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JEWISH STORY PARTNERS ANNOUNCES $170,000 in REPRISE GRANTS to 10 DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECTS
JSP expands distribution program to help JSP-funded films reach audiences
Launches JSP Film Circuit screening partnerships with cultural institutions across Los Angeles
JSP grantees premiere widely at leading fall festivals including New York Film Festival, Hamptons, Woodstock, DOC NYC, AFI Fest, and IDFA
Call for Entries now open for next granting cycle
LOS ANGELES (Wednesday, November 20, 2024) – Jewish Story Partners (JSP), a leading non-profit film funding organization, announced its new Reprise grants today, with $170,000 distributed among 10 feature documentary films, and other grants to support the distribution of its supported films.
With Reprise grants, Jewish Story Partners awards follow-up grants twice annually to a group of previously funded projects that have made significant progress. The Reprise Grant Program is designed to help accelerate JSP projects toward completion. Through this additional funding and extended qualitative support, we are able to deepen our commitment and help projects advance at key inflection points.
“In the context of the current crisis in independent film financing and distribution, JSP’s programmatic innovations in championing the very best documentaries on Jewish themes are all the more crucial,” said JSP’s Executive Director Roberta Grossman.
The new slate of JSP Reprise grants includes powerful documentaries from acclaimed directors Hilla Medalia (Web Junkie), Dror Moreh (The Gatekeepers), Marilyn Ness (Charm City), Dan Sturman (Nanking), and Ondi Timoner (Last Flight Home); as well as from award winning producers including Yoni Brook (Philly D.A.), Sigrid Dyekjær (The Territory), and Ina Fichman (Fire of Love). See below for the full list of grantees.
Launched in 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, JSP responds to a critical gap in funding for independent Jewish film as well as the pressing need for stories that reflect the broad and surprising spectrum of Jewish experiences, cultures, and encounters. JSP works to stimulate and support the highest caliber independent films that expand the Jewish story. Since its inception, JSP has awarded $3.2 million in grants to 101 projects. Of these, thirty-five projects are now complete and launching at festivals or are in distribution.
In addition to Reprise grants, JSP also announces the second cohort of its Education-Impact Program. In partnership with leading educational distributor Good Docs, JSP annually underwrites 600+ free screenings of three JSP-funded documentaries at nonprofits, schools, and religious institutions. This program offers these groups access to viewing guides and the opportunity to invite the filmmaker to join post-screening conversations. This year’s JSP-Good Docs selection includes All We Carry (Cady Voge), The Conspiracy (Maxim Pozdorovkin), and Under G-d (Paula Eiselt).
“We are so proud to be able to offer JSP films free of charge to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences in hundreds of educational and community settings. Film is perhaps the most powerful educational tool available — opening up worlds and igniting empathy outside the audience’s lived experience. For Jewish audiences, JSP stories can awaken connections to tradition and identity that might not have existed before,” said JSP’s Head of Granting and Programs Caroline Libresco.
Jewish Story Partners also announces the JSP Film Circuit, which seeks to connect and inspire LA’s disparate communities by presenting a wide selection of documentary films to audiences. The JSP Film Circuit will consist of five screenings in 2025, planned and programmed by JSP in collaboration with local temples, museums, and other cultural institutions. The first screening will be Director Ilana Trachtman’s Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round, presented in partnership with the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on January 19, 2025 at 6:00 pm at AMC Theatres The Grove 14.
Thirty-five JSP-funded films are now complete and reaching audiences at festivals, in theaters, on television, and on streaming platforms. Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 - Last Air in Moscow premiered at the New York Film Festival in October and was dubbed by Vulture as “the best doc of the year.” Called “awe-inspiring” by The Hollywood Reporter, Sandi DuBowski’s Sabbath Queen premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, was selected for IDFA Best of Fests, and has since screened at Woodstock Film Festival an Hamptons International Film Festival, among others. Yael Melamede’s Ada - My Mother the Architect had its world premiere at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July. Also this summer, eight JSP-funded films screened at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival including Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round, All God’s Children, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, Jews by Choice, A Photographic Memory, The Ride Ahead, Sabbath Queen, and Torah Tropical. Oren Rudavsky’s Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire and Heidi Levitt’s Walk With Me both world premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Seven JSP films are playing this November at DOC NYC including All God’s Children, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!, Death and Taxes, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, A Photographic Memory, Plunderer, and The Ride Ahead.
JSP has now opened a call for entries for feature-length documentaries by U.S.-based producers and/or directors. Applications are due January 17, 2025. JSP currently accepts submissions via one open call per year, with juried decisions made in spring. Filmmakers may learn more here: jewishstorypartners.org/apply.
