How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Direct Film Funding

How the Ford Foundation Changed the Entertainment Industry (full series)
The Ford Foundation | Direct Film Funding | Film Festivals
Outreach, Networks, and Education | Why Ford’s Strategy Works

Direct Film Funding

The Ford Foundation’s major film grants program, the JustFilms initiative, provides an even more detailed look at the foundation’s film-related grantmaking. Although Ford has supported filmmaking for decades, the JustFilms program was begun in 2011 with a five-year $50 million commitment. Since that time, JustFilms has grown to become “one of the largest social justice documentary funders in the United States,” according to the foundation. Its objective is to support documentaries that transcend “commercial interests”—necessary, given the nature of activist filmmaking—and instead function “as a philanthropic endeavor to preserve diverse narratives, amplify marginalized voices, and foster inclusive storytelling.”

JustFilms is not shy about its ideological goals. The program “supports independent film and emerging media projects that explore urgent social justice issues and seek to challenge inequality in all its forms.” Prospective grant applicants are reminded that JustFilms prioritizes projects that explore themes related to

1. Political power (“a robust civil society and fair governance”);
2. Economic power (“workers’ rights and equitable and just economic policies”); and
3. Cultural power (“to shape narratives that promote equality”).

Between 2017 and 2021, the JustFilms program provided $27.3 million in “content grants” to support 187 films, plus another $44 million for 88 groups that support “documentary infrastructure and filmmaking.” For individual films, the median amount of support was $125,000, though it typically ranged anywhere from $15,000 to $300,000. This is according to a program evaluation that Ford commissioned in 2023.

Film investors seeking a profit often back only proven, successful filmmakers. JustFilms helps cultivate the next crop of left-leaning storytellers, with 52 percent of the program’s grants going to filmmakers who had previously made fewer than five films. It also walks its talk regarding support for what Ford would call “marginalized” filmmakers. 58 percent of JustFilms-funded projects were led by women, while individuals categorized as BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) reportedly headed 63 percent of U.S.-based projects and 74 percent of international ones.

Considerations of race or ethnicity do indeed appear to be a major priority for JustFilms supported productions. On its website, Ford lists a total of 312 different films that it has supported dating back to 1981, although more than three-quarters of these have been since 2012—the year after the JustFilms program was established. Each film is accompanied by a one or two-sentence description. Over one-third—nearly 40 percent since 2017—of these feature a direct reference to race or ethnicity or clearly imply it in context. If references to immigration or migration (another major and occasionally overlapping topic) are added, the numbers jump to 43 percent and 52 percent, respectively. Other common themes include gender and LGBT issues, criminal justice, illness or disability, and general activism. Many films deal with multiple themes.

In January 2024, Ford announced $4.2 million in grants to support 59 films through the JustFilms program. Two of these premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival: Union, a film about labor organizing at Amazon, and The Battle for Laikipia, a film about “unresolved historical injustices and climate change…in a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya.” Other supported films include Her Socialist Smile, about the left-wing politics of Helen Keller; The Chemistry of Racism, which purports to explore “the phenomena of the systemic and often deliberate poisoning and exploitation of the black and colored body by America’s patriarchal systems”; Queer Futures, a series that “articulate[s] future visions for queer life that offer liberation, joy, and connection”; Time Hunter, in which “a revolutionary agent is dispatched to steal technology from his colonial oppressors to use against them”; and Plot of Land, which “explores how race, class, land, and power have been used to build and maintain unfair systems that harm nearly everyone.”

From 2010 through 2020, Ford gave $5.2 million to Brave New Films, whose mission is “to champion social justice issues” through media. Of that total, $900,000 was for content “to increase youth involvement in social justice issues” and $1,075,000 was for videos about “the costs and consequences of mass incarceration and [to] promote effective alternatives.” A $750,000 grant made in 2013 was “for an operating reserve fund to help manage fiscal emergencies.”

From 2010 through March 2024, the Ford Foundation committed $1.2 million to Participant Media, a film production company perhaps best-known for Al Gore’s 2006 climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Describing itself as having “pioneered socially conscious storytelling at scale,” Participant has been involved with 134 different films since 2004. Its films have been nominated for 86 Academy Awards and won 21 of them. Specific Participant films that Ford has supported include BLKNWS, which aims to “reimagine what news can be for marginalized people in America,” and Waiting for Superman, about public education.

Participant is an example of the impact that popular documentary films can have. Think of how the world was affected by An Inconvenient Truth. It is also an example of why philanthropic funding matters. Despite many successes and accolades, Participant was not profitable. When its founder and largest donor, billionaire Jeffrey Skoll, suddenly announced in April 2024 that he was ending his financial support, Participant Media was forced to shut down.

The Ford Foundation’s direct film funding strategy appears to be multifaceted. Successful studios like Participant can have a clear and immediate impact on culture in a manner that aligns with Ford’s ideological preferences. Their films simply would not exist without the financial backing of Ford and other major philanthropic funders. Participant’s rapid shuttering illustrates this dependency well. Ford also funds Sundance darlings like The Battle for Laikipia that impact culture from the top down, appealing to film festival circles and critics. But the foundation also invests in the future, funding new filmmakers that can leverage their JustFilms-backed projects to gain traction as their careers progress. Over the decades, Ford has funded many flops, and many more of its projects achieved only minor success without resulting in any immediately discernable cultural impact. But Ford understands that ideological and cultural change is a slow and deliberate process that requires a steady long-term vision.

In the next installment, Ford knows that for its films to succeed, they need to appear in prestigious and well-funded festivals.