The Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund is the first European-based outreach and engagement fund, and is open to filmmakers from around the world.
Films have inspired people to engage and to act. They have led to changes in law, policy and practice. They have led viewers to question the status quo and to care more about their communities and the world around them. They have affected the way people give and/or invest money.
But for a film to achieve all this, it needs a structured outreach and audience engagement plan, and the capacity to implement it.
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The Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund is a joint initiative between The Bertha Foundation and the BRITDOC Foundation.
The fund is looking to support smart, strategic outreach campaigns for ambitious independent documentary films with a social issue at their core; films which have the ability to achieve real change on a local, regional or global level.
October 2012: Round Two Grantees Announced
The eight films receiving grants through this funding scheme are:
- Dirty Wars dir. Richard Rowley
- How to Survive a Plague dir. David France
- Amazing Azerbaijan dir. Liz Mermin
- Our School dir. Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma
- The Law in These Parts dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
- Town of Runners dir. Jerry Rothwell
- Who is Dayani Cristal? dir. Marc Silver
- The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka dir. Callum Macrae
Find out more about the films in our Film Directory
Social impact can be achieved in a myriad of ways and we are looking for outreach plans that engage audiences, have identifiable goals and partners to help achieve them.
Grants will be in the range of £5,000 – £50,000.
Applications can come at the planning, trial, delivery or evaluation stage of a campaign. Films can apply more than once, for different parts or phases of a campaign.
There will be two application rounds per year.
For example our funds could support:
- Funding a strategic summit with potential partners including media, NGOs Foundations and Campaigners, to identify target audiences and brainstorm how best to use the film to augment existing campaign strategies.
- The development and production of school curriculum packs.
- Support for design and build of innovative online tools to enhance audience engagement.
- Funding for the re-versioning of the feature documentary into shorts, which could be used on multiple platforms including online and on mobile devices.
- Funding for strategic screening tours: through schools, universities and relevant community groups, for political or corporate lobbying.
- Support for an outreach staffer to action the outreach plan, book the screening tour and act as point person between the filmmakers and NGO partners.
- Support for evaluation analysis, capturing data on the social impact of the film.
What we DO fund:
- Strategic outreach campaigns for completed or almost completed films
What we DON’T fund:
- Development funding
- Production funding
- Completion funding
- Traditional distribution
- P&A spend
The Bertha Foundation believes that in order to affect positive change in the world, you need activist lawyers, storytellers and social entrepreneurs.
Lawyers: We aim to inspire and enable the work of socially minded lawyers and are committed to strengthening the field of public interest law.
Social Entrepreneurs: When people have the right tools and opportunities, they are best placed to solve their own problems. We support those using business principles and innovation to create sustainable large-scale change.
Storytellers: We believe in the power of visual storytelling to educate, inform and inspire action, and are dedicated to supporting the creation and distribution of social impact media projects. Documentaries are central to this vision.
The Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund is part of a major new partnership between the Bertha Foundation and the BRITDOC Foundation, which sees the launch of two new funds worth £1.5m over the next three years.