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.

This partnership creates new opportunities for leading social entrepreneurs and outstanding documentary filmmakers to collaborate and to create new projects about the innovative approaches found in both fields. The development and production grant awards support the creation of feature-length independent documentary films that examine social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to the central challenges of our time. Additional film grants will be announced in the coming weeks. $1.2 million is allotted for production funding over the course of the Stories of Change partnership.

In 2008, Stories of Change launched a request for proposals and received more than 300 film projects from around the world from filmmakers interested in telling the stories of social entrepreneurs. The advisory committee included CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, celebrated documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight, The Trials of Henry Kissinger) and Skoll Foundation senior advancement officer Sandy Herz.

A combination of invited gatherings and documentary film project funding, the partnership believes that powerful storytellers and innovative changemakers can benefit from each other. In addition to funding the creation of new documentary films, Stories of Change supports convenings of leaders in both documentary film and social entrepreneurship at key gatherings globally over the course of the three year partnership, including the Skoll World Forum and the Sundance Film Festival.

Grant recipients announced are:

CONNECTED
Director: Jonathan Stack
Social Entrepreneur: Aloy Chife
Nigerian entrepreneur Chife is making an unrelenting effort to shrink Africa’s digital divide by bringing information technology to those who need it most.

EASY LIKE WATER
Director: Glenn Baker
Social Entrepreneur: Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan
In Bangladesh, Architect Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan’s solar-powered floating schools are turning the front lines of climate change into a community of learning.

TO CATCH A DOLLAR: MUHAMMAD YUNUS BANKS ON AMERICA (working title)
Director: Gayle Ferraro
Social Entrepreneur: Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus, known for developing the concept of microcredit, reached seven and a half million poverty-stricken families in Bangladesh with his Grameen Bank. This film profiles the Nobel Prize winner’s newest location in Queens, New York, and 500 women borrowers.

SH*T!
Directors: Annika Gustafson and Phil Jandaly
Social Entrepreneurs: Various
This remarkable film shows viewers how to save the planet, save money while they do it, and have a laugh or two in the meantime.

THE REVOLUTIONARY OPTIMISTS
Directors: Maren Grainger-Monsen, Nicole Newnham
Social Entrepreneur: Amlan Ganguly
In the slums of Calcutta, Ganguly, a lawyer turned social entrepreneur, empowers children to become “health minders” in their communities, which causes malaria and diarrhea rates to drop, and neighborhoods to transform.

BACK TO SCHOOL – Development
Producer: Julia Parker Benello
Social Entrepreneur: Sakena Yacoobi
Sakena Yacoobi’s Afghan Institute for Learning, a grassroots organization she founded 12 years ago, brings education to women in Afghanistan.

GREEN SHALL OVERCOME – Development
Director: Tracy Heather Strain/Co-Director: Megan Gelstein
Social Entrepreneur: Van Jones
Van Jones, an African American civil rights lawyer, envisions a pathway out of poverty for low income Americans while simultaneously addressing the challenges of environmental destruction. Can he bring about a revolution of black and green?

POOR CONSUELO CONQUERS THE WORLD – Development
Director: Peter Friedman
Producer: Paul Miller
Social Entrepreneur: PCI-Media Impact
Poor Consuelo Conquers the World tells the story of popular soap operas and telenovelas, now being used to combat the effects of poverty around the world.

THE TEAM – Production
Director: Patrick Reed
Producer: Peter Raymont
Social Entrepreneurs: John Marks and Susan Collin Marks
Kenyans scramble to produce a dramatic TV soap opera series, hoping taboo storylines can bridge deep ethnic divisions, as their country teeters on the brink.

YOUTHBUILD DOCUMENTARY – Production
Director: Annie Sundberg
Social Entrepreneur: Dorothy Stoneman
This feature length documentary will follow a year in the lives of out-of school young people selected for a high stakes community re-build project in North Philadelphia.

Want to learn more about social entrepreneurs and their work?
Peruse Skoll Social Entrepreneurs
Or visit the online discussion on the Social Edge website.