List of the Best Documentary Grants to Fund Your Film

For filmmakers around the world, the documentary grants directory guides you to opportunities on how to fund your documentary.

Funding for Documentary Filmmakers

Nederlands Filmfonds
The Fund supports the realisation of minority co-production feature films, long animated films and documentaries.
Movies that Matter
We offer a start-up grant for new human rights film festivals / events and an impact grant for existing events that want to increase their impact or want to add new activities to their programmes.
Investigative Journalism for Europe
IJ4EU’s Investigation Support Scheme provides grants of between €5,000 and €50,000 to support cross-border investigative projects in Europe.
Humanities for All
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.
Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund
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.
Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists
The IWMF’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists supports the production of ambitious projects and underreported, globally important stories.
William Greaves Research and Development Fund
The William Greaves Research and Development Fund resources talented, mid-career nonfiction storytellers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities in the United States, as well as filmmakers who identify as being of Indigenous and/or of African descent.
Eurimages: Co-production Support
EURIMAGES supports fiction, animation and documentary feature films of a minimum length of 70 minutes.
Documentary Development Initiative
The program is created for storytellers who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and/or storytellers with disabilities.
DEI Film Grant
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Film Grant Fund provides intentional support and funding to amplify women, BIPOC & LGBTQ+ centered stories that celebrate running across the spectrum of cultural experiences.
Project: Hatched
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.
AXS Film Fund
AXS Lab provides funding to documentary filmmakers and nonfiction new media creators of color with disabilities.
AFAC Documentary Program
The AFAC Documentary Program supports creative documentary films in the Arab region. The program welcomes submissions of short and medium-length documentary in production and post-production, and feature documentary film projects that are in development, production or post-production phases.
Follow Focus Grant
The ScreeningRoom / Jigsaw Productions Follow Focus Grant provides $10,000 finishing fund for a cinematic documentary short in post-production
AAAS Science Journalism Awards
The AAAS Science Journalism Awards have honored professional journalists for distinguished reporting on the sciences, engineering, and mathematics.