Today, The Redford Center launched the fourth cycle of its bi-annual environmental impact documentary grants program. The Redford Center Grants program supports environmental filmmakers and frontline stories that drive solutions for people and the planet, providing pathways for audiences to engage in addressing the environmental and climate crisis.
Since launching the grants program in 2016, The Redford Center has remained one of the few entities exclusively funding intersectional environmental justice documentary film projects and filmmakers throughout the entire filmmaking process with multifaceted support systems. As a story-centered organization, The Redford Center uses narrative strategies to reflect the full complexity of environmental impacts and solutions to inspire compassion, hope, and action. To date, over $1 million in grant funding and direct project support has been awarded to 36 films through the program.
Recently released award-winning grantee films and impact campaigns have led to policy change, innovation, educational engagement, and advocacy wins. Grantee impact highlights include:
Youth V Gov, directed by Christi Cooper, directly supports youth constitutional rights;
Meat the Future, directed by Liz Marshall, encourages investments in climate solutions and innovation;
We Still Here / Nos Tenemos, directed by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, provides a model for community-led just recovery after climate disasters;
Manzanar, Diverted, directed by Ann Kaneko, supports water self-sufficiency and conservation for metropolitan communities;
To The End, directed by Rachel Lears, educates and advances timely climate grassroots advocacy;
Exposure, directed by Holly Morris, led to new advocacy-oriented futures for the featured subjects; and
PBS Digital series Adaptation, directed by Alizé Carrère, illuminates solutions for a regenerative environmental future.
Learn about all 36 grantee projects at redfordcenter.org/grantees.
“Stories that show us how to solve the climate and environmental crisis are woefully underfunded, under-resourced, and undervalued. Yet the filmmakers and activists on the frontlines of the crisis, their leadership, their victories, and their actions, illuminate a path for major environmental progress,” said Jill Tidman, Executive Director of The Redford Center. “Our grants program is designed to help fill this gap. It honors the vast intersections of environmental stories and reveals the many ways these issues touch everyone’s lives. At this urgent moment in human history – when culture shift, industry accountability, and policy change is needed more than ever – we are thrilled to bring twelve inspiring documentary projects into The Redford Center family and help launch their stories and solutions.”
“The Redford Center has proven to be nimble as the world changes around it, while maintaining its focus of supporting environmental justice stories that matter,” said Gita Saedi Kiely, filmmaker, and Director of FilmAid. “They have done a great job paving a singular path in the documentary funding community, and the world will reap the benefits of their impact well beyond any single grant or film.”
About the 2022-23 Redford Center Grants Open Call:
In the program’s fourth funding cycle, The Redford Center will welcome 12 new projects to their grants community. New and ongoing nonfiction feature films or docu-series at any stage of development, production, or postproduction are eligible to apply. Projects must be a documentary feature film or series; must have a clear impact goal or idea for an impact campaign; and must be about, or intersect with, an environmental issue and a proposed or activated solution. The program prioritizes films led by artists from historically excluded and environmentally impacted communities.
Each project receives a first-year (2022) $20,000 grant for production and/or impact campaign expenses, a GoPro camera package supported by GoPro for a Cause, and an opportunity to present at a public film showcase with industry leaders. In year two (2023), The Redford Center will award second-year grants to support the production, completion, and impact campaigns for up to five selected grantee projects. In addition to financial support, The Redford Center works in a grantee cohort model and provides learning sessions and opportunities, networking and promotional support, and community building to all grantees.
Applications are accepted from March 24 – May 30, 2022. Interested filmmakers can learn more at a free information session on April 7, 2022. Click here to register.
Complete details on the Redford Center Grants program, application process, and eligibility are available at www.redfordcenter.org/grants.
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ABOUT THE REDFORD CENTER:
Co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son James Redford, The Redford Center uses the power of storytelling to galvanize environmental justice and planetary health. Its cross-cutting programs support environmental storytellers and invest in impact-driven narrative strategies. By amplifying and changing the conversations around environmentalism, The Redford Center aims to engage a much broader and more diverse population in the movement. It has produced three award-winning feature documentaries and 30+ short films, supported 85+ film and media projects with grants and other services, inspired 400+ student films, and dispersed more than $10 million to fiscally sponsored projects. Redford Center film impact campaigns have halted the construction of dirty coal plants, reconnected the Colorado River to the Sea of Cortez, and helped accelerate the clean energy revolution in America. For more information, visit redfordcenter.org.
PROGRAM CONTACT: Heather Fipps, Program Manager, The Redford Center
hfipps@redfordcenter.org
MEDIA CONTACT: Cait Fitzwater, Communications Director, The Redford Center
cfitzwater@redfordcenter.org