The Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci have revealed the final round of grant recipients for the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, including Sabaah Folayan’s Ain’t I A Woman and Rachel Lears’ To The End.
The fund, established in 2008, provides production and finishing finances to feature-length documentary films that highlight and humanize critical domestic and international social issues, particularly via women-led stories.
Since its inception, the fund has supported 105 films and provided more than US$1.5 million in grants.
The 11 projects selected this final year will receive a total of $140,000 in funding support.
Grantees include Jon Sesrie-Goff’s After Sherman (U.S.; produced by Sesrie-Goff, blair dorosh-walter and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich); Shaunak Sen’s Airborne (India; coproduced by Aman Mann); and Sabaah Folayan’s Ain’t I A Woman (pictured; U.S.; produced by Emily Best, Sabaah Folayan and Megan Goedewaagen).
Additional films awarded funds include Débora Souza Silva’s Black Mothers (U.S.; produced by Silva and David Felix Sutcliffe); Nesa Azimi’s Driver (U.S.; produced by Azimi, Elise McCave and Kellen Quinn); and Jasiri (U.S.; directed by Jasiri, Moyo and Duke; produced by Callie Barlow, Malla Grapengiesser and Laurence Thrush).
Other recipients of the fund are Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s King Coal (U.S.; produced by Molly Born); Zaynê Akyol’s Rojek One Day (Syria/Canada; produced by Akyol, Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre and Sylvain Corbeil); and Rachel Lears’ To The End (U.S.; produced by Lears, Robin Blotnick and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon).
Finally, untitled projects from Sura Mallouh (U.S.; produced by Mallouh, Yoni Golijov and Laura Poitras) and Kate Stonehill (UK; produced by Steven Lake) were also selected.
The Tribeca Film Institute announced in May that it would be “pausing” operations and winding down programming and staffing as a result of challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The final closure for the office was set for September 1.