FALL 2024 REPRISE GRANTEES
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
All God’s Children
Director and Producer Ondi Timoner, Producer David Turner
In an unprecedented attempt to heal centuries of racism and antisemitism and combat the rising tension in their Brooklyn communities, activist Rabbi Rachel Timoner and Baptist Reverend Robert Waterman team up to unite their congregations. As their faith is shaken, both congregations struggle not to let their differences drive them apart.
Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!
Directors and Producers Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, Producers Sam Jinishian and Alicia Sams
Legendary artist Art Spiegelman rocked the world when he transposed his parents into mice to tell their Holocaust survival story in his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus. Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse! chronicles Spiegelman’s irreverent life and work includinghis extraordinary partnership with wife Françoise Mouly and his checkered evolution through the world of underground comics.
Carlebach Project Untitled
Director and Producer Simon Mendes, Producer Heidi Reinberg
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, ‘the Singing Rabbi,’ ignited the spiritual landscape for legions of Jews in a post-Holocaust world. Soon after his death, he is accused of sexual abuse. Thirty years later, with intimate access to his family, inner circle, and his victims, Carlebach Project Untitled grapples with a complicated legacy and how — or whether — to separate the art from the artist.
Hitler Documentary Project Untitled
Director Dror Moreh, Producers Sigrid Dyekjær, Natalie Humphreys, Philippe Levasseur, and Harry Vaughn
A Berlin-based archive has recently been uncovered that gives chilling context to our understanding of Adolf Hitler and reveals the depths of visual ideology that metastasized within his inner circle.
Know Hope
Director Omer Shamir, Producers Galit Cahlon, Shlomi Elkabetz, and Libby Lenkinski
Street artist Know Hope uses art as resistance in Palestine-Israel, where the lives of strangers become fuel for his urgent, charged work.
Kramer Brothers Project Untitled
Director Brandon Kramer, Producers Yoni Brook and Lance Kramer
An intimately observed story about the complex experience of a family in the aftermath of October 7th, 2023.
Missing Silver
Director and Producer Hilla Medalia, Producer Ina Fichman
On the morning of October 7th, renowned peace activist Vivian Silver was presumed abducted from her kibbutz near Gaza by Hamas. As Israel launches a devastating attack on the Gaza Strip, Vivian’s son, and beloved Jewish and Palestinian friends, struggle to hold onto Silver’s vision and hope for peace.
Mother India, Father Israel
Director and Producer Avi Dabach, Co-Producer Ram Devineni
Elana, an experienced Israeli social activist of Indian origin, discovers her mother’s role in the resistance movement of the Indian community — the Bene Israel — soon after they immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. Telling the story through a Bollywood style dance show, she travels to India to discover who she is, and where she belongs.
Postmortem
Director Marilyn Ness, Producer Beth Levison
Postmortem is a documentary feature that is at once personal memoir, true crime, and Jewish family history as director Marilyn Ness confronts a legacy of secrecy and trauma using the communal power of theater and film.
The Stamp Thief
Director and Producer Dan Sturman, Producers Gary Gilbert and Dylan Nelson
Part detective story, part heist film, part history we must never forget, The Stamp Thief investigates a tale dating back to the Holocaust: that a mysterious Nazi stole priceless stamp collections from concentration camp victims and buried the stolen stamps in a small town in Poland. Comedy TV writer-producer Gary Gilbert sets out to confirm the story and recover the stamps.
____
2024 EDUCATION-IMPACT PROGRAM COHORT
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
All We Carry
Director and Producer Cady Voge, Producers Laura Pilloni and Laura Tatham
After fleeing violence in Honduras, joining the infamous migrant caravan, and enduring months in a U.S. detention center, the young Lopez-Aldana family is sponsored by a synagogue in Seattle. While struggling to settle into a totally foreign world and processing their trauma, their future — and the future of asylum in America — hangs in the balance.
The Conspiracy
Director Maxim Pozdorovkin, Producers Joe Bender, Dan Cogan, Caroline Hirsch, and Allison Stern
An animated film about the biggest lie ever told: the myth that Jews are plotting to take over the world.
Under G-d
Director and Producer Paula Eiselt, Producer Darcy McKinnon
The Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision sparked a national response, particularly in the Jewish community. Inspired by the lived experiences of Jewish women, lawsuits are currently being launched by rabbis, Jewish organizations, and interfaith leaders to challenge the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
____
JSP is grateful to our donor partners who make this vital work possible. These include founding JSP partners Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and Maimonides Fund, and (in alphabetical order): Anonymous (3), Stephanie and Jon DeVaan, Jana Edelbaum, Gale Epstein, The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, Adam Irving, Jim Joseph Foundation, Marta Kauffman, The Klarman Family Foundation, Koret Foundation, Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Films, Kronhill Pletka Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy, Julie Platt, The Posner Foundation, Mara Burros Sandler - Be Forward Productions, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Marcy Syms, Taube Philanthropies, Twin Oak Fund, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.
