Open for Submissions – Click Here to Apply.
Early Deadline: May 1
Final Deadline: May 21
Spotlight on Documentaries is a successful forum for U.S. and International buyers, sales agents, and financiers to meet with filmmakers with new doc feature and serialized projects.
About
Presenting 60+ documentary projects ranging from those at an early financing stage (i.e. early development or in production) to those nearing completion (i.e. in post-production or at a rough cut stage), this section includes emerging and established filmmakers working in non-fiction.
Accepted filmmakers take part in pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings with potential financing and distribution partners, speed dating meetings with festival programmers, invitations to private documentary events, and exclusive access to the IFP Screen Forward Conference.
Who Can Apply
Filmmakers in development, production or post-production seeking financing partners, broadcast/distribution, and festival invitations. Projects may only be submitted by US filmmakers*, or, if an international project made by by a non-US filmmaker, through one of IFP’s Presenting Partners. All submissions through a Presenting Partner are by invitation only and must have been confirmed by that partner prior to submission or by direct invitation of IFP. For a list of our international Presenting Partners, see the bottom of this page.
U.S. filmmakers only
‘U.S. filmmakers’ means: U.S.-born, or U.S. resident; projects submitted through open submissions must have a U.S. director or lead producer attached; a select number of non-U.S. projects are considered through IFP’s international partners only.)
Formats Accepted
- – Features (intended 52 mins or longer). Work-in-progress features in production or post-production, but not yet complete, with sample material to submit
- – Series – Long Form (episode length 22 mins or longer). Limited or continuing series of two or more episodes; in development or production with sample material to submit preferred.
- – Series – Short Form (avg episode length 15 mins or less). Limited or continuing series of three or more episodes; in development or production with sample material to submit required.
For more information, please read: Program Guidelines and FAQ.
Recent Projects
Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert’s American Factory, Rachel Lears’ Knock Down the House, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family, Brett Story’s The Hottest August, Stephen Maing’s Crime + Punishment, Almudena Carracedo & Robert Bahar’s The Silence of Others, Michael Palmieri & Donal Mosher’s The Gospel of Eureka, Nancy Schwartzman’s Roll Red Roll, Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson, Nanfu Wang’s I Am Another You, Keith Maitland’s Tower, Yance Ford’s Strong Island, Ido Haar’s Presenting Princess Shaw, Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)error, Catherine Gund’s Chavela, Till Schauder’s When God Sleeps, Jeff Unay’s The Cage Fighter, Jen Brea’s Unrest, Hope Litoff’s 32 Pills, Aaron Brookner’s Uncle Howard, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s Thank You for Playing, Dawn Porter’s Trapped, Todd Miller’s Dinosaur 13.
Presenting Partners
Around the world, IFP has partnerships with key support organizations and funding bodies that provide the most exciting international projects the opportunity to seek out the resources and connections the Project Forum can provide. Non-U.S. applicants to the Project Forum may only submit via these partners. Our 2018 Presenting Partners are:
ACE Producers
Berlinale Co-Production Market
Champs-Élysées Film Festival
CineMart – International Film Festival Rotterdam
CoPro – The Israel Documentary Screen Market
Doha Film Institute*
DOK.Incubator
EAVE
French in Motion / UniFrance
Frontières International Co-Production Market
Hot Docs
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam – IDFA
Israel Film Fund
National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa
Screen Australia*
SeriesFest
Sheffield Doc/Fest & MeetMarket
Sundance Institute
Telefilm Canada
TorinoFilmLab
Venice Biennale College – Cinema
* IFP Expanded partnerships only
