Awarded Grants

The 2020 film grant will support "Epistles of Love, The Gospels According to Edgar & Clara," a work-in-progress based on a series of letters exchanged between Edgar Wilson and Clara Moses-Wilson from 1936 to 1939. Through their exchange, we bear witness to the complex intersections of race, health, economics, and the impact that WWI, the Spanish Flu Pandemic, the Great Depression, and the Great Migration had on the lives, love, and marriage of African Americans.

The 2020 film grant will support "Expanding Sanctuary" as the documentary tells the story of a Latinx immigrant community's successful journey to change immigration legislation and protect families.

The 2020 film grant will support "Before Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement, there was the Haitian Revolution! Ulrick." The film features Master Artist Ulrick Jean-Pierre, a twoubadou (troubadour) and guardian of history who has been tirelessly depicting Haiti's story on canvas as the first country to lead a successful slave revolt and the first free black nation. Ulrick's paintings also depict the deep historical connections between Haiti and the United States and especially New Orleans.

The 2020 film grant will support "Life Beyond Life," a collaborative short hybrid film about women's re-entry experiences. After successfully fighting to have their juvenile life sentences cut short, four women in Philadelphia use a collaborative film process to visualize their experiences, struggles, and dreams as they face a new world upon re-entry. Each woman was sentenced to life in prison as juveniles and collectively they served over 140 years. Life Beyond Life will be an intimate conversation between resilient, hopeful women who have much to share with their sisters still incarcerated and the outside world.

A program that teaches individuals how to produce video, film, and theatre content to create media that represents diverse cultures in society.

The 2020 film grant will support "Wisdom Gone Wild." The personal feature-length documentary follows a sixteen-year caregiving journey into dementia for Rose Noda, a Japanese-American woman and her filmmaker-daughter Rea. The film follows a non-linear structure going between hospice, early onset, and mid-term dementia; mirroring Rose's own erratic travels through time.

The 2020 film grant will support "One Way," a narrative short film about Eli, a 17-year old Black boy navigating his identity at the intersection of street life, bike culture, and a family conflict with deep roots.

For festival general operating support.

To present an eight-week retrospective of the eight seasons of Philadelphia Stories, short films by local filmmakers commissioned and broadcast by the former WYBE television station (IPMF's predecessor).

The 2020 film grant will support "Ave Maria," a documentary that follows a Puerto Rican celebrity chef who cooks to save the spirit of his homeland in the wake of Hurricane Maria, the catastrophic breaking point for an island ensnared by colonial-era laws and an insurmountable debt. Could something as intrinsic as food be the key to Puerto Rico's future?