Firelight Media’s Spark Fund is a Unique Opportunity

This fall Firelight Media launched their new Spark Fund for established BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, persons of color) independent documentary directors whose humanities-themed documentary projects were disrupted by the COVID pandemic. Applications are due 3pm ET, December 29, 2021. Thirty six (36) filmmakers will be awarded a one-time $50,000 stipend over a period of one year.

The Spark Fund is unique in the funding space because it is not a project grant. Firelight recognizes that BIPOC filmmakers have been impacted in profound and long lasting ways by the pandemic and the racial reckonings of the past year and a half. This is the reason the Spark Fund was created with the goal to get these documentary filmmakers back on track with their projects by providing support that can be used to cover basic living expenses.

Firelight Media (co-founded by filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith) was one of three film organizations (including ITVS and Sundance Institute) to receive funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities’s American Rescue Plan initiative known as #SHARP - Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan. The funds support the grantmaking by the organizations to assist individuals working in the humanities space who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and require support to restore and sustain their core activities.

Applicants for the Spark Fund must meet eligibility requirements which are included on the online application page (available in English and Spanish)

Michon Boston Group is providing project management support for the Spark Fund.

Watch this video from the Spark Fund Technical workshop hosted by Michon Boston