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You’ve found a story and you’re committed to telling it—no matter what. Let’s do it together.

FUNDED FILMS
1,706
PEABODY
45
EMMY AWARDS
48

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Open Call

Open Call provides documentary funding and co-production support so you can complete your nonfiction work in progress, then air it on public television.

Reopens November 1, 2022 9:00 AM PDT
Learn about Open Call

Featured Open Call Projects

See all 586 Open Call Projects

Diversity Development Fund

DDF gives directors of color up to $35,000 in research and development funding so you can develop your documentary for air on public television. Pre-production nonfiction projects only.

Reopens 2023
Learn about DDF

Featured Diversity Development Fund Projects

See all 94 Diversity Development Fund Projects

Short-Form Open Call

Short-Form Open Call offers development and co-production funding to help you complete your short nonfiction film or series for distribution on public media's web-based platforms.

Reopens 2023
Learn about Short-Form OC

Featured Short-Form Open Call Projects

See all 34 Short-Form Open Call Projects

Series and Special Projects

We commission a limited number of innovative and timely projects for public media, providing development and production funding. Submissions for Series and Special Project funding are by invitation-only. This collection also encompasses documentary films funded through limited special open calls held over the years.


Featured Series and Special Projects

See all 208 Series and Special Projects

Get in touch.

Questions about what we do? We’re happy to talk.

itvs@itvs.org

(415) 356-8383

ITVS in the Field

We’d love to meet you! Join the ITVS team at an event. We want to hear about your latest projects.

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Get Funded

We join forces with visionaries like you from across America to bring risk-taking independent film to the public.

Filmmaker Resources

From our blog

  1. Independent Lens Raises Awareness of Harms Caused by Kentucky's Persistent Felony Offender Law

    June 30, 2022

    Independent Lens and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Louisville Courier Journal (LCJ) raised awareness of Kentucky's Persistent Felony Offender (PFO) through a collaboration between independent filmmakers and journalists. The investigative series drew a link between the law's enhanced sentencing terms to the state’s high and growing prison…

  2. Independent Lens Releases Stories for Justice Impact Report

    June 1, 2022

    Documentary storytelling increased understanding about the inequities in the U.S. justice system.

  3. The Supervising Producer Partnership: How CJ Hunt Found the Arc for "Neutral Ground" While Working with ITVS

    April 12, 2022

    How do filmmakers and ITVS supervising producers work together in their back-and-forth partnership?To best explain CJ Hunt's partnership with ITVS, we wanted to have him in the same room with three-time Emmy-nominated ITVS Supervising Producer Shana Swanson to explore what it meant to work together as funder and maker. Hunt made his feature film debut…