Photos: Sundance Institute Awards $1 Million to 19 Documentary Projects

The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the recipients of their 2026 Documentary Fund grants. The fund supports nonfiction storytellers from across the globe in the creation of feature-length documentaries that drive cultural and social impact. This year, 19 projects were selected to receive over $1 million in unrestricted funding. Four of the grants are for projects in development, 12 of them are in production, and three are in post-production. Grants are made possible by The Open Society Foundations, The John Templeton Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Free People.

The Documentary Film Program (DFP) will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. Founded in 2002, the program is a vibrant global resource for independent nonfiction storytelling rooted in eliminating barriers to entry and increasing opportunities for connection, collaboration, and cultural exchange in the field. Through various mechanisms, the Documentary Film Program uplifts nonfiction filmmakers at all stages of their projects and careers via financial, creative, and strategic support. The DFP comprises three main pillars: the Documentary Fund, providing unrestricted and nonrecoupable project grants that serve as the main entry point into the program; lab and artist support, offering the expertise and resources for artists to develop their projects and sharpen their craft (including the Documentary Producers Lab and the Documentary Edit and Story Lab); and partnerships with artist support organizations and research institutions in the United States and around the world to contribute to a flourishing global independent nonfiction ecosystem, encouraging audience development and building pathways for nonfiction filmmakers to navigate challenges to freedom of expression and technological change.

'This season holds profound significance for us in the Documentary Film Program as we prepare to celebrate our 25th anniversary next year. As we reflect on how far we have come over the past two and a half decades, we feel immense gratitude to the valued partners who have sustained our program throughout its history, with a special mention to our founding partner Open Society Foundations,' said Paola Mottura, Director, Documentary Film Fund, and Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs. 'This year's group of grantees is a beautiful reflection of the inventive and varied nonfiction work that continues to push the form forward. We continue to be inspired by their work and feel fortunate to advocate for their projects and help bring them to the screen. We congratulate the teams behind these 19 projects and look forward to seeing where their journeys will lead.'

Almost 65% of grant proposals came from outside the U.S. for this funding cycle, marking an increase from last year. The 19 projects receiving grants have roots in 14 countries, including Canada, Denmark, France, India, Iran, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Korea.

While exploring a wide range of topics and themes, the 2026 Documentary Fund grantees are united by a shared interrogation of how history is constructed, knowledge is preserved, and boundaries are drawn. A central theme across several projects is the infrastructure of memory, questioning who controls the public record and what narratives are considered worthy of remembering. In reclaiming suppressed histories, these films treat archives as vital spaces where truth and power are actively negotiated. Other projects investigate constructed social and physical borders alongside systemic exclusion, as well as the intersection of modern-day colonialism and environmental collapse. Several filmmakers delve into the complexities of generational dynamics and the struggle of carrying ancestral legacies while forging individual identities. Finally, a significant number of projects leverages science to challenge traditional definitions of where humanity ends and the natural world begins.

As always, Documentary Fund grantees represent a broad spectrum of experience and filmmaking achievement. Thirty-seven percent of grantees this cycle are first-time feature directors. Among the notable filmmakers is Alcatraz is an Idea director Julian Brave NoiseCat, who previously co-directed the 2024 Sundance Film Festival premiere Sugarcane, which won NoiseCat and co-director Emily Kassie the Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition and went on to be nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, making history for becoming the first Oscar-nominated documentary feature directed by a North American Indigenous filmmaker.

Anatomy of Indifference director and producer Ilinca Calugareanu also directed Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015 Sundance Film Festival) and A Cops and Robbers Story (2020). Emmy- and BAFTA-nominated director Kathryn Ferguson is a Documentary Fund grantee for Matrescence and previously premiered her debut documentary feature, Nothing Compares, at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Emmy-nominated Drew Xanthopoulos (with My Friend the Bear) is the director and cinematographer of the Emmy-winning feature documentary Fathom. David Alvarado is receiving a Documentary Fund grant for All Shall Be Saved after directing American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, which won the 2025 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film and premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, followed by a festival run that included Sundance Film Festival: CDMX 2026. The team behind 2026 grantee The People's Network includes Alyse Shorland, a two-time Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker, and producers Sara Archambault and Darcy McKinnon, both alumni of Sundance Institute's Producers Lab and Catalyst program.

