EXCLUSIVE: Seven documentary projects are getting an important boost from the AXS Film Fund, an initiative launched in 2020 to support nonfiction creators living with disabilities from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The fund, created in partnership with the Bertha Foundation, announced grants of up to $10,000 each for five films and two new media projects. One of the selected films, Breaking the Silence, explores the long-running Indian boarding school system in the United States which deliberately stripped Indigenous children of their language and culture. (Sugarcane, Oscar-nominated this year, examined the legacy of such institutions in Canada). Scroll for full details on this year’s grantees.

AXS Film Fund brings visibility to an underrepresented community of creatives “by intervening and providing opportunities that they may not otherwise have with mainstream funding structures,” according to a release. Since 2020, AXS Film Fund has supported 23 projects with grants totaling over $200,000.

Projects supported by AXS Film Fund include Fire Through Dry Grass (New York Times Critics Pick); Standing Above the Clouds (Hot Docs Bill Nemlin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary), and Unseen (2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards Truer Than Fiction Award). AXS Film Fund is led by Jason DaSilva (When I Walk), an Emmy-winning director, producer, writer, and disability rights activist, and program director Naomi Middleton.

“When my filmmaking career began, resources like AXS Film Fund didn’t exist, and even after two decades, support for creators like me was still lacking,” DaSilva said in a statement. “Today, I’m humbled by the diverse filmmakers AXS has empowered. The need for access and equity remains, and I challenge everyone to prioritize it, regardless of their audience. My heartfelt thanks to all who have supported in making this progress possible.”

This year’s review panel for the AXS Film Fund grants included Angie Reza Tures, Shelley Barry, Asad Muhammad, Kayla Wong, Sydney Alicia Rodriguez, Lissa Deonarain, Colette Ghunim, Prerana Thakurdesai, Rahi Hasan, Whitney Spencer, Mohamed Siam, Gary Byung-Seok Kam, Sandy Rattley, Charlotte Mangin, and Christine Dávila.

AXS Film Fund’s 2024 call for applications received 113 submissions (representing 260 individual creatives), “more than five times more applications since the first round in 2021, underscoring the organization’s growth and reach within the film industry as well as the significant need.” Applications for the next round of AXS Film Fund grants will open on June 2.

These are the 2024 AX Film Fund recipients announcd today (in alphabetical order by title):

FILMS

Breaking the Silence

Logline/Synopsis: For 150 years, the United States assimilated Native American children into a system of violence: Indian boarding schools. Two Indigenous women, Marsha Small and Iko Beck, utilize science and technology to investigate the deaths of the Blackfeet Tribe’s lost children.

Director: Ivan MacDonald

Producer: Liz Unger

Lakhdar

Logline/Synopsis: Kidnapped, shackled, and flown to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Algerian citizen Lakhdar Boumediène was wrongfully imprisoned at the notorious prison in Cuba for seven years before winning his freedom in the historic Boumediène v. Bush Supreme Court case. Set in the beautiful French Riviera, Lakhdar is a powerful documentary that follows the titular man as he rebuilds his life and seeks answers.

Director: Amir Aziz

Producer: Michael Niederman

Mother Wit

Logline/Synopsis: A multi-generational chronicle of a Black trans family contending with the loss of their matriarch, the legacy she left behind, and the dreams they built together.

Directors: Te Shima Anusha Brennen and Rajvi Desai

Producers: Te Shima Anusha Brennen and Rajvi Desai

Seizure

Logline/Synopsis: Upon turning 30, filmmaker Skylar Economy reckons with her secret of epilepsy, seeking to overcome stigma and confront the consequences of hiding it for so long from her family, friends, and herself.

Directors: Skylar Economy and Brad Lichenstein

Producers: Artemis Fannin and Brad Lichtenstein

Untitled Project

Logline/Synopsis: Confidential

Director/Producer: Min Min Hein

NEW MEDIA PROJECTS

Portals of Silence

Logline/Synopsis: Produced in collaboration with filmmaker Dolissa Medina, “Portals of Silence” is a collection of experimental short videos that present a self-portrait of artist/filmmaker Gerardo Ananias P. Soria on his journey of creative, spiritual, and activist work to bring public awareness to the unique challenges of people aging with HIV.

Director: Gerardo Ananias P. Soria (Grito Viejito)

Producer: Dolissa Medina (Grito Viejito)

You Are a Thing Which Even Angels Desire to Look Into

Logline/Synopsis: A love letter to transition, queer becoming, and a fading friendship. In you are a thing which even angels desire to look into, animation is reinscribed as a trans medium; its need to change to be perceived, to even exist, aligning with the flux of queer identities. As a process that happens over time, transition of image and identity becomes subject to the crip time – our drawn-out, repetitive, absent-minded kind of time – that the film unfolds in.

Director/Producer: Morisha Moodley