Sundance Institute Documentary Fund partners with John Templeton Foundation, applications close April 17

The Egyptian Theater in Park City. Photo: Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Institute announced a new three-year partnership yesterday between the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and the John Templeton Foundation.

The Sundance Documentary Fund is intended to uplift artists from marginalized communities. The fund’s partnership with the philanthropic John Templeton Foundation will increase Sundance’s granting pool by $500,000 per year, doubling the size of the nonprofit’s grants across the board.

“We are grateful that the John Templeton Foundation is deepening the funding support we provide to nonfiction storytellers,” said Paola Mottura, director of the Documentary Film Fund. “They join our funder community in highly turbulent times for the industry, when funding and distribution avenues for urgent, risk-taking, and creative independent nonfiction work are dwindling and sustainability for independent artists and the art form itself is increasingly concerning… Larger grants allow artists to gain greater momentum in their fundraising efforts, to advance production in a more timely manner, and to assume less personal financial risk.”

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Applications are currently open for the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund’s Open Call, and will close on April 17. Selected projects in the development stage will be awarded up to $40,000, and projects on production and post production will be awarded up to $100,000.

The Sundance Documentary Fund has implemented an application assistance program for artists with disabilities. Artists with physical or cognitive disabilities can request assistance as any stage of the application process by emailing dfp@sundance.org.