Action project, Working Films fully funds short documentaries on a range of social issue topics, and curates and tours collections of short films to make an impact on the issues raised. Its Impact Kickstart program provides strategy development support for documentary film projects by filmmakers from underrepresented groups, and its StoryShift initiative is designed to create a more informed conversation on how documentary filmmakers can demonstrate accountability to the communities that their films cover. This grant supports general operations, allowing Working Films to respond to emergent opportunities to support filmmakers and social movement organizations to use nonfiction multimedia storytelling in service of a more equitable society.
2018 ( 2 months)
$2,000
Working Films (WF) is a national nonprofit organization that partners with grassroots and advocacy organizations on campaigns that leverage nonfiction multimedia in support of raising public awareness on issues such as climate change, energy extraction and economic inequality. Through its Docs in Action program, Working Films fully funds short films on a topic identified in collaboration with nonprofit partners and in consultation with an advisory board of filmmakers. This award supports travel and accommodation expenses for two WF staff members to attend the 2018 International Documentary Association Getting Real conference September 25-27 in Los Angeles, and to attend a daylong convening of MacArthur Foundation Nonfiction Multimedia Storytelling grantees on September 24. This will result a more representative group of attendees at both events.
2017 (3 years 7 months)
$900,000
Working Films, founded in 2000, was one of the first organizations to design and implement distribution campaigns for documentary films in collaboration with advocates and nonprofits that work full time on the issue a film explores. Since then, it has partnered with dozens of grassroots and advocacy organizations on campaigns that leverage nonfiction multimedia in support of raising public awareness on issues such as climate change, energy extraction and economic inequality. MacArthur funds support Working Films to work in more states, to fund short films about social issues from filmmakers who represent the communities most affected by an issue, and to provide early stage strategic planning support to social issue documentary filmmakers, with a special focus on filmmakers of color. The outcome is a framework through which documentary films can support coalition building and foster greater understanding on a multitude of issues in a variety of U.S. states, including rural areas.
2010 (4 years 1 month)
$300,000
In support of a project on the use and impact of documentary films to educate the public and contribute to civic engagement in public policy issues.
2010 (4 years 1 month)
$300,000
In support of a project on the use and impact of documentary films to educate the public and contribute to civic engagement in public policy issues.
