Understanding the Grants Landscape For Documentaries: FILM FINANCING

Since 1999, the DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF) — the oldest independent film festival in Washington, DC — has showcased bold features, documentaries, shorts, animation, and experimental works from around the world. Reimagined in 2022 as an Annual Film Forum, DCIFF connects filmmakers and audiences through conversation, networking, and innovative programming in the Nation’s Capital.

DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF)

How the grant-making world is currently working  and ways in which you can think about your film that expands grant opportunities.

German-American Heritage Museum of the USA

DC Independent Film Forum 2025 / Feb 12-17

DCIFF  brings the annual forum of films, workshops and discussions  to celebrate established and emerging talent in fiction, documentary and animation filmmaking. DCIFF --- keeping a truly independent spirit alive in the DMV for 26 years!

There are thousands of grants out there and there are many more people applying for them. What should you apply for and how do you know if you have a chance? Find out how the grant-making world is currently working for the arts, funder priorities and the ways in which you can think about your film that expands grant opportunities. Learn what your respnsibilites, if you win an grant award, really are. This will be a presentation followed by a case study and a discussion with participants about their needs.Deirdre Evans-Pritchard is a professional grant writer working specializing in social justice, social services, environmental, SBA, arts and humanities fundraising who has raised over $ 2 million in the last two years for clients. She is also the Executive Director of the DC Independent FIlm Festival. Deirdre spent years integrating digital media and arts into higher education with projects like Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media Conference &amp; Festival, documentaries for A&E and The Learning Channel and programming for Channel 98. Years ago, she was the program editor for the Anthropos Documentary Film Festival at the AFI in Los Angeles and has woked on museums exhibitons, exchange programs and cultural presentations across the US (such as Smithsonian, International Folk Art Museum, Fulbright Program, Middle East Institute). A Senior Fulbright Scholar in Communications to Lebanon, visiting faculty at the University of Southern California’s Center for Visual Anthropology and adjunct faculty at the USC Cinema School, she describes herself as a translator between cultures, mediums and creative spaces. In her own time she is writing a book and developing an interactive exhibition on Civilization and the Screen.

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