Sundance Institute Reveals Doc Fund Grantees

A new wave of nonfiction projects have officially gotten a boost from Sundance Institute.

The nonprofit revealed the roster of global recipients selected to receive documentary fund grants for 2026. In total, 19 filmmaker-led projects got a thumbs up to receive more than $1 million in unrestricted funding to support their process from development and production to post-production. (Four of the 19 projects are in development, 12 are in production and three are in post.) 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 projects, some of which are supported by boldfaced name producers like Darren Aronofsky and Benjamin Bratt, focus a lens on a variety of subjects including Alcatraz, a San Francisco church that houses the internet archive, the bond shared by Koko the gorilla and Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson, C-SPAN, queer poet and playwright Yosimar Reyes, interstellar communication and more. Sundance Institute’s documentary film program supports nonfiction storytellers at all stages of their projects and careers via financial, creative and strategic assistance. The DFP is made up of three main pillars: documentary fund grants, lab and artist support and partnerships with artist support organizations and research institutions in the United States and around the world.

The 19 projects have roots in 14 countries including Canada, Denmark, France, India, Iran, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Tunisia, United Kingdom, U.S. and South Korea. Over a 24-year history, the fund has supported notable projects like 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.

“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,” offered Paola Mottura, director of the fund, and Kristin Feeley, director of documentary film and artist programs, in a joint statement. “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.”

The list of doc fund grantees is below along with descriptions of the filmmakers’ projects.

DEVELOPMENT

Alcatraz is an Idea (U.S.A.)
Director: Julian Brave NoiseCat
Producers: Peter Bratt, Benjamin Bratt, Alpita Patel, Daniel Kilroy and Tom Mackintosh
Logline: 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 and producer: Varun Trikha
Logline: 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 and Anita Norfolk
Logline: 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
Logline: 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 and Heejung Oh
Logline: 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
Logline: 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 and producer: Ilinca Calugareanu
Producers: Anamaria Antoci, Lucila Moctezuma
Logline: 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
Logline: 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
Logline: 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
Logline: 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
Logline: 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 and producer: Tasha Van Zandt
Producers: Sebastian Zeck, Anna Barnes, Chai Vasarhelyi
Logline: 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
Logline: 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 and producer: Cody Ball
Producers: Carter Oakley, Cleo Abram, Owen Kibby
Logline: 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
Logline: 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
Logline: 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
Logline: 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 and producers: Rachael DeCruz and Jeremy S. Levine
Producer: Rajal Pitroda
Logline: 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 (working title) (U.S.A.)
Director: Chelsi Bullard
Producer: Julia Pontecorvo
Logline: 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