Ford Foundation’s JustFilms Allocates $4.8 Million to Advance Documentary Films Championing Social Justice

ABSTRACT
Director(s): Jaydn Ray Gosselin
Producer(s): Jacob Fertig, Chelsea Hernandez, Brianda Gosselin-Hickey
Two searches are underway in the U.S. Borderlands. One seeks the dead, the other stalks the living. Each pursues the migrant body beyond recognition. ABSTRACT is a striking exploration of the scientific gaze and who controls it.

Adam’s Apple
Director(s): Amy Jenkins
Producer(s): Brit Fryer, Amy Jenkins
A transgender teen and his mother chronicle their lives, artistically weaving a rare and intimate portrait of a family in transition. Two decades of footage trace a boy’s path to manhood and his parents’ vulnerability as they reckon with change.

All Other Parts
Director(s): Cristina Ibarra
Producer(s): Cristina Ibarra, Vanessa Perez, Heather Courtney
After spending years in exile, director Cristina Ibarra’s uncle returns to El Paso determined to stay with his family, only to find himself confined by an electronic monitor—trapped in the very place he thought would set him free.

All That is Solid (Todo Lo Sólido)
Director(s): Luis Gutiérrez Arias, Zaina Bseiso
Producer(s): Luis Gutiérrez Arias, Zaina Bseiso, Rémi Grellety, Sara Skrodzka
Set in present-day Cuba and structured as a road movie, Todo Lo Sólido tells the story of an island sinking into the Caribbean Sea. As a nameless drifter searches for explanations about the island’s destiny, reality and fantasy merge to reflect on nation-building and the burden of progress.

American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez
Director(s): David Alvarado
Producer(s): Lauren DeFilippo, Everett Katigbak, Amanda Pollak
Against political resistance and industry skepticism, Luis Valdez pushes Chicano storytelling from the fields to the film screen with Zoot Suit and La Bamba, crafting iconic works that challenge, celebrate, and expand America’s story.

American Union
Director(s): Brett Wallace
Producer(s): Brett Wallace, Geoff Arbourne, James Blue
Captures the resilience and hopes of two communities in small-town Alabama. Through intimate footage shot at the heart of the action and rare behind-the-scenes access, the film bears witness to a resurgence of the American labor movement and addresses the future of work.

At Night, The Sea Is Black
Director(s): Somi Kakoma
Producer(s): Sade Lythcott, National Black Theatre
Buried in archives and etched in the dreams of an aging generation, FESTAC ’77 was a monumental Pan-African festival of music, art, and politics, fueled by Nigeria’s post-civil war oil wealth. This film uncovers lost footage, forgotten memories, and untold stories, revealing the revolutionary spirit of the gathering that dared to imagine a liberated future. Through rare performances and interviews, it reclaims FESTAC ’77’s enduring impact on global culture and its sustained calls for African heritage restitution.

Black Folklore: From the Mississippi Delta to Yale University
Director(s): William Ferris
Producer(s): Ashley Melzer, Blair Kelley, and Lauren Jarvis
A collection of largely unseen 16mm color film footage from 1974, part of the William R. Ferris Collection at the Southern Folklife Collection, is now ready for editing. This footage, inspired by a Black folklore course at Yale taught by William Ferris, includes over 60 hours of interviews and performances by artists like B.B. King and James “Son Ford” Thomas in the Mississippi Delta, along with footage from the Yale classes.

Bury Me Standing
Director(s): Mishka Brown
Producer(s): Mariko Munro, Amy Hobby, Debi Wisch
Follows art curator Hamza Walker for 4 years on his journey to bring the audaciously ambitious MONUMENTS exhibition to life at MOCA Los Angeles. MONUMENTS aims to be a bold showcase that incorporates both historical monuments and contemporary art pieces to address the type of public art that has narrated the American story. Hamza is a Don Quixote-like arts leader with a somewhat mythic status as an innovator, operator, renegade, and thought leader. While Hamza is deeply admired and respected, he is also known to “dream the impossible dream.” MONUMENTS is his self-proclaimed most ambitious dream ever, and throughout much of the filming, we begin to wonder if the journey will be the destination.

Children of Honey (Olankwe Sa Ba’alako)
Director(s): Jigar Ganatra, Emmanuel Musa Marco
Producer(s): Jigar Ganatra, Natalie Humphreys
Follows three young friends—Nd!uba, Nguilabe, and Embilibi—as alcohol addiction and dark tourism threaten to tear life apart in their once peaceful egalitarian community. This is the first film to offer an authentic, insider’s view of the true Hadza hunter-gatherer experience and is co-directed by members of the Hadza youth: “We are Hadza and we want the world to know who we are.”

Crime and Punishment in America
Director(s): Lynn Novick
Producer(s): Ken Burns, Sam Pollard, Lucas Frank, Prisca Pointdujour, Vanessa Gonzalez-Block
Offers a comprehensive look at criminal justice in America, from the precolonial era to present day mass incarceration. Created by acclaimed filmmaker Lynn Novick and advised by the foremost authorities in the field, this eight-hour, four-episode PBS documentary film series is slated for national primetime broadcast in 2026. The film seeks to answer the seemingly simple question, “How did we get here?” With an expansive telling of 400 years of American history through the lens of crime and punishment, this series will inform, educate, and engage audiences to consider how America’s criminal justice system has shaped the nation and touched nearly every facet of American life, and is a manifestation of the country’s values and cultures; social, political, and economic systems—and our aspirations, prejudices, and limitations.

