Awarded Grants

The 2020 film grant will support "InVade" which tells the story of an 8-year-old boy who is detained along with his father during an ICE raid. The father and son are separated, prompting the son to escape and venture out to find him.

The 2020 film grant will support "Another Life." The film explores the childhood experiences of the filmmaker and her family in the Federal Witness Protection Program (which provides for the security and safety of government witnesses). Johnson-Young crafts a journey of discovery using memory, personal photographs, archival footage, and interviews that puts the pieces of her life back together.

The 2020 film grant will support "Smile4Kime," a collaborative auto-ethnographic documentary. The film explores the mental health journeys of two women: Kime, an African American woman who lived with dissociative identity disorder after a series of sexual assaults and Elena (the director), a Puerto Rican woman dealing with depression and grief after the death of Kime. The film incorporates interviews, experimental/performance footage, and animation to explore grief, friendship, and intimacy across mental illness, considering important themes of race, gender, and mental health.

The 2020 film grant will support "TTYLORNOT: Theology Talks You Like…or not," a docu-narrative film series that shares stories on “the other” experience understanding God, the divine, and spiritual journeys. This multimedia project was created to bring visibility, accessibility and vocal-ability to those who are often left out and not considered in the divine imagination, and are seeking a liberating transformative experience.

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 "Esperanza Ramirez Fights Zombies!" the sequel to Papi Ramirez vs Giant Scorpions. Still dealing with the pain of her brother's death at the hands of the police, new mom and karate expert Esperanza “Mami” Ramirez will have her moral compass and karate skills put to the test against a computer hacker who has developed a phone app that turns white people into anti-racist zombies. While the app could secure the safety of her Afro Latino newborn son in a white supremacist world, it may come at a greater expense.

The 2020 film grant will support "Sound Mind," a cinematic mix-tape consisting of 12 short films that focus on messages of hope and inspiration, all while putting the lens on hard to discuss but necessary topics. The mission of the film project is to enlighten, educate, and promote action for change.

This one-year grant will support "Philly D.A." an in-depth documentary series that examines criminal justice reform in the era of Larry Krasner's tenure as Philadelphia's District Attorney.

The 2020 film grant will support "La Lucha Sigue." The documentary centers immigrant rights leaders who are calling for the Berks Detention Center, one of three prisons that detain immigrant children, to close. Characters such as a mother from Mexico who is teaching her kids about social movements, and an elder who spent part of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp, explain how the immigration industrial complex has impacted various communities of color. The characters portray how to hold elected officials accountable and organize on a local level through art, storytelling, and creative actions.

The 2020 film grant will support the "Legacy Network for Black Creators." Music duo, Kindred the Family Soul, will build the Legacy Network for Black Creators, which will feature their original video series along with other local and national filmmakers to showcase documentaries, shorts, and feature length films. The Legacy Network aims to bridge the gap between filmmakers, media artists, and audiences through curation and distribution by increasing the visibility of stories that heal and speak to the importance of culture, family, music, and love.