The JFI Completion Grants Program provides finishing funds to emerging and established filmmakers for original stories that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. Projects may be feature narratives, documentaries, shorts, episodic programs, or web series. Priorities are given to projects that offer fresh, challenging perspectives; engage audiences across cultural lines; and expand the understanding of Jewish experience. For additional information please send an email to grants@jfi.org.
In 2021, JFI awarded $100,000 in film completion grants, ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, to filmmakers who are expanding and evolving the Jewish story for audiences everywhere in every genre — narrative, documentary, short, episodic program and web series.
Recipients include REMEMBER THIS, 1341 FRAMES OF LOVE AND WAR, THE LIEGNITZ PLOT, SONS OF DETROIT, A REEL WAR: SHALAAL, and I WILL TAKE YOUR SHADOW.
Jurors for this year’s award included:
• Academy Award-winning producer Jannat Gargi (Summer of Soul, The Reason I Jump, Body Team 12, Knife Skills)
• Two-time Academy Award nominated director and producer, Rick Goldsmith ( The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers), Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press, Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw)
• Ground-breaking director, producer, and documentary theorist, Lisa Leeman (Metamorphosis, One Lucky Elephant, Awake, Crazy Wisdom
• Multi-award-winning filmmaker Micha Peled (Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town, China Blue, and Bitter Seeds)
• And veteran editor and director Veronica Selver (The Word is Out, You Got to Move, KPFA On The Air, and IRMI - a 2020 JFI Completion Grant awardee).
2020 marks the inaugural year for the Jewish Film Institute's Completion Grant program. JFI awarded 6 grants ranging from $6,000 - $25,000. Jurors for this year’s Completion Grant Program include programmer, independent producer and strategist Claire Aguilar, and award-winning filmmakers Alan Berliner (NOBODY’S BUSINESS, WIDE AWAKE), Independent Spirit Award nominee Shawn Snyder (TO DUST), documentary filmmaker and AMPAS member Ferne Pearlstein (THE LAST LAUGH) and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship recipient and Emmy nominee editor/filmmaker Pola Rapaport.
Thanks for your interest in Completion Grants for your Jewish Content Film Projects!