The LEF Foundation has just announced 6 grants totaling $30,000 in pre-production funding to projects directed or produced by New England-based independent documentary filmmakers.
The LEF Moving Image Fund invests in innovative feature-length documentary films that demonstrate excellence in technique, strong storytelling ability, and originality of artistic vision and voice.
“We are very excited to support these six documentary projects in pre-production,” said LEF Executive Director Lyda Kuth. “We know that early support can be difficult to find, and that this funding comes at a crucial time when filmmakers are still honing their visions for their projects.”
“We are honored to play a small part in supporting this newest round of grantees, and we look forward to staying in touch with all of the filmmakers who submitted applications in this round about the continued development of their work.”
The directors awarded grants in this round are all first-time LEF grantees. These filmmakers are pursuing projects throughout the United States and around the world about a variety of subjects, from a turning point in life of a young and thriving Guatemalan fashion designer with Down Syndrome, to an investigation into the anonymous individuals buried in the Metfern Cemetery in Waltham, Massachusetts; from an intimate and intense portrait of a Maine couple’s earliest days of parenthood, to an observational account of three Boston-area barbershops and beauty salons that form vital gathering spaces for Black residents in the face of gentrification; from a personal documentary that seeks to reconcile the life and legacy of the filmmaker’s absent artist father, to a decentralized interrogation of Amazon’s pervasive reach into our everyday lives. Artistically, these grantees also take on a variety of approaches to the documentary form, including projects that are character-driven, observational, personal, immersive, user-generated, and archival.