Over the years, the fund has been proud to support acclaimed projects, including All That Breathes, American Factory, Cookie Queens, Collective, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, Fire of Love, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Jaripeo, Milisuthando, Minding the Gap, Nuestra Tierra, The Mole Agent, No Other Land, Nocturnes, Seeds, Softie, Strong Island, Sugarcane, The Territory, Time, and Union.

Development

Alcatraz is an Idea (U.S.A.)
Director: Julian Brave NoiseCat
Producers: Peter Bratt, Benjamin Bratt, Alpita Patel, Daniel Kilroy, Tom Mackintosh
In November 1969, a scrappy band of Natives seized Alcatraz Island from the most powerful government on Earth. Confronting the Nixon administration, the activists held the notorious former prison for 19 months, igniting a movement — America's greatest civil rights story never told.

Shape of Silence (Canada)
Director & Producer: Varun Trikha
Amid changing forests, a blind Polish linguist searches for sounds that might heal what human language cannot.

Shooting Stars (Iran, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway)
Director: Parsa Ansari
Producer: Milad Khosravi
Co-producers: Thibaut Amri, Maria Rostad, Steven Rubinstein Malamud, Anita Norfolk
While investigating mysterious UFO sightings from his childhood, a boy begins to question who the real aliens are. His search gradually shifts from extraterrestrial fantasies toward the invisible outsiders living among us on Earth.

Wahnish Keeps Me Free (U.S.A.)
Director: Jamil McGinnis
Development Producer: Resita Heavenly Cox
As stories emerge from centennial trees on campus, members of the Marching 100 kinetically compose the memories of Florida A&M University. Wahnish Keeps Me Free frames Black Southern life as 'stillness in musical motion' — where band, diaspora, land, and sound converge.

Production

All Fixed Up (U.S.A., France, South Korea)
Director: Hao Zhou
Producers: Tyler Hill, Jenny Wu, Dominique Barneaud, Heejung Oh
After struggling to 'straighten out' their queer descendant, a rural family pursues a dramatic masquerade that pushes the boundaries of care, identity, and cross-generational understanding.

All Shall Be Saved (U.S.A.)
Directors: Jason Sussberg, David Alvarado
Producer: Kate McLean
There's a church in San Francisco where the internet lives. All of it. Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive keep our shared memory (everything from cat GIFs to great literature) humming in servers above the pews. Now copyright lawsuits, hackers, and surveillance states threaten to burn it down.

Anatomy of Indifference (U.K., Romania)
Director & Producer: Ilinca Calugareanu
Producers: Anamaria Antoci, Lucila Moctezuma
This is not the story of a crime, but of everything that happens after it is reported.

Artificial Horizon (U.S.A.)
Director: Elizabeth M. Webb
Producers: DaManuel Richardson, Maggie Corona-Goldstein, Solomon Turner
Artificial Horizon traces the layered histories of former plantation land in Alabama — an origin point for the filmmaker's family who live on either side of, and sometimes cross, the color line. Looking to plants as teachers, what does repair mean for land, relationships, and the systems we inherit?

God of the In-Between (India, U.S.A.)
Director: Archana Phadke
Producers: Aman Mann, Shaunak Sen
A fabled island of ruins has been sustained for generations by an unlikely savior: seaweed. Panchavarnam and her 'seaweed sisters' have spent a lifetime collecting this treasure. Panchavarnam now fights to preserve the sisterhood, even as her daughter chooses a different life. Supported by the Sundance Institute | Free People Creative Spirit Fund

Matrescence (U.K.)
Director: Kathryn Ferguson
Producers: Rosie Crerar, Eleanor Emptage
A genre-defying documentary exploring the transformative journey of motherhood, adapted from Lucy Jones' bestselling book. With powerful visual storytelling, the film interweaves groundbreaking science and personal testimony to offer a radical and profound examination of maternal metamorphosis.

