AXS Lab unveiled the first round of AXS Film Fund grantees this week, who will receive support from the labs to make films and create content.

Led by filmmaker and disability rights activist Jason DaSilva (When I Walk) and program director Naomi Middleton, the fund is intended to bring visibility to content creators in documentary filmmaking and non-fiction new media who identify as persons of color with disabilities by offering them opportunities with mainstream funding structures that may not have otherwise been available.

The grantees were chosen by an external panel of judges, who reviewed the submissions and selected projects that ranged in style and story and were backed by skilled filmmaking. The panel included Alice Elliott, Faye Ginsburg, Alberto Del Moral, Loren Abdulezer and Brendan Mclean.

“Hopefully this is going to help change the face of media to get stories by people of color with disabilities out in the mainstream,” DaSilva said in a press release, adding he hopes that the fund continues for many years to come.

Funding for the grants was provided by The Bertha Foundation and ArtsEverywhere, with additional support from the International Documentary Association, the Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, Perspective Fund and the Center for Asian American Media.

The selected projects are:

Fire Through Dry Grass
Directors: Andres “Jay” Molina, Alexis Neophytides
Producers: Alexis Neophytides, Jennilie Brewster

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this project goes inside the Roosevelt Island nursing home where Molina lives with his fellow “reality poets” (pictured). The group of mostly gun violence survivors, which is made up of disabled Black and Brown artists, traveled around the city to share their art and wisdom with young people before the pandemic. Now, using GoPros clamped to their wheelchairs, they document a year under lockdown.

La Lucha
Director: Violeta Ayala
Producers: Redelia Shaw, Daniel Fallshaw

Fed up with being ignored, the National Union of People with Disabilities travels 260 miles over the Andes in wheelchairs to La Paz, Bolivia.

Presente!
Director: Livia Perini
Producer: Dani Wieczorek

After Marielle Franco, a Black Brazilian city councilwoman known for advocating for human rights and fighting against police brutality, is murdered, Black female leaders throughout Brazil rise up to make positive change.

Unseen
Director: Set Hernandez Rongkilyo
Producers: Set Hernandez Rongkilyo, Day Al-Mohamed, Félix Endara

A multiplatform documentary feature about an aspiring social worker named Pedro, who hopes to provide mental health services for underserved communities. Pedro is a blind, undocumented immigrant who faces harsh political realities in the U.S. to achieve his goal. The audio-based film uses diegetic sound and experimental cinematography to re-examine the accessibility of cinema.

What the Pier Gave Us
Director/producer: Luna X Moya

A visually poetic film featuring five vignettes about immigrants who fish at a New York City pier.

Untitled (Art & Disability Culture)
Director/producer: Reveca Torres

Torres imagines how her disabled ancestors Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse lived and created, using letters and artifacts to illustrate how these artists created a path for contemporary disabled artists. Together, present-day artists imagine a society in which the barriers they face no longer exist.