Sponsored Projects
Film Independent Fiscal Sponsorship
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/MalteseCross_ProjectImage.jpg)
The Maltese Cross follows the inimitable life of a famed motion picture engineer and shows audiences what happens after an immigrant has achieved their so-called American Dream. All While passing the torch to a hopeful new generation.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Co-Director/Producer: Maya Neumeier
Co-Director: Edward Herrera
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ngfilm-01-size2.png)
Through multiple testimonials, The Naked Gardener showcases sexual misconduct and non-profit mismanagement perpetrated at the Pepperfield Project. This film provides a platform for silenced voices and catalyzes individual and organizational accountability towards a cauterized end to patterns of injustice.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director/Editor: Ian Carstens
Composer: Jaci Wilkinson
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Liri-and-Amai-mini.png)
In an all-Black world where power is the ultimate currency, everyone in Erika is after their share—and then some—but hidden motives, a media conspiracy, and a government takeover threaten to change the face and culture of their nation forever.
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Director/Executive Producer: LaQuin Alexander
Executive Producer/Showrunner: Jovel Roystan
Producer: Arneece Maynard
Producer: Hutt Nassar
Cinematographer: Kevin Spence
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/HIROSHIMA-DOME-midroll.jpeg)
In Search of Resolution
The remains of the Hiroshima Dome stands as a symbol of the devastating humanitarian impact of the nuclear bomb. The Nuclear World Project’s goal with the production of the third documentary entitled In Search of Resolution is a continuing exploration into the future, not to predict what will happen, rather to profile individuals and organizations finding new ways to move the world away from the dangers of the most destructive weapon ever invented.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director/Producer: Robert E. Frye
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/TheOtherSide_ProjectImage.jpeg)
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Actress: Megan Penn
Director/Writer: Paige Stark
Producer: Kira Vykhodtseva
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/JVP-he_palestine_exception_1080p-frame-at-0m27s.jpg)
As Israel’s war on Gaza intensified, students and faculty across the US mobilized for justice in Palestine. Often mocked and accused of antisemitism, they defied escalating waves of repression and censorship. The film aims to embolden those who refuse to be silenced by this new era of McCarthyism
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director/Producer: Jan Haaken
Co-Director: Jennifer Ruth
Associate Producer: Marlene Eid
Associate Producer and Communications Coordinator: Kevin Foster
Editor: Jeff Harshman
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PluralofBlood_boximage-1.jpg)
When one incident triggers a storm, we realize we are more connected than we think.
Project type: Fiction Short
Director/Writer: Mary-Lyn Chambers
Producer: Roxy Shih
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/prisoner-850-x-630-1.jpg)
A teenage migrant escapes a detention center and confronts his past traumas, hopes and fantasies of living in the promised land - America- but it isn’t the America he was expecting.
Project type: Fiction Short
Director/Writer/Editor: Justin Ferrato
Producer: Daniel Maldonado
Producer: Bill Nugent
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/TheQueensFlowers_ProjectImage.jpg)
A magical take on a true story, The Queen's Flowers is an animated short adventure for kids that follows Emma, a native Hawaiian girl in 1915 Honolulu, as she makes a special gift for the last monarch of Hawai`i, Queen Lili`uokalani.
Project type: Animation
Director: Ciara Lacy
Producer: Concepcion Saucedo
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Residents_RBozzacchi_WebsitePhoto_2022.04-932_850x630.png)
The Residents of 8264 Oakland Ave is the story of a queer, chosen family, in Milwaukee, whose home is bought out to be a strip mall.
Project type: Fiction Feature
Writer/Director: Rhea Bozzacchi
Actor/Producer: Molly Ragen
Cinematographer: Mike Maliwanag
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/MicrosoftTeams-image.jpeg)
Alma feels she's finally found an escape from her uncomfortable family life when she joins an underground world of circus performers, but as she becomes the muse of its enigmatic ringmaster, the creative fantasy devolves into a prison that feels uncannily familiar...
