2013 Applications
The FJC has now opened the 2013 submission process. Filmmakers can receive between $15,000 and $35,000 to finish a documentary on some aspect of Jewish history, culture, and identity. Documentaries must be in post-production. The deadline for applications to the 2013 Kroll Film Fund is July 16, 2013.
Or click here to begin your application.
2012 Kroll Film Fund Grantee Recipients
The Foundation for Jewish Culture granted $80,000 in finishing funds to five exemplary documentaries, ensuring their delivery to film festivals, television, and other distribution outlets. The grants ranged between $10,000 and $20,000 each, and enabled filmmakers to complete additional editing and shooting, pay license fees for music and archival footage, and to reach wider audiences through outreach and engagement strategies.
This year’s grantees of the Foundation’s Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film include:
Dancing in Jaffa (US/Israel, directed and produced by Hilla Medalia), a film about Israeli and Palestinian schoolchildren performing and learning together. Grantee bio: Hilla Medalia is a Peabody award-winning, three-time Emmy nominated filmmaker, who directed and produced To Die in Jerusalem, After the Storm, and Happy You’re Alive. Current projects include Numbered and Caught In The Net.
Sidney Lumet: The Moral Lens (US, directed and produced by Daniel Anker), the story of one of the last century’s greatest filmmakers. Grantee bio: Filmmaker Daniel Anker’s credits include the Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, Music From The Inside Out with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Imaginary Witness: Hollywood And The Holocaust. Upcoming films include Icebound, an NEH-Funded feature documentary about the 1925 Serum Run to Nome, Alaska.
Sukkah City (US, Director and Producer: Jason Hutt), an in-depth account of a provocative public art competition and exhibition in New York City. Grantee bio: Jason Hutt’s first feature-length documentary Orthodox Stance is a portrait of Dmitriy Salita, a Russian immigrant, professional boxer and religious Jew. He recently co-produced Michael Kantor’s Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy for PBS’s Great Performances.
The Jewish Partisans (US, directed and produced by Julia Mintz), a portrait of World War II resistance fighters. Grantee bio: Julia Mintz produced the documentary California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown and co-produced Joe Papp in Five Acts. She also post-produced and associate produced the documentary Soundtrack for a Revolution.
The Rosenwald Schools (US, directed and produced by Aviva Kempner), a look at a visionary philanthropist’s efforts to improve African-American education. Grantee bio: Aviva Kempner produced and conceived Partisans of Vilna. She wrote, produced and directed the critically acclaimed Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.
This year the Foundation received 79 completed applications from around the world for documentary film post-production support. A rigorous, two-tiered panel of scholars, critics, filmmakers, and curators reviewed submissions and recommended grantees. Panelists included, Brian Ackerman, Andrew Catauro, Olga Gershenson, Tracie Holder, Andrew Ingall, Annette Insdorf and Daphne Merkin.
2012 Kroll Fund Film Panelists
Brian Ackerman is Programming Director at the Jacob Burns Film Center and serves on the selection committee of the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
Andrew Catauro is the Coordinating Producer of POV. He has served on editorial panels and presented at festivals and conferences including the Sundance Film Festival, Doc/It in Trento, Italy, and the Asian Documentary Forum in Kolkata, India.
Andrew Ingall is Program Officer for the Arts at the Foundation for Jewish Culture where he directs the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film. He has served on the selection committees of the New York Jewish Film Festival and Documentary Fortnight: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film.
Olga Gershenson is Associate Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of The Phanton Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe and reviews film for The Forward.
Tracie Holder is a filmmaker who received a 2002 Kroll Fund grant for Joe Papp in Five Acts. As a consultant for Women Make Movies, she advises filmmakers on fundraising and production.
Annette Insdorf is an internationally renowned educator, and author of Francois Truffaut, Indelible Shadows: Film and Holocaust, and Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski. She is a Professor in the Graduate Film Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, as well as Director of Undergraduate Film Studies.
Daphne Merkin is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. She has served as film critic for The New Yorker and is currently a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and Tablet.
Program Overview
Since 1996, the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film has supported the completion of over 85 original documentaries that explore the Jewish experience in all its complexity. The fund was created with a lead grant from Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and sustained over 10 years with major support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation.
The priority of the fund is to support projects that address significant subjects; offer fresh, challenging perspectives; engage diverse audiences; and expand the understanding of Jewish experiences. In the past, grants have generally ranged in size from $15,000 to $35,000. Nonfiction films supported by the Kroll Fund have received Academy Award® and Emmy Award nominations, Golden Globe Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, and prizes at festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival, Silverdocs, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Past grantees include Waltz with Bashir, Trembling Before G-d, Arguing the World, Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust, A Healthy Baby Girl, Crime After Crime, The Law in These Parts, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, Off and Running, Joe Papp in Five Acts, and The Rape of Europa, among others.
Eligibility
Applicants for the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film must:
- Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (director or producer);
- Be in postproduction at the time of application;
- Be an individual, a nonprofit organization with federal tax exempt status, or have a fiscal conduit that agrees to receive and administer an award on behalf of the project;
- Have creative, editorial, and budgetary control of the proposed project; and
- Own the copyright of the completed film.
Applications and Guidelines
You can now submit an application for the 2013 Kroll film fund.
Click here to start an application.
The deadline for applications is July 16, 2013. Email us with any questions.
Professional Development
In addition to providing grants to our filmmakers, we are happy to provide opportunities for networking and professional development. Most recently, we held a very successful Online Distribution Info Session.
Program Funders
The Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film has received generous endowment and operating support from the Righteous Persons Foundation, the Charles H. Revson Foundation, Lynn and Jules Kroll, Joan and Robert (z”l) Arnow, the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, Laura Scheuer, Robert Carroll, the Nash Family Foundation, the estate of Marvin Rosenblatt, the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation, the Wyler family, the Streisand Foundation, the Joseph and Anna Gartner Foundation, the Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation, the David Geffen Foundation, the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, and Steve and Ellen Sussman.
If you are looking for information about our film program Inside the Docs: Reaching Out through Documentary Film, click here.
To see the complete list of grantees, click here.
Applications for 2013 Kroll Film Fund Open! 
Learn about the New Jewish Culture Network’s 2013 Commission 
