The Global Film Initiative was created to promote cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema. Although American film continues to thrive in the global marketplace, developing world filmmaking has suffered from shifting economic conditions in film financing and distribution. As a result, audiences in the United States have been denied the rich cultural lessons these films have to offer.

The Initiative has developed four complementary programs, all involving film from the developing world, to address this situation:

• Granting
• Applications & Guidelines
• Acquisitions
• Distribution
• Education

For more information regarding our Granting Program, visit the Frequently Asked Questions section for Granting.

Granting Program | Acquisitions Program | Distribution Program | Education Program

The Granting Program awards fifteen to twenty grants of up to $10,000 each, annually, to filmmakers whose works offer diverse interpretations of the human experience. Funds are used to subsidize production or post-production costs of films, and in making these grants, the initiative supports the development of local film industries and filmmaking talent.

Download a list of GFI Grant recipients by region.

Granting Program: Mission & Values

Philanthropic efforts in the developing world are normally concerned with providing the impoverished with food, shelter and other basic necessities. While this mission continues to be of utmost importance, it has become clear that cultural outreach needs to supplement these efforts. Authentic self-representation can be a vibrant partner to economic growth, providing a structure to understand global change while remaining true to a rich cultural heritage. Self-sufficiency and sustainability are not achieved through financial and industrial assistance alone; specifically supporting original filmmaking in the developing world celebrates the power of local storytelling traditions and acknowledges that a powerful fusion with modern cultural media can sustain and nourish these traditions.

The Initiative will be awarding 15-20 grants of up to $10,000 per year. These funds are made available to filmmakers once the Initiative selection committee evaluates applicants' scripts and early footage of their films. The Initiative supports films that promise artistic excellence, exhibit accomplished storytelling and offer American audiences a variety of cultural perspectives on daily life around the world. The Initiative also seeks films that substantially contribute to the development of local film industries. Filmmakers use monies received from the Initiative to complete initial production and to pay for post-production costs, such as laboratory fees, sound mixing and access to modern editing systems.

Click here for Granting Applications and Guidelines

Current grant recipients for the Summer 2011 funding cycle:

ARAL, dir. Ella Vakkasova (Uzbekistan)
An inexperienced 16-year-old boy leaves the familiarity of the family farm to sell produce at the city bazaar, where he must learn how to look after himself and his goods, or risk disappointing his family.

BEATRIZ’S WAR (A GUERRA DA BEATRIZ), dir. Bety Reis (East Timor)
Following Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, a stranger presents himself in a local village, claiming to be a woman’s missing husband despite her uneasy belief that the man may not be her lost spouse.

THE BODA BODA THIEVES, dir. Donald Mugisha (Uganda)
Abel is robbed of his motorbike on his first day as a boda boda driver, sending him on a frantic search to find the stolen bike before the theft is discovered by his boss in this homage to Italian director Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 masterpiece, Bicycle Thieves.

FAITH (FE), dir. Alejo Crisóstomo (Guatemala/Chile)
An evangelical pastor in a small, rural town tests the limits of faith by giving refuge to a violent ex-convict against objections by his church and community.

THE ROOM (LA HABITACIÓN), dir. Jorge Pérez Solano, Iyati Wertta, Carlos Bolado, Patricia Arriaga, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa, Alejandro Valle, Iván Ávila Dueñas, Celso R. García (Mexico)
The past one hundred years of Mexican history—spanning revolutions, romance and cultural renaissance—are recounted through the lens of eight intertwining stories that occur within the confines of a single room in Mexico City.

The Summer 2011 Honorable Mention grant recipients are:

HERE AND NOW (INGIRUNTHU), dir. Sumathy Sivamohan (Sri Lanka)
On a vibrant Sri Lankan tea plantation, a deaf-mute, a poverty-stricken mother and a researcher from Colombo are drawn into the social conflicts that eventually lead to the violent Bindunuwewa riot of 2000.

I DREAM IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE (SUEÑO EN OTRO IDIOMA), dir. Ernesto Contreras (Mexico)
An ambitious linguist attempts to reunite the last two living speakers of a dying, indigenous language, but must first resolve a bitter feud between the two, and uncover the truth behind the fifty-year-old secret they share.

MOTHER’S MILK (LECHE MATERNA), dir. Sebastián Silva (Chile)
After a young and wildly imaginative girl becomes inexplicably pregnant—despite remaining a virgin—her befuddled family, friends and neighbors decide to announce the event as an "act of God,” and treat the pregnancy as a divine miracle.

SAINTS (EVLIYA), dir. Seyfi Teoman (Turkey)
At the height of a mysterious epidemic in Turkey, a quarantined clinic managed by the jaded Dr. Faruk is threatened with closure when the facility is suspected of being a stronghold for anti-state propagandist activity.

WHEN I SAW YOU, dir. Annemarie Jacir (Palestine/Jordan)
An intelligent but socially awkward boy, hoping to return home to Palestine, runs away from his refugee camp in Jordan and develops an unlikely friendship with a paramilitary group along the way.

For a list of past grant recipients, click here.