
IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund supports in-depth explorations of original, contemporary stories that integrate journalistic practice into the filmmaking process. The fund is supported by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation with additional support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.
This year, eleven projects were selected out of 371 applicants to receive a total of $435,000 in production grants. Awarded projects are currently in production in eleven countries, including the US, Philippines, Brazil, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Italy, and Afghanistan. Amongst the filmmakers at the helm of selected projects, 46% are filmmakers of color, 69% are women or gender-non-conforming filmmakers, 12% identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and 8% identify as a D/deaf or disabled person or have long-term health conditions.
This year’s selection panel included Gary Byungseok Kam (Documentary Filmmaker), Jacqueline Olive (Director/Producer/Writer), Lucila Moctezuma (Documentary Consultant), Mohamed Said Ouma (Executive Director of DocA-Documentary Africa), Sigal Yehuda (Founder & Executive Director of Close Up), and Susanne Reber (Executive Producer).
In a statement, the panel noted: “We, as panelists of this year’s IDA Enterprise Production Fund grant round, were impressed by the high level of the projects presented that convinced us with their great access, international scope, intimacy, urgency, and hope. The courage of the film crews in pushing boundaries politically, socially, and cinematically is refreshing. In a complex and critical period for our Humanity, the bravery in raising voices that challenge official narratives has inspired the committee, and we hope they will activate audiences around the world. We were encouraged by the meticulous approach and care shown to the filmmakers by the IDA Funds team.”
2023 IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund Production Grant submissions were reviewed by Aiko Masubuchi, Andrew Nadkarni, Arianne Ayu Alizio, Ash Goh Hua, Camila Guarda Velasco, Che Applewhaite, Chen Wanling, Cyrielle Raingou, Donna Kozloskie, Dr. Grishma Shah, Emerson Goo, Emily Abi-Kheirs, George Lavender, Julia Gunnison, Justin Nguyen, Mostafa Youssef, Pauly Denetclaw, Sana Malik, Scarlett Robertson, Serra Ciliv, Viknesh Kobinathan.
2023 Enterprise Documentary Fund Production Grantees
#Nunstoo

About the Project
In a revelation never before spoken, a small group of nuns exposes a tormented truth within the Catholic Church: the harrowing tales of predatory priests abusing nuns. Shockwaves ripple through religious women determined to defy their second-class status as they ignite a movement to demand the justice they have long yearned for.
Project Team
Confidential Project
About the Project
Confidential Project
Project Team
Hawa

About the Project
40 YEARS after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa is eager to finally begin an independent life and to be literate. However, with the return of the Taliban to power her dreams, and those of her daughter and grand-daughter are shattered.
Project Team
Life After

About the Project
Life After interrogates the contradictory political ideologies surrounding death and disability while coalescing the missing voices of the disabled community in the contemporary debate around medically assisted suicide.
Project Team
The Phantom Pain of Rojava

About the Project
In 2015 the Kurdish guerrillas - both men and women - were praised as heroes by the world. They had fought against ISIS and won, but soon after, their allies left the region and the world’s spotlight changed focus. Today, many of the guerrillas are badly injured without arms or legs, and live in houses for wounded soldiers. In this film we follow five friends; Rojda who is blind, Fadakhar who lost two legs, Zarin who was shot in the head, Sorkhin with metal in her whole body and Viyan, the folk singer who tells the story of Rojava and the dream of freedom. This is a film about life after war and also about the strength of continuing to fight for a dignified life.
Project Team
The River

About the Project
THE RIVER is a vivid, character-driven film about Louisiana’s complicated relationship with the Mississippi River.
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The Strike

About the Project
A generation of California men endure decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launch a protest to regain their freedom.
Project Team
This is How it Ends (wt)

About the Project
Can kindness, truth and hope for democracy emerge victorious in an epic battle with fear, lies and surrender to autocracy? Can light conquer darkness? However it ends, the story serves as a testimony to the power of volunteerism and a cautionary tale about the consequences — for better or worse — of choices made.
Project Team
To Use a Mountain

About the Project
Physics, geology, and democracy collide across the expansive American interior, in a series of vignettes from six candidate sites for a sacrificial nuclear dumping ground.
Project Team
Untitled Policing Documentary (wt)

About the Project
Untitled Policing Documentary is a film like no other, an explosive confessional told from behind the thin blue line, it examines police crime and the personal and political consequences of law enforcement wrongdoing on officers and their victims.
Project Team
When They Were Here

About the Project
When They Were Here is a documentary about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis on the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana, told through the eyes of the families and community members left behind. The film traces experiences through time, place, and memory–and examines the legacy of violence in the place they call home