Five documentaries awarded Summer Awards

The Rogovy Foundation is pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Film Fund summer 2024 award winners. The Fund awards grants totalling $200,000 to a selection of film projects annually through its Summer and Winter Open Calls.

The Fund’s five selection of award winners for this Summer period are:

The Jungle — A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair’s shocking 1906 novel, THE JUNGLE unravels centuries of greed in America’s meat industry, and reveals how indigenous knowledge could be the key to feeding both people and the planet. Director: Matt Wechsler.

The Quiet Part — The arrival of a white supremacist pagan church ignites a struggle for the soul of a town, offering disturbing warnings about the normalization of extremism.
Director: Rachel Lauren Mueller.

Project M — An Iranian female revolutionary leads a global fight against one of the world’s most misogynistic regimes. Directors: Sara Nodjoumi & Till Schauder.

Unless Something goes Terribly Wrong — As America’s aging wastewater systems begin to fail, one plant does all it can to stay afloat. Plant manager Dustin Price, with his crew of unlikely heroes, battles aging infrastructure and forever chemicals to keep Portland, Maine clean and healthy. Directors: Kaitlyn Schwalje & Alex Wolf Lewis.

Data and Democracy — Data and Democracy is a historical investigation of the use of social- science data in political communications and how methods of categorizing and targeting populations have reshaped American politics – making it increasingly uncompetitive and undemocratic. Director: Nader Sadre.

“We support documentary filmmaking for the impact they can have,” says Hugh Rogovy, President. “Each of these films bring a story and awareness to important topics today.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2024 Open Call, which ends November 15th 2024.

Four Documentaries Awarded Winter 2022 Grants

We are pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Fund Winter 2022 award winners. The Fund awards grants totalling $200,000 to a selection of film projects annually through its Summer and Winter Open Calls.

The Fund’s four selection of award winners for this Winter period are:

Rouge — Rouge is a coming of age story that follows the lives of four young black men as they navigate being student-athletes at one of America’s richest basketball legacies located in one of its most economically and environmentally challenged zip codes. Director: Hamoody Jaafar.

Untitled Creede Documentary — In conservative Creede, Colorado, population 357, the unlikely combination of mining families and progressive theater people have been trying to negotiate their political and social differences for almost 60 years. Director: Kahane Cooperman.

My Midwife — The arrest of three midwives serving Amish and Mennonite communities in upstate NY ignites a legislative fight for freedom of choice in birthing rights. Through the lens of this modern-day witch hunt, the film examines the battle between medicine and midwifery and its impact on maternal child health. Director: Elaine Epstein.

Untitled Policing Documentary — Amidst an epidemic of the unwarranted use of deadly force by police and a nationwide call for reform, a notorious former officer comes forward for the first time to tell of the worst sins he committed in the name of fighting crime. Director: Charles Burnett & Nicole Lucas Haimes.

“This year’s awards go to very original perspectives on timely topics,” said Hugh Rogovy. “We’re impressed with the passion and effort that goes into each documentary.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2022 Open Call, which ends November 15th 2022.

Winter 2022 Awards

Five documentaries awarded Summer Awards

Dominion — Dominion follows a new generation of evangelical environmentalists challenging their conservative faith community to embrace climate solutions, and explores how we arrived at today’s polarized political landscape, revealing a larger battle for the very soul of America. Director: Sam French

Untitled Documentary Project — Due to the sensitivity of this topic we are withholding further details on this project until a later date. Currently in production.

Contamination — This film explores one small town’s unlikely fight — and even more improbable victory — for clean water and environmental justice. Director: Ariel Ritchin.

Green Gold — A Mexican community risks it all to stop the cartels who destroy their land and lives to make a fortune… from avocados. Director: Sélim Benzeghia.

Untitled Feature Documentary by Grain Media — Due to the sensitive nature of this subject, we are withholding further details on this project until a later date.

“Doumentary films raise awareness about critical topics by telling compelling stories,” said Asher Rogovy, Vice-President. “It’s an honor to support these assiduous filmmakers striving to inform us about issues spanning the globe.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Summer 2024 Open Call, which ends May 15th 2024

Five documentaries awarded Summer Awards

We are pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Fund Summer 2023 award winners. The Fund awards grants totalling $200,000 to a selection of film projects annually through its Summer and Winter Open Calls.

The Fund’s five selection of award winners for this Winter period are:

The Librarians — In Texas, ground zero for the unprecedented wave of book banning sweeping the nation, librarians under siege unite with students and community members across the nation as resistance fighters to defend intellectual freedom. Director: Kim A. Snyder.

Blood Antiquities — A team of investigators track museums and dealers who purchase looted antiquities from terrorist cells. The film exposes a vast criminal enterprise that implicates leading curators and museum owners while advocating for the return of priceless masterpieces.

The Great Divide — A history of violence in America, presented in nine chapters. Director: Tom Donahue.

The Liberty Way — A courageous group of survivors undertakes a high-risk legal challenge against the powerful Evangelical Christian alma mater that threatened and punished them when they reported being raped. Director: Ellen Goosenberg Kent.

TURNAROUND: The Reinvention of New Orleans’ Education System — New Orleans, where 100% of public schools will be charter schools, has been their fastest improving education system over the last decade. Director: Abraham Felix

“We are humbled as we review the many documentary submissions, appreciating the passion, skill and long hours that go into each project,” says Hugh Rogovy, President, “This year’s list of grantees represents five extraordinary films that we’re eager to see on the big screen.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2023 Open Call, which ends November 15th 2023.  

