Wednesday November 11, 2009
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, has teamed up with The Fledgling Fund to award the first The Fledgling Fund Outreach and Engagement Grant for Social Issue Documentaries to THE WAY WE GET BY (www.thewaywegetbymovie.com). The $10,000 grant was made possible through the generous support of The Fledgling Fund.
Directed by Aron Gaudet, and produced by Gita Pullapilly, the critically acclaimed film is a 2008 alumnus project of IFP’s Independent Film Week. Beginning as a seemingly idiosyncratic story about troop greeters – a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small Maine airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq – THE WAY WE GET BY quickly turns into a moving, unsettling, and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war, and mortality.
The award was given to support a discreet part of the film’s larger outreach and engagement plan – specifically, to support three community screenings around military bases that have had the highest casualties and rate of suicides, PTSD cases, and domestic violence. These three community screenings will
also highlight the companion web-based RETURNING HOME PROJECT, as well as inform and educate audiences relevant to the film following the national broadcast on P.O.V., scheduled for Veterans Day (November 11).
“This grant speaks directly to the core of Fledgling’s mission: to foster audience engagement around the issues presented in documentaries,” says Milton Tabbot, Senior Director of Programming. “We greatly appreciate The Fledgling Fund’s continuing support of social issue documentarians from IFP Programs, which they have done since 2006.”
Additional grant finalists included: FRESH, directed by Ana Sofia Joanes, www.freshthemovie.com; LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, directed by Luisa Dantas, www.joluproductions.com; and SPEAKING IN TONGUES, directed by Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, www.SpeakingInTonguesFilm.info The grant was open to recent alumni projects of IFP’s Spotlight on Documentaries program where the social-issue driven project is now in post-production or completed.
The juried award was selected by Pat Aufderheide (Professor and Director, Center for Social Media at American University), Caitlin Boyle (Founder, Film Sprout), Sheila Leddy (Executive Director, The Fledgling Fund) and was presented by The Fledgling Fund’s Founder and President, Diana Barrett.
About IFP
After debuting with a program in the 1979 New York Film Festival, the nonprofit IFP has evolved into the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, and also the premier advocate for them. Since its start, IFP has supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers’ voices that otherwise might not have been heard. IFP believes that independent films broaden the palette of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism.
Through its workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships, and Filmmaker magazine, IFP schools its members in the art, technology, and business of independent filmmaking (there are special programs to promote racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, gender, and sexual diversity). IFP builds audiences by hosting screenings, often in collaboration with other cultural institutions. When all is said and done, IFP fosters the development of 350 feature and documentary films each year. The organization has fostered early work by leading filmmakers including Charles Burnett, Edward Burns, Martha Coolidge, Todd Haynes, Barbara
Kopple, Michael Moore, John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch, and Kevin Smith. www.ifp.org
About The Fledgling Fund
The Fledgling Fund seeks to improve the lives of vulnerable individuals, families, and communities by supporting innovative media projects that target entrenched social problems.
The Fledgling Fund makes grants and investments that help fledgling projects take flight. They look for opportunities where funding can play a key role in the life of a creative media project that has the potential to ignite social change. Typically, these are grants at a critical stage of a media project where timely funding could amplify its social impact.
The Fledgling Fund leverages their resources by funding projects around a cluster of critical issues, including: girls’ empowerment and women’s leadership, health, immigration, and systemic poverty, among others. The Fledgling Fund seeks projects that not only
