Quick Takes

MacArthur Foundation grants $2 million to documentary projects

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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today $2 million in new grants to 18 documentary film projects, including some from frequent collaborators with public TV. Individual grant amounts range from $50,000 to $225,000. The latter amount goes to the film 500 Years, which follows the genocide trial of former Guatemalan President General Efraín Ríos Montt. The film is a follow-up to co-director Pamela Yates’s previous film about the Guatemalan genocide, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, which became a 2012 episode on PBS’s POV. A couple of the projects incorporate multiplatform outreach, according to the release: Immigrant Nation is “a multi-platform project that explores the interconnectedness of U.S. immigrants, past and present,” while the team behind Map Your World will build an “interactive web platform enabling global youth to map their communities’ assets and challenges and create media to catalyze positive change.”

Among the other grantees:

In the Game, a documentary about Latina adolescents and soccer from pubTV producer Kartemquin Films;
Hazing, a film about “the cultural practices of hazing,” from director Byron Hurt, who also made the 2006 Independent Lens episode Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes;
Freedom Fighters, a film about exonerated men who start a detective agency, from director Jamie Melzer, who directed the 2003 Independent Lens episode Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story; and
The Arrivals, a story about two undocumented immigrants from director Heidi Ewing, whose PBS credits include The Boys of Baraka and an episode of the now-defunct Now on PBS.

Quick Takes

POV announces 26th season lineup, plans a move to Mondays

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After a season of bad press following PBS’s much-maligned 2012 decision to move its flagship independent documentary program POV from Tuesday nights to Thursdays, the show will move to Mondays for its 26th season, which premieres June 24. POV announced the lineup for its new season today. The program is also building off another recent round of good news: a $1 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation on Feb. 28. Its premiere episode will be Homegoings, a documentary about Harlem undertakers that was selected as part of the New York Museum of Modern Art’s 2013 Documentary Fortnight. The lineup, with 15 national broadcast premieres and two encore presentations, will also include the Oscar-nominated Palestinian film 5 Broken Cameras on Aug.

Programs/Content

POV and StoryCorps each receive $1 million from MacArthur Foundation

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American Documentary, home to PBS’s independent film showcase POV, and StoryCorps, the oral history project heard on NPR, are each receiving $1 million from the MacArthur Foundation’s latest round of Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions. The grants, awarded to 13 recipients in five countries, help ensure the long-term sustainability of each organization, according to the foundation. “The award is not only recognition for past leadership and success but also an investment in the future,” the Chicago-based foundation said in the Feb. 28 announcement. “Organizations will use this support to build cash reserves and endowments, develop strategic plans and upgrade technology and physical infrastructure.”

Organizations do not apply for the awards; rather, MacArthur nominates and selects them.

Programs/Content

POV, StoryCorps get $1 million each from MacArthur Foundation

By |

American Documentary, home to PBS’s independent film showcase POV, and StoryCorps, the oral history project heard on NPR, are each receiving $1 million as recipients of the latest round of MacArthur Foundation Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions, announced today. The grants help ensure the long-term sustainability of the winners, 13 organizations in five countries, according to the foundation. “The award is not only recognition for past leadership and success but also an investment in the future,” the Chicago-based foundation said in the announcement. “Organizations will use this support to build cash reserves and endowments, develop strategic plans and upgrade technology and physical infrastructure.”

Organizations do not apply for the awards; rather, MacArthur nominates and selects them. To qualify, the foundation said, nonprofits must “demonstrate exceptional creativity and effectiveness; have reached a critical or strategic point in their development; show strong leadership and stable financial management; have previously received MacArthur support; and engage in work central to one of MacArthur’s core programs.”

Quick Takes

New class of MacArthur fellows includes two POV filmmakers

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Two acclaimed filmmakers whose work has been featured on the documentary showcase  POV on PBS were among the 2012 “Genius Grant” recipients, announced Monday by the  John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Natalia Almada and Laura Poitras, along with the 21 other grantees, will each receive $500,000 paid over five years. Almada, based in Brooklyn and Mexico City, produces works that spotlight the conflict and turmoil of individual lives in Mexico, as well as the complex realities of immigration. Three of her films have been featured on POV, including 2005’s Al Otro Lado and 2009’s El General. Her most recent work, El Velador (The Night Watchman), aired on Sept.

People

Woody Wickham, 66

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Woodward A. (Woody) Wickham, 66,  a strong supporter of independent documentary films and public media producers, died of cancer Jan. 18 [2009] at his home in Chicago. In more than a dozen years at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 1990 to 2003, Wickham helped support such projects as Kartemquin Films’ documentary Hoop Dreams, the Creative Commons alternative to copyrights, and Dave Isay’s StoryCorps, for which Wickham was the founding board chair. With MacArthur’s money, Wickham was a consistent supporter of P.O.V. and Frontline, local media arts centers and Kartemquin, says Alyce Myatt, who worked with him at the foundation. Wickham also supported the foundation’s work in human rights, aiding the International Criminal Court, and media reform groups such as the Media Access Project.