Four Documentaries Awarded Summer 2021 Grants

The Rogovy Foundation is pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Film Fund Summer 2021 award winners. The Fund awards grants totalling $200,000 to a selection of film projects annually through its Summer and Winter open calls.

The Fund’s four selection of award winners for this Summer period are:

Speaking Freely — After a career spent at the forefront of our biggest free speech battles, preeminent attorney Floyd Abrams confronts new and difficult questions about the meaning of the First Amendment in the 21st century. Director: Yael Melamede.

Untitled Marjolaine Grappe Film — We are withholding further details on this project until a later date. Currently in production. Director: Marjolaine Grappe. Producers: Clare Marash and Xan Parker.

Tracing the Hairstons — Interweaving her search for her African ancestors, director Princess A. Hairston unravels the history of the largest slave-holding family in the U.S. through the personal stories of Black and white individuals in the Hairston clan as her journey unveils a harrowing, hidden familial history, exposing America’s distorted narrative about slavery. Director: Princess A. Hairston. www.tracingthehairstons.com

We are Called to be a Movement — Two Evangelical movements – one rooted in the social gospel of MLK, the other in White Christian Nationalism – vie for the soul of American Democracy. Directors: Stephen Ujlaki & Chris Jones.

“It’s never easy selecting projects when there are so many topics worthy of exposition,” said Asher Rogovy, Foundation Vice-President. “We’re proud of supporting these films, which raise awareness about important issues.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2021 Open Call, which ends November 15th 2021.

Summer 2021 Awards

Five Documentaries Awarded Summer 2020 Grants

We are pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Film Fund Winter 2020 award winners. The Fund awards grants totaling $200,000 annually through its Summer and Winter open calls.

Beyond the Emergency — A group of ordinary people stop playing by the rules, embracing civil disobedience and sounding the alarm for climate breakdown. They are rebellious – and they are flawed. A film about the human drama at the heart of social change. Directors: Maia Kenworthy & Elena Sánchez Bellot. 

$huffle — An investigation of massive fraud in the substance abuse treatment industry, as told by those who live it. Director: Benjamin Flaherty.

The Last Strike — In 1981, 11,345 air traffic controllers stood in solidarity on strike, defying President Reagan’s order to return to work; he fired them en masse, forever altering their lives and the American labor landscape for the next four decades. The Last Strike take viewers inside the strike that changed everything, unravelling the mystery behind the moment American unions were nearly crushed. Directors: Danny Alpert and Ray Nowosielski.

Untitled Lerone D. Wilson Project —  Themes of culture, diversity, and internet freedom clash in this study of how social media has reshaped our lives and upended decades of technological, journalistic, and political norms. Director: Lerone D. Wilson.

Immunity — The film investigates the burgeoning vaccine hesitancy movement while exploring the negotiation between individual health and collective security, all while the COVID-19 vaccine countdown begins. Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy.

“With so many worthy submissions, it’s always a challenge to find the best projects to support,” said Hugh Rogovy, Foundation President, “these five represent strong narratives and timely topics, and we look forward to the impact they can achieve.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Summer 2021 Open Call, which ends May 15th.

Winter 2020 Awards

Five Documentaries Awarded Summer 2020 Grants

We are pleased to announce the Miller / Packan Documentary Film Fund Summer 2020 award winners. The Fund awards grants totaling $200,000 annually through its Summer and Winter open calls.

Planet Z — The film follows a group of climate change youth activists as they mobilize their efforts to empower and inspire other youths and adults to create change within their communities, government and beyond. Director: Tom Donahue.

Untitled Prison Hunger Strike Film — In 2013, three men, trapped for decades in solitary confinement in, all arrived at the same decision – a hunger strike, the largest in US history. 30,000 people abolished indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons. Director: Lucas Guilkey.

In the Cold Dark Night — In 1983 in a small Georgia town, white men brutally murdered Timothy Coggins, a young black man, because of his relationship with a white woman. Authorities stopped investigating and witnesses received threats to remain quiet, the case went cold for nearly 34 years… until a new investigation opened in 2017. Director: Stephen Robert Morse.

STAYERS — The documentary follows the tight-knit crabbing community of Tangier Island, Virginia, through a dramatic year as the islanders are fighting for a sea wall to save their home. This all happens in the lead-up to one of the most anticipated presidential elections in US history. Director: Julia Dahr & Julie Lunde Lillesæter. www.differmedia.com/project/stayers

Untitled West Virginia Project — A meditation on the suffering and devastation resulting from the coal industry and its decline in West Virginia, as communities bear witness to a perfect storm of afflictions: a crumbling economy, an opioid epidemic, and environmental damage. Director: Lucas Sabean & Peter Hutchinson. www.bigtentproductions.nyc/west-virginia

“This year we’re all seeing the profound challenges we face as a society first-hand,” said Asher Rogovy, Foundation Vice-President. “Supporting these films is but one step towards progress. We can only face problems if we recognize problems, and documentary films are a powerful medium to illustrate them.”

Applications are now being accepted for the Winter 2020 Open Call, which ends November 15th.

Summer 2020 Awards