Film Grants North America 2023

AXS Lab provides funding to documentary filmmakers and nonfiction new media creators of color with disabilities.

We provide development funding up to $20,000 to documentary filmmakers who have a strong story to tell, have secured access, and are ready to create a fundraising piece to help unlock critical production funding.

Creative Capital fund artists in the creation of groundbreaking new work in the visual arts, performing arts, film, technology and socially-engaged work in all forms.

Diversity Development Fund gives producers of color up to $25,000 in research and development funding so you can develop your documentary for public media.

The program is created for storytellers who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and/or storytellers with disabilities.

Hot Docs and the Rogers Foundation founded the $1-million Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund to support Canadian documentary projects.

This documentary fund is dedicated to filmmakers telling engaging, high-quality stories that embrace music artists in all its forms and that demonstrate Canadian music’s role in the world.

Humanities for All is a grant program that supports projects from Californians, encourages greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences.

The IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund supports in-depth explorations of original, contemporary stories that integrate journalistic practice into the filmmaking process.

The IDFA Bertha Fund is the only fund in the world dedicated solely to stimulating and empowering the creative documentary sector in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania.

The Library of Congress Lavine Ken Burns Prize for Film is a $200,000 cash award for a late-stage documentary film with a running time of 50 minutes or more.

The Media Projects program supports the development, production, and distribution documentary film  that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways.

The New Filmmaker Program loans digital camera packages (based on availability) to filmmakers for student thesis films and low-budget independent features.

Hatched provides support to US-based filmmakers who are nearing completion or have recently completed a documentary film and who have plans to strategize, build, and launch an impact campaign.

The Rogers Documentary Fund helps sustain Canada’s tradition of quality, independently produced documentary projects and ensures that these productions are seen by the widest possible audience.

The program is open to filmmakers in the US and internationally who can commit to spending time developing the film in San Francisco.

The Sloan Distribution Grant is a $50,000 grant awarded by Film Independent to a film that is entering its distribution phase.