SIFF Grant for Courageous Documentary Filmmaking

Launched in May 2024, the SIFF Grant for Courageous Documentary Filmmaking provides $450,000 in funding available for Washington State documentary filmmakers, thanks to generous funding from the Satterberg Foundation.

These grants are awarded to storytellers with projects rooted in moral courage, who take action despite the risk of negative consequences for doing so.

2026 AWARDEES

The six finalists were selected by a panel of judges spanning from notable documentary filmmakers to Washington film leaders, including Nesib CB Shamah (Washington Filmmaker and Satterberg Foundation Board Member), Melanie Miller (Producer & Co-Founder of Fishbowl Films, Academy Award® Winner for Navalny), Sarah Menzies (Director of Original Productions at Cascade PBS), Lu Mukerjee (Director of the Documentary Lab fellowship at Firelight Media), and Beth Barrett (SIFF Artistic Director).

After Loss

Director: Adrienne von Wolffersdorff

After Loss follows the story of Veronica Leyva as she navigates miscarriages, fertility struggles, and pregnancy. Will she give birth to a healthy baby and grow her family as she hopes? And how will her grief shape her experience?

“This grant allows me to finish a film that has been many years in the making by providing the funds to hire post-production professionals so I have a polished film to present to the world. As an independent artist, community college filmmaking instructor, and mom of two young children, this kind of funding is essential.”—Adrienne von Wolffersdorff

Adrienne von Wolffersdorff specializes in documentary filmmaking on social justice topics. Highlights from her portfolio include Fare Share, her short documentary about the ride-share industry and its effects on workers, which played at festivals around the country in 2016–17. Her documentary Drawn from Life, about an artist who has Asperger’s, screened at the 2017 Tasveer South Asian Film Festival. Her MFA thesis film, Out of the Shadows, on which filmmaker Michael Apted consulted, premiered at the 2018 DocuWest Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Pasadena International Film Festival. More recently Adrienne made Lady Krishna, a portrait of an iconic Seattle artist and musician, which premiered at the 2019 Local Sightings Film Festival. Her current Voices of Miscarriage project received an $8,000 CityArtist grant from the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and the Women in Film Seattle Nell Shipman Professional Grant (2025). Adrienne has worked as a freelance cinematographer, production assistant, and assistant editor in Los Angeles and Seattle. She has an MFA in Documentary Filmmaking from Chapman University and a BA in Film Studies from Whitman College. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband and kids and teaches filmmaking at Seattle Central and Bellevue Colleges.

Flight Path

Director: John Helde

Flight Path follows the scientists and activists working to save the Marbled Murrelet, a mystery bird and one of the most endangered species of the Pacific Northwest. Through a mosaic of candid personal stories, the film explores the struggle against species decline and extinction in the twenty-first century.

“After filming for two seasons, we're moving into our post-production phase for Flight Path this fall. I’m thrilled that the SIFF grant will fund this phase of the project, making it possible for us to finish this timely film and bring it to audiences in 2027.”—John Helde

John Helde (director / producer) is a filmmaker based in Seattle. John started his career in New York City working with the celebrated documentary makers Maysles Films. He has been a film editor for noted directors such as Alan Rudolph, Chris Eyre and Steve James. His first feature documentary, Made in China, played the festival circuit to critical acclaim, and aired on the Documentary Channel. Field Work: A Family Farm, his next documentary, aired on public television following its festival run. His recent independent features Brown’s Canyon and Phoebe’s Father, made with Seattle-based cast and crew, are streaming on major platforms. His latest feature, Marcie’s, premiered in 2025 and recently launched on digital platforms. He is also an avid musician, birder and outdoor enthusiast.

Our Forbidden Country

Director: Clyde Petersen

Our Forbidden Country is a stop-motion animated feature film by Clyde Petersen. Based on oral history interviews, photographs, and collective community memory, Our Forbidden Country rebuilds the queer worlds of downtown Seattle, brick by brick, inviting you to step inside and experience the gay euphoria of the late 1970s.

“Funding through the SIFF Documentary Grant for Courageous Filmmaking will be used to complete the animation, soundtrack, sound mix and color correction of Our Forbidden Country. We’ll be working with local musicians to create an original score and dreaming on the possibilities of presenting the film with live music and narration upon completion.”—Clyde Petersen

Clyde Petersen is a transgender Northwest artist, working in film, visual art, animation, music and installation. He re-creates lost worlds and documents cultures largely erased by AIDS, capitalism and gentrification. He works to offer alternate, more equitable realities and futures through the reexamination of overlooked histories. His work is slow and patient, animating only a few seconds of film a day, gathering new oral histories and building scale-model worlds to tell stories in. Clyde is the director of Torrey Pines (2016) and Even Hell has its Heroes (2023).

The Raven and the Bull

Director: Raven Two Feathers

Amidst an uncertain political future, two trans Indigenous men embark on a courageous journey to find joy and peace, embracing who they are, just as Two Spirit people have done since time immemorial.

