SIFF announces winning projects of 2024 Courageous Documentary Filmmaking Grants
9/19/2024
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Madison Zimmerman | press@siff.net
SEATTLE – Today SIFF announced the winning projects of its new SIFF Grant for Courageous Documentary Filmmaking program, with $400,000 in funding distributed to Washington State documentary filmmakers. After announcing the program on opening night of its 50th annual Seattle International Film Festival in May 2024, SIFF received over 89 submissions from local filmmakers, six of which have been chosen to receive project funding.
The grants are offered in partnership with the Satterberg Foundation, continuing their tradition of supporting storytellers with projects rooted in moral courage and “taking action despite the risk of negative consequences for doing so.” The Foundation's Moral Courage Committee (MCC) has a long history of offering grants to individuals and organizations to help their work come to fruition and reach wider audiences.
“SIFF has always been a home to documentary filmmakers and documentary-loving audiences,” said SIFF’s Artistic Director Beth Barrett. “To be able to support and encourage this type of work is at the very heart of our mission as an organization and we are incredibly honored to provide opportunities to local documentary filmmakers in their efforts to bring their stories to the screen.”
The 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).
2024 SIFF Grant for Courageous Documentary Filmmaking Awardees:
Bring Them Home
Producer: Rob Young
Bring Them Home is a powerful award-winning documentary exploring the harrowing issue of deported veterans—a group who has honorably served yet finds themselves exiled by the very nation they defended. This gripping film reveals the harsh realities of non-citizen soldiers who confront the threat of deportation due to shifting immigration laws, intertwining personal sacrifice with national identity.
Dear Aloha
Director: Cris Romento
In the Pacific Northwest, Diasporic Native Hawaiians reveal how aloha sustains them amidst distance, loss, and longing. Meanwhile, back in Hawaiʻi, locals grapple with the history of colonization that has Hawaiians rapidly disappearing from their homeland.
Life After Life
Director: JJ Gerber
A groundbreaking burial practice disrupts the funeral industry, prompting those within to rethink rituals and drive a transformative shift in our relationship with death and the environmental legacy we leave behind.
Seattle Black Panthers Fight for Justice & Freedom
Director: Rick & Marques DuPree
The Black Panthers were revolutionaries before their time who fought racism, bigotry, and oppression for the freedom of all people. Seattle Black Panthers Fight for Justice & Freedom is the untold story of the Seattle Chapter in their own words. Seattle chapter co-founder and captain Aaron Dixon describes a revolutionary as one who hates oppression and fights for all oppressed people, regardless of their skin color. Many were only teenagers who fought for a cause larger than themselves: the freedom of all people.
Shelly’s Leg
Director: Wes Hurley
In 1970, an eccentric young stripper named Shelly Baumann loses her leg in a freak parade cannon accident, then uses her settlement money to open 'Shelly's Leg' disco - one of the nation's first and most consequential openly gay spaces. Using beautiful vintage footage of Seattle, original animations, and acted recreations of subject interviews - Shelly's Leg aims to immerse the audience in the era it portrays and celebrate the unusual woman whose life choices helped transform an entire community.
View From the Floor
Directors: Megan Griffiths, Mindie Lind
View From the Floor is a memoir about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll without legs, as told through the life experiences of artist, singer, writer, and crip commentator Mindie Lind. Utilizing animation, music, and Mindie’s distinctive voice, this feature documentary, made in collaboration with filmmaker Megan Griffiths, will provide a radical, irreverent, and starkly personal perspective on ableism and exploitation.
With documentaries representing nearly one third of the 261 films that screened during the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF is proud to continue a long history celebrating documentary filmmaking. DocFest, SIFF’s annual documentary film festival, launched in 2021 to much enthusiasm from Seattle audiences and returns for its fourth year October 3-10, 2024. Tickets and passes are on sale now.
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For more information, please contact Madison Zimmerman at press@siff.net or (206)-315-0692.
About SIFF:
Beginning in 1976 with the annual Seattle International Film Festival, then expanding into year-round programming, SIFF is a 501c3 cultural arts organization whose mission is to create experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world. It is through the art of cinema that SIFF fosters a community that is more informed, aware and alive.
In its four theaters, SIFF offers year-round screenings, Film Talks and a series of spotlight festivals throughout the year. SIFF also serves the community through educational programs and SIFFsupports, a partnership program that hosts and provides technical support to a variety of special screenings and festivals.
For showtimes and event updates, visit siff.net.