Project type: Fiction Short
Director: Maya Albanese
Producer: Rebecca Maar
Producer: Lisa Crnic
Director of Photography: Caleb Heymann
Costume: Kit 'Pistol' Scarbo
Production Designer: Rene Vas
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/TheRules_ProjectImage.jpg)
In a dystopian world, what are the rules for survival?
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Director: Amanda Renee Knox
Lead Actor: Taylor Owen
Director of Photography: Michael Phillips
Sound Designer: Ben Wilkins
Composer: Esin Aydingoz
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TheRunningKind_ProjectImage.jpg)
The Running Kind is a fast paced, kaleidoscopic, dark comedy that tells the story of Cary, an unhappy screw up, who decides to fake his own death rather than watch his only friend die of cancer.
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Director: Kephren Palmer, Norris Palmer
Producer: Maria Paula Quesada, Gabby Fiszman
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/beautifulterrible_midroll.jpeg)
After being arrested in an FBI sting and labeled a domestic terrorist amidst the Ferguson protests, a once-promising student, father, artist, and activist leader comes home to his life and family after 6 years of federal incarceration. With over a decade of intimate footage, this film bears witness as Olajuwon questions the tactics and label of “Black Identity Extremist” used to put him away and learns to reconcile his tumultuous past with his hopeful future.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director/Producer: Bobby Herrera
Producer: Aaron Bowden
Producer: Damon Davis
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image3.jpg)
In 1952, a prominent Soviet scientist was arrested and pressured to sign a confession to save his family. Later, the Soviet regime executed him for telling the truth by openly criticizing the director of the science academy who adamantly promoted pseudo-science.
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Director/Producer: W. Y. Geng
Producer: Becca (Suh-Hee) Han
Cinematographer: Ming Jue Hu
Art Director: Eleanora Figueroa Steiner
Editor: Anya Khusnatdinova
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/st-850-x-630.jpg)
Upon adoption, filmmaker Elizabeth Jacobs was the only baby out of her fellow adoptees to not receive a single piece of information about her family background. Now, twenty one years later, she returns to Cambodia for the first time since childhood in order to uncover the truth about her adoption, as she is determined to find out why, and why her.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director: Elizabeth Jacobs
Producer: Breanna Lynn
Assistant Director: Phoebe J Yung
Director of Photography: Britney Bautista
Sound Technician: Shorif Suhel
Cinematographer: Corey Clark
Sound Technician: Noah Penkrat
Cinematographer: Shalyn Delhaes
Gaffer: David Fernandez
Executive Producer: Darsh Thakker
Executive Producer: Avi Zephyra
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Boximage_Phoenix.jpg)
From unknown migrants to international pop-stars - we will explore how various refugee artists have risen above and triumphed over the disparate and desperate circumstances of their lives.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director: David Henry Gerson
Producer: Odessa Rae
Executive Producer: Katherine LeFrak
Executive Producer: Ondi Timoner
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/The-Talk-Square.jpg)
A single father finds out his teenage daughter just got her first period so he goes into an adventure through an endless sanitary towel shelf to try to help her the best way he can.
Project type: Fiction Short
Director/Writer/Producer: Gabriela Lima
Producer: Kevin Aguirre
Co-Producer/Production Manager: Ana Luiza Leite
Editor: Rafael Franco
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/TheTrunk_ProjectImage.jpg)
Mitchell (Lamorne Morris) races full speed into the desert in his 77' Lincoln Town Car with his best friend Steve (Kyle Shevrin) riding shotgun, a leather-bound book of the dead at their feet and a trunk full of problems.
Project type: Fiction Short
Writer/Director/Producer: Shea E. Butler
Producer: Fiona Hardingham
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![](https://www.filmindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/thumbnail_UPD-Key-art-2.jpg)
A documentary film that explores beauty pageant culture through the lens of a former contestant.
Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Director/Producer: Mandi Reno-Matarrese
Producers: Joseph and Phillip Matarrese