“The last few months of post production will be made possible by this fund, allowing us to premiere at festivals in 2027, and in 2028 on public TV. With post secure, we will be able to work towards our release goals: making the film accessible and casting a wide net with our impact campaign to bring joy and hope to Indigiqueer people, and the world.”—Raven Two Feathers

Raven Two Feathers (Cherokee, Seneca, Cayuga, Comanche) (he/they) is a Two Spirit, Emmy award winning creator based in Seattle, WA. Originally from New Mexico, they spent their childhood moving and exploring Indigenous cultures across the continent and Pacific with their mother and grandmother. They returned to New Mexico to attend Santa Fe University of Art & Design, graduating magna cum laude with a BFA in Film Production. They are in post-production for their premiere feature, The Raven and the Bull, an Indigiqueer documentary. They grow their practice through the people they meet, and the stories that guide them.

Refuge

Directors: Ian Bell, Nathan Miller

Along the border, in the Sonoran Desert, tens of thousands of people have gone missing while attempting to cross into the United States. Refuge takes you inside the network surrounding the disappeared: from search and rescue groups, forensic archeologists identifying remains through DNA-analysis, artists building memorials, and families seeking answers.

“After eight years of shooting, getting SIFF's support at this stage reaffirms the importance of the story we are trying to tell. This grant permits the finishing of both production and post-production, allowing our team to complete the film for a festival premiere presentation and future distribution.”—Ian Bell, Nathan Miller

Ian Bell is the creator and director of VICE’s “Source Material,” a found-footage news anthology series. His feature documentary directorial debut WTO/99 premiered at 2025’s True/False Film Festival, and was called “nothing short of a galvanizing historical document” by Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com. The film traveled extensively on the festival circuit, taking home top honors at New Orleans, Mammoth Lake and Tallahassee. Bell additionally received the International Documentary Association’s award for Best Editing, and Seattle Film Critics Society named it the best documentary film of 2025. Previously, as a supervising producer at VICE News, Ian contributed to the Emmy-nominated “VICE ON.”

Nathan Miller is a director, cinematographer and editor based in Seattle and Los Angeles, who has lensed narrative, documentary and commercial projects across the US and abroad. Nate’s genre-spanning list of features includes Lynn Shelton’s Outside In (Netflix) starring Edie Falco, Jay Duplass and Kaitlyn Dever (TIFF 2017), Mel Eslyn’s Biosphere (IFC) starring Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass (TIFF 2022), the Netflix original Paddleton, starring Ray Romano (Sundance 2019), as well as Todd Rohal’s Uncle Kent 2, which took home the “Visions” Award at 2015’s SXSW. In 2017 Nate received SXSW’s Short Documentary Jury Award for Little Potato, a documentary showcasing Wes Hurley’s childhood as a gay boy in Russia, which he co-directed with Hurley. Miller has served as DP on several narrative series, including the Adult Swim/HBO series “Three Busy Debras,” produced by Amy Poehler, Netflix’s "Special," and most recently the Netflix series “Penelope.” Produced by Duplass Brothers Productions, “Penelope” landed in Netflix’s Top 10 Most Watched TV Shows in its first week. Miller also shot HBO’s Spirit Award nominated documentary series “The Lady and the Dale,” the story of entrepreneur Elizabeth Carmichael, a trans woman who rose to prominence in the ‘70s with her 3-wheeled car.

Tiny Fish

Director: Kika Tuff

In the warming waters of the Pacific Northwest, scientists and community partners confront the decline of a tiny fish whose survival has carried communities, economies, and ecosystems for millennia.

“This funding comes at a pivotal moment for Tiny Fish, allowing us to bring the film through post-production and into a finished documentary ready for audiences. For an independent film like ours, this kind of support is transformative. It gives us the resources to finish the film with the care, creativity, and cinematic ambition this story deserves. Just as importantly, it allows us to continue working alongside our scientific and community partners on an impact strategy that puts the film to work for herring. Thank you to the SIFF team for believing, as much as we do, in the power of a big story about a tiny fish!”—Kika Tuff

Kika Tuff is an ecologist, filmmaker, and founder of Impact Media Lab, a creative studio dedicated to science storytelling. Since founding the company in 2016, she has helped thousands of scientists share their work with public audiences through media collaborations. Tiny Fish is her first independently funded documentary, bringing together a decade of experience at the intersection of science, storytelling, and visual media. Outside of work, Kika practices her craft leading quests in a long-standing game of Dungeons & Dragons. Storytelling-as-play remains a driving philosophy of her life and work.

2025 AWARDEES

The 2025 awardees were announced November 12, 2025, with two titles selected to screen as part of the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival. The seven finalists were selected by a panel of judges spanning from notable documentary filmmakers to Washington film leaders including Nesib CB Shamah (Washington Filmmaker and Satterberg Foundation Board Member), Melanie Miller (Producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary Navalny), Cecilia R. Meija (POV / American Documentary), and Beth Barrett (SIFF Artistic Director).

Selected projects were:

Boys on the Inside
Roll Modelz
The Martha Roth Project
The Year the Earth Was on Fire
Under a Million Stars
Valley of the Night
Worth My Salt

2024 AWARDEES

The 2024 finalists were selected by a panel of judges spanning from notable documentary filmmakers to Washington film leaders, including Nesib CB Shamah (Washington Filmmaker and Satterberg Foundation Board Member), Melanie Miller (Producer & Co-Founder of Fishbowl Films, ACADEMY AWARD® Winner for Navalny), Derek Edamura (Northwest Film Forum Executive Director), and Beth Barrett (SIFF Artistic Director).

Selected projects were:

Bring Them Home
Dear Aloha
Life After Life
Seattle Black Panthers Fight for Justice & Freedom
Shelly’s Leg
View From the Floor