The new Bertha BRITDOC Fund for Journalism is an international film fund dedicated to supporting long form feature documentaries of a journalistic nature.
We are looking for films that break the important stories of our time, expose injustice, bring attention to unreported issues and cameras into regions previously unseen.
This new fund recognises such films are often delicate and protracted, making them difficult to fund. With a mission to enable in-depth analysis of issues through long-form investigative filmmaking, we are particularly looking to work with filmmakers with a journalistic background or those who are collaborating with journalists.
It is key that the journalistic intent is embedded within the film itself rather than the film simply being about a journalist or journalistic institution.
March 2012: First Grantees Announced
The first five projects to be awarded grants through the Bertha BRITDOC Documentary Journalism Fund are:
- The Square dir. Jehane Noujaim
- Big Boys Gone Bananas!* dir. Fredrik Gertten
- Untitled Jeremy Scahill Project dir. Richard Rowley
- Making the Case, Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law dir. Hopewell Chin'Ono
- And two further confidential investigative projects
Find out more about the films in our Film Directory
Elements we can support:
- In-depth research & development
- Production funding for longitudinal investigations
- Editorial support for long-form documentary structure
- Hostile Environment Training
- Emergency transportation
- Legal Advice during production and post production
- Legal advice for complex E&O policies
As this is a new fund, please read on to find examples
of the kinds of films that would have fit our criteria
Enemies of the People – winner of a Knight International Journalism Award, co-directed by Rob Lemkin and Cambodian journalist Thet Sambath, this film is a crucial record of the genocide. We would have been able to fund the research that went into the film and the production itself.
Iraq for Sale – uncovered the connections between the private corporations making an enormous profit in the war and the decision makers who allowed them to do so. We would have been able to fund the E&O policy.
Give Up Tomorrow – revealed a miscarriage of justice in the Philippines and led to a campaign to free an innocent man. We would have been able to fund lawyers to assist the filmmakers, the production and journalistic training for the film team.
Burma VJ – using smuggled footage from reporters inside Burma, this documentary tells the story of the 2007 protests by thousands of monks. We would have been able to help with production funding.
Hell and Back Again – photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis reveals the devastating impact a Taliban machine-gun bullet has on the life of a US Sergeant. We would have been able to help with film funding, hostile environment training, building camera rigs needed for combat filming etc.
Budrus – told the story the newspapers left behind, a Palestinian community organizer who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus. We would have been able to help with research and production costs.
What we DON’T fund:
- Profiles
- News
- Current Affairs
- Fiction films
- Formats
- Series
Other things to bear in mind:
- We will be supporting films 60mins+ in length
- Grants from £5,000 to £50,000 are available
- Funding is awarded on a rolling basis
- Funding decisions will be made within 4 weeks of application, unless your project is an urgent response to events
- We are unlikely to fully fund a film so it must have international co-financing potential.
- We don’t fund retrospectively
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 Documentary Journalism 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.