For more information, please visit www.jewishstorypartners.org.
For more information about applying to JSP: jewishstorypartners.org/apply.
Learn more about our grantees here: jewishstorypartners.org/projects.
Learn more about our Education-Impact Program here: jewishstorypartners.org/education-impact-program/
Facebook.com/jewishstorypartners
Instagram.com/jewishstorypartners
X.com/jstorypartners
With Reprise grants, Jewish Story Partners awards follow-up grants twice annually to a group of previously funded projects that have made significant progress. The Reprise Grant Program is designed to help accelerate JSP projects toward completion. Through this additional funding and extended qualitative support, we are able to deepen our commitment and help projects advance at key inflection points.
“In the context of the current crisis in independent film financing and distribution, JSP’s programmatic innovations in championing the very best documentaries on Jewish themes are all the more crucial,” said JSP’s Executive Director Roberta Grossman.
The new slate of JSP Reprise grants includes powerful documentaries from acclaimed directors Hilla Medalia (Web Junkie), Dror Moreh (The Gatekeepers), Marilyn Ness (Charm City), Dan Sturman (Nanking), and Ondi Timoner (Last Flight Home); as well as from award winning producers including Yoni Brook (Philly D.A.), Sigrid Dyekjær (The Territory), and Ina Fichman (Fire of Love). See below for the full list of grantees.
Launched in 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, JSP responds to a critical gap in funding for independent Jewish film as well as the pressing need for stories that reflect the broad and surprising spectrum of Jewish experiences, cultures, and encounters. JSP works to stimulate and support the highest caliber independent films that expand the Jewish story. Since its inception, JSP has awarded $3.2 million in grants to 101 projects. Of these, thirty-five projects are now complete and launching at festivals or are in distribution.
In addition to Reprise grants, JSP also announces the second cohort of its Education-Impact Program. In partnership with leading educational distributor Good Docs, JSP annually underwrites 600+ free screenings of three JSP-funded documentaries at nonprofits, schools, and religious institutions. This program offers these groups access to viewing guides and the opportunity to invite the filmmaker to join post-screening conversations. This year’s JSP-Good Docs selection includes All We Carry (Cady Voge), The Conspiracy (Maxim Pozdorovkin), and Under G-d (Paula Eiselt).
“We are so proud to be able to offer JSP films free of charge to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences in hundreds of educational and community settings. Film is perhaps the most powerful educational tool available — opening up worlds and igniting empathy outside the audience’s lived experience. For Jewish audiences, JSP stories can awaken connections to tradition and identity that might not have existed before,” said JSP’s Head of Granting and Programs Caroline Libresco.
Jewish Story Partners also announces the JSP Film Circuit, which seeks to connect and inspire LA’s disparate communities by presenting a wide selection of documentary films to audiences. The JSP Film Circuit will consist of five screenings in 2025, planned and programmed by JSP in collaboration with local temples, museums, and other cultural institutions. The first screening will be Director Ilana Trachtman’s Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round, presented in partnership with the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on January 19, 2025 at 6:00 pm at AMC Theatres The Grove 14.
Thirty-five JSP-funded films are now complete and reaching audiences at festivals, in theaters, on television, and on streaming platforms. Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 - Last Air in Moscow premiered at the New York Film Festival in October and was dubbed by Vulture as “the best doc of the year.” Called “awe-inspiring” by The Hollywood Reporter, Sandi DuBowski’s Sabbath Queen premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, was selected for IDFA Best of Fests, and has since screened at Woodstock Film Festival an Hamptons International Film Festival, among others. Yael Melamede’s Ada - My Mother the Architect had its world premiere at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July. Also this summer, eight JSP-funded films screened at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival including Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round, All God’s Children, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, Jews by Choice, A Photographic Memory, The Ride Ahead, Sabbath Queen, and Torah Tropical. Oren Rudavsky’s Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire and Heidi Levitt’s Walk With Me both world premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Seven JSP films are playing this November at DOC NYC including All God’s Children, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!, Death and Taxes, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, A Photographic Memory, Plunderer, and The Ride Ahead.
JSP has now opened a call for entries for feature-length documentaries by U.S.-based producers and/or directors. Applications are due January 17, 2025. JSP currently accepts submissions via one open call per year, with juried decisions made in spring. Filmmakers may learn more here: jewishstorypartners.org/apply.
FALL 2024 REPRISE GRANTEES
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
All God’s Children
Director and Producer Ondi Timoner, Producer David Turner
In an unprecedented attempt to heal centuries of racism and antisemitism and combat the rising tension in their Brooklyn communities, activist Rabbi Rachel Timoner and Baptist Reverend Robert Waterman team up to unite their congregations. As their faith is shaken, both congregations struggle not to let their differences drive them apart.
Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!