None of This Matters (U.S.A.)
Director: Shaina Feinberg
Producers: Judith Mizrachy, Elisabeth Durkin
Struggling filmmaker Shaina Feinberg travels to Maine to interview trailblazing director and teacher Joan Darling. Over years, the intended biopic transforms into a portrait of two artists at different points of their lives and a meditation on the messy, beautiful act of creating until the very end. Supported by the Sundance Institute | Free People Creative Spirit Fund

Penny & Koko (U.S.A.)
Director & Producer: Tasha Van Zandt
Producers: Sebastian Zeck, Anna Barnes, Chai Vasarhelyi
Told through Koko the gorilla's eyes and a lifetime of never-before-seen archival footage, Penny & Koko reveals the extraordinary 47-year bond between a gorilla who forever changed how we understand communication across species and the pioneering scientist who devoted her life to listening to her.

Salt of the south (Tunisia, France, Denmark, Qatar)
Director: Rami Jarboui
Producers: Ramzi Laâmouri, Julien Coquet, Marie Schmidt Olesen
On the polluted shores of Gabès, where a vast chemical complex looms over a coastal village, a resilient clam harvester fights to preserve her family's way of life as her son risks everything on a perilous journey to Europe, only to discover that exploitation knows no borders.

Speaking For Earth (U.S.A.)
Director & Producer: Cody Ball
Producers: Carter Oakley, Cleo Abram, Owen Kibby
For decades, the world's leading expert in interstellar communication has worked toward an ambitious dream: making contact with another intelligent civilization. Science meets humanity in this pursuit of unlocking a new era of space exploration.

The People's Network (U.S.A.)
Director: Alyse Shorland
Producers: Sara Archambault, Darcy McKinnon
From bold experiment to an essential civic institution, C-SPAN revolutionized access to power. Now, nearly 50 years later, its dedicated staff finds itself at a turning point just when America needs them most.

YOSI (U.S.A., Mexico)
Director: Jimmy Goldblum
Producers: Vero Kompalic, Justin Gonçalves, Esteban Zuluaga, Darren Aronofsky
Queer poet and playwright Yosimar Reyes transforms the absurdities of his undocumented life into hilarious, defiant theater. But after the death of the grandmother who raised him, Yosi journeys back to Mexico, confronting what it means to belong on both sides of the border.

Post-Production

My Friend the Bear (U.S.A.)
Director: Drew Xanthopoulos
Producer: Bennett Elliott
Showing the unprecedented, decades-long relationship between a severely dyslexic researcher and a bear he rescued and released, the film reveals an unseen world of bears and challenges our modern ideas of how humanity fits into the rest of nature.

Nine (U.S.A.)
Directors & Producers: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S. Levine
Producer: Rajal Pitroda
After being sent to prison at 18, Gerald met Henry, who raised him into the man he is today. Now Gerald is on a mission to bring his 83-year-old 'Pops' home from prison while there's still time. Nine is a poetic exploration of the enduring bonds of friendship forged across generations and decades.

Unfiltered (w/t) (U.S.A.)
Director: Chelsi Bullard
Producer: Julia Pontecorvo
In a poetic blend of reality and imagination, a vivacious Brooklyn teenager strives to reclaim her own fleeting childhood while helping raise her four younger sisters. Through her original poetry, she conjures a world where Black girls get to simply be kids. Supported by the Sundance Institute | Free People Creative Spirit Fund

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program is made possible by founding support from the Open Society Foundations. Generous additional support is provided by John Templeton Foundation, Sandbox Films, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Free People, The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), The Charles Engelhard Foundation, Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman, Nancy Blachman, and Roger and Carin Ehrenberg.

About Sundance Institute

As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute's signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from Sundance Institute advisors and connect with each other in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Through the Sundance Institute artist programs, the Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don't Cry, Boys State, Call Me by Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Dìdi (弟弟), Drunktown's Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, Fruitvale Station, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, RBG, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola. Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of such artists as Paul Thomas Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Nia DaCosta, Ryan Coogler, The Daniels, Robert Eggers, Rick Famuyiwa, David Gordon Green, Sterlin Harjo, Marielle Heller, Miranda July, Nikyatu Jusu, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Boots Riley, A.V. Rockwell, Ira Sachs, Walter Salles, Quentin Tarantino, Erica Tremblay, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao.

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