STORIES OF CHANGE:
Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary

Request for Proposals

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, in partnership with the Skoll Foundation, will provide $1.2 million in film project grants to enable the development and/or production of new feature-length independent documentary films that frame, examine and amplify social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to the central questions of our time. The initiative anticipates funding up to 8 films in the range of $30,000-$150,000 per project. Editorial control must be retained by the filmmaker/s.

Documentary films that combine the art of storytelling with topics in social entrepreneurship and the work of social entrepreneurs, and which have a high potential for co-production and for a full distribution plan, including theatrical, broadcast and DVD distribution, will be given priority. Films can be at any stage of development, production or post-production to apply. Completed films will not be considered.

Request for Proposals opens: June 23, 2008
Deadline for Submissions: August 15, 2008
Awards announced: December, 2008

To apply, peruse frequently-asked-questions.pdf and the resource-guide-on-social-entrepreneurship.pdf compiled to support your proposal. Then, head directly to our online application to submit your proposal.

Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program, has invited one Lab Fellow this year to share her voice from the Labs at Sundance, Utah. Deann Borshay Liem will share blog entries with the documentary and human rights community. Through her eyes, visitors will get to experience some aspect of Lab Fellowship, and of Deann’s experience with the creative process.

Deann Borshay Liem is the director of PRECIOUS OBJECTS OF DESIRE for which she was first awarded a grant from the DFP in 2006. In the film she goes on a quest to search for her “double”, a girl named Cha Jung Hee, in an attempt to resolve a case of mistaken identity that took place when she was adopted from South Korea by an American family in 1966. In the process she explores complexities of international transracial adoptions. Deann’s previous, Emmy Award-nominated documentary, FIRST PERSON PLURAL, premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. That story followed her as she bravely united her biological Korean and adoptive American families.

The Sundance Documentary Film Program conducts two creative labs each summer. Each is a week-long residential fellowships held at the Sundance Resort, and is by invitation only. The Documentary Edit and Story Lab pairs filmmakers with Creative Advisors to advance works-in-progress. This seven-day lab focuses on story editing, character development and dramatic structure, and engaging with the creative process.

Filmmaker Magazine has picked up the story and has published it on their website. Check for updates on Deann’s story throughout the Lab!

Sixth Annual Lab Highlights Importance of Editing Craft in Documentary Filmmaking

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program announced the selection of eight Documentary Film Fellows representing four projects to participate in the Documentary Film Edit and Story Laboratory, June 21 – 28 in Sundance, Utah. Held in the Wasatch Mountains at Sundance Resort, the Lab convenes filmmakers in the process of making feature-length independent documentaries for an intensive week of creative feedback in a supportive community setting. “Sundance is welcoming a group of non-fiction artists, who we believe will both contribute and learn from the Sundance Institute’s values of creative freedom and innovation,” said Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program.”

The 2008 Documentary Fellows are NC Heikin (director) and Peterson Negreiros Almeida (editor) for KIMJONGILIA, with stories of survivors of Kim Jong Il’s North Korean regime; Natalia Almada (director and editor) and Daniela Alatorre (producer) for EL GENERAL, a meditation on Mexico’s past, present and future; Deann Borshay Liem (director) and Vivien Hillgrove (editor) for PRECIOUS OBJECTS OF DESIRE, about the filmmaker’s journey to understand the story of her own adoption from South Korea in the 1960s; Jennifer Maytorena Taylor (director) and Kenji Yamamoto (editor) for NEW MUSLIM COOL, the tale of a Puerto Rican rapper who converts to Islam.

The Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory offers an intensive artist-to-artist collaborative experience where quality nonfiction storytelling is engaged with rigor and candor. Each artist is encouraged to explore a new take on story structure, narrative arc, voice, creative elements and more. Sundance Labs are an open, creative environment in which Fellows advance works-in-progress and are encouraged in the spirit of experimentation and risk taking.

“The Labs Advisors and Fellows also comprise an outstanding group of editing talent, some of whom have been working in the documentary form since the late 1960s,” said Mertes. “Editing is a critical and often under valued element of documentary filmmaking and we are privileged to highlight their artistry in this Lab.”

The Fellows will work with an acclaimed group of Creative Advisors: Editors: Kate Amend (Academy Award–winners INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS and THE LONG WAY HOME), Lewis Erskine (JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLES TEMPLE and MARCUS GARVEY: LOOK FOR ME IN THE WHIRLWIND), Mary Lampson (A LION IN THE HOUSE and HARLAN COUNTY) and T. Woody Richman (FARENHEIGHT 9/11 and TROUBLE THE WATER) and Directors: Sam Green (WEATHER UNDERGROUND and LOT 63, GRAVE C), and Laura Poitras (MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY and FLAG WARS).

Why is it time for DocSource? I believe in part it is because I see a new field of human rights documentary emerging, fueled by the instincts and inspiration of filmmakers like the DFP grantees you will engage with on the web site, the passion and commitment of those working across many fields for a more just and equitable world, and the imperative of so many critical issues coming into focus globally.

The power of each of these arenas is converging. Festivals are becoming convening zones for talking about issues, the Internet is allowing for new communication, organizing and distribution possibilities. Independent documentary filmmakers, so often driven by a will to change the world, are now bringing sophisticated storytelling and marketing techniques to bear on the critical issues of our day. The heat is on – quite literally — to educate, enlighten, inspire and motivate. We are the generations that must meet today’s challenges head-on. We have the tools to do it and the skills bring these stories to the world, one viewer at a time if that’s what it takes.

We thought you might like a glimpse into the work and activities of the DFP, and over the coming weeks and months, DFP staff will be bringing news, reflections and impressions of our work, while we are doing it. We’ll bring other things too, including them as they develop.

It’s part travelogue, since we are on the road almost continuously, part meditation on what we are seeing and hearing, and part community as we invite you to contribute your thoughts as well by entering the various discussion and posting options on the site.

Ultimately this will be your site, guided by your interests in the human rights and the independent documentary fields, informed by your experience, and serving your needs, whether you are a grantee, a teacher, a journalist, human rights worker, a doc lover or simply curious.