Directors and Producers Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, Producers Sam Jinishian and Alicia Sams
Legendary artist Art Spiegelman rocked the world when he transposed his parents into mice to tell their Holocaust survival story in his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus. Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse! chronicles Spiegelman’s irreverent life and work includinghis extraordinary partnership with wife Françoise Mouly and his checkered evolution through the world of underground comics.
Carlebach Project Untitled
Director and Producer Simon Mendes, Producer Heidi Reinberg
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, ‘the Singing Rabbi,’ ignited the spiritual landscape for legions of Jews in a post-Holocaust world. Soon after his death, he is accused of sexual abuse. Thirty years later, with intimate access to his family, inner circle, and his victims, Carlebach Project Untitled grapples with a complicated legacy and how — or whether — to separate the art from the artist.
Hitler Documentary Project Untitled
Director Dror Moreh, Producers Sigrid Dyekjær, Natalie Humphreys, Philippe Levasseur, and Harry Vaughn
A Berlin-based archive has recently been uncovered that gives chilling context to our understanding of Adolf Hitler and reveals the depths of visual ideology that metastasized within his inner circle.
Know Hope
Director Omer Shamir, Producers Galit Cahlon, Shlomi Elkabetz, and Libby Lenkinski
Street artist Know Hope uses art as resistance in Palestine-Israel, where the lives of strangers become fuel for his urgent, charged work.
Kramer Brothers Project Untitled
Director Brandon Kramer, Producers Yoni Brook and Lance Kramer
An intimately observed story about the complex experience of a family in the aftermath of October 7th, 2023.
Missing Silver
Director and Producer Hilla Medalia, Producer Ina Fichman
On the morning of October 7th, renowned peace activist Vivian Silver was presumed abducted from her kibbutz near Gaza by Hamas. As Israel launches a devastating attack on the Gaza Strip, Vivian’s son, and beloved Jewish and Palestinian friends, struggle to hold onto Silver’s vision and hope for peace.
Mother India, Father Israel
Director and Producer Avi Dabach, Co-Producer Ram Devineni
Elana, an experienced Israeli social activist of Indian origin, discovers her mother’s role in the resistance movement of the Indian community — the Bene Israel — soon after they immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. Telling the story through a Bollywood style dance show, she travels to India to discover who she is, and where she belongs.
Postmortem
Director Marilyn Ness, Producer Beth Levison
Postmortem is a documentary feature that is at once personal memoir, true crime, and Jewish family history as director Marilyn Ness confronts a legacy of secrecy and trauma using the communal power of theater and film.
The Stamp Thief
Director and Producer Dan Sturman, Producers Gary Gilbert and Dylan Nelson
Part detective story, part heist film, part history we must never forget, The Stamp Thief investigates a tale dating back to the Holocaust: that a mysterious Nazi stole priceless stamp collections from concentration camp victims and buried the stolen stamps in a small town in Poland. Comedy TV writer-producer Gary Gilbert sets out to confirm the story and recover the stamps.
____
2024 EDUCATION-IMPACT PROGRAM COHORT
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
All We Carry
Director and Producer Cady Voge, Producers Laura Pilloni and Laura Tatham
After fleeing violence in Honduras, joining the infamous migrant caravan, and enduring months in a U.S. detention center, the young Lopez-Aldana family is sponsored by a synagogue in Seattle. While struggling to settle into a totally foreign world and processing their trauma, their future — and the future of asylum in America — hangs in the balance.
The Conspiracy
Director Maxim Pozdorovkin, Producers Joe Bender, Dan Cogan, Caroline Hirsch, and Allison Stern
An animated film about the biggest lie ever told: the myth that Jews are plotting to take over the world.
Under G-d
Director and Producer Paula Eiselt, Producer Darcy McKinnon
The Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision sparked a national response, particularly in the Jewish community. Inspired by the lived experiences of Jewish women, lawsuits are currently being launched by rabbis, Jewish organizations, and interfaith leaders to challenge the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
____
JSP is grateful to our donor partners who make this vital work possible. These include founding JSP partners Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and Maimonides Fund, and (in alphabetical order): Anonymous (3), Stephanie and Jon DeVaan, Jana Edelbaum, Gale Epstein, The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, Adam Irving, Jim Joseph Foundation, Marta Kauffman, The Klarman Family Foundation, Koret Foundation, Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Films, Kronhill Pletka Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy, Julie Platt, The Posner Foundation, Mara Burros Sandler - Be Forward Productions, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Marcy Syms, Taube Philanthropies, Twin Oak Fund, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.
For more information, please visit www.jewishstorypartners.org.
For more information about applying to JSP: jewishstorypartners.org/apply.
Learn more about our grantees here: jewishstorypartners.org/projects.
Learn more about our Education-Impact Program here: jewishstorypartners.org/education-impact-program/
Facebook.com/jewishstorypartners
Instagram.com/jewishstorypartners
X.com/jstorypartners
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