Dance of a Lifetime
Director(s): Dawn Porter
Producer(s): Leyla Fayyaz, Misty Copeland, Byron Wetzel
A documentary feature showing Misty Copeland’s journey towards a final performance with American Ballet Theatre in October 2025, the film chronicles in retrospective the achievements in Copeland’s career both on- and offstage and looks ahead to the work she will continue to do to push ballet and the arts forward for a more equitable future.

EDGE CITY
Director(s): Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross
Producer(s): Michael Gottwald, Claire Haley, Carlos Zozaya, Josh Penn, Olivia Lloyd
Set in a forgotten New Mexico desert town, the film explores residents confronting their pasts and futures as an unexpected presidential visit looms, revealing deep-seated conflicts. Employing an innovative hybrid documentary-narrative process, a small crew works on location, casting real people to play heightened versions of themselves.

Ghost in the Machine
Director(s): Valerie Veatch
Producer(s): Valerie Veatch
The untold origins of artificial intelligence lie not in machines but in power, revealing the fantasies behind the hype that got us here and where we go next.

God Bless the Child
Director(s): Christopher Harris
Producer(s): Mariko Munro
Acclaimed Black American filmmaker Christopher Harris reinterprets and reconfigures his own experience as a foster child through a cinematic collage that synthesizes photos, records, and archival materials with 16mm film footage shot in Senegal, situating the carcerality of the social welfare state and child services in relation to Black childhood in the U.S. within the broader context of the transatlantic slave trade and the French Catholic Church’s colonization of West Africa and the Americas.

Green Gold
Director(s): Sélim Benzeghia, Ivonne Serna
Producer(s): Selim Benzeghia, Will N. Miller
Description forthcoming

Ground Zero
Director(s): Josh Sabey
Producer(s): Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Sarah Perkins, Robbie Shinder, Lisa Sabey
Ground Zero is a feature documentary marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11, offering a unique perspective on how New York City responded in the aftermath of the tragedy. Rather than focusing on the day of the attacks, the film explores the rebuilding process, the collective grief, and the deliberative democracy efforts that shaped Ground Zero’s future.

Hello Ladies
Director(s): Deborah Stratman
Producer(s): Deborah Stratman, Hiwot Admasu, Zsuzsanna Kiràly
A documentary film about sister-ancestors, speech acts, and resistance. The film is populated by women who write and rewrite history and culture in Ethiopia, using the Great Rift Valley, the legacy of the ancient hominid “Lucy,” and the Azmari tradition of social singers as metaphorical and practical starting points.

Homegrown: Appalachia
Director(s): Jr Rodriguez, Zoë Colfax, Kelyn Ikegami, Usama Alshaibi
Producer(s): Stanley Nelson, Chloe Walters-Wallace, Weenta Girmay, Nicole Tsien
Homegrown: Appalachia is the fourth season of Firelight Media’s acclaimed short documentary series. This season turns its focus to the Appalachian region—an area rich with history, culture, and resistance, yet often misrepresented or erased in mainstream media. Homegrown: Appalachia showcases intimate, powerful stories that explore various themes told by emerging and established BIPOC filmmakers with deep ties to the region.

Humboldt USA
Director(s): G. Anthony Svatek
Producer(s): Elijah Stevens
In this feature-length documentary film, 19th century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, the world’s most used namesake, serves as an instrument to explore the pursuits of everyday Americans reckoning with their disappearing environments, from helicoptering bighorn sheep across the Nevadan desert to fighting urban highways in Buffalo, NY and hacking redwood forest ecology in northern California.

In the Black Fantastic
Director(s): Julianknxx
Producer(s): Julianknxx, Debo Amon, Ekow Eshun, Jenny Berglund, Patrick Debeau, Arianna Nourse
Celebrates how Black artists draw on African myths, beliefs, and knowledge to challenge Western binaries of real/unreal and science/supernatural. Through folklore, science fiction, and spirituality, they reimagine past and future—not as escapism, but as radical possibilities for transforming the racialized everyday. The documentary unfolds in vivid vignettes inspired by African folktales, interwoven with conversations with leading Black creatives exploring myth and fantasy as tools of resistance and liberation. Following writer-curator Ekow Eshun’s journey, the film becomes both a visual odyssey and a profound meditation on heritage, imagination, and the right to dream.

Jack Whitten: A Cosmic Soul
Director(s): Yoruba Richen
Producer(s): Yoruba Richen, Ferne Pearlstein, Kiana Jackson
Explores the extraordinary life and work of one of the most innovative and overlooked artists of our time. A recent review of his landmark career retrospective at MoMA asked: “Is Whitten the most important American artist that you’ve never heard of?” This film tells the story of how Jack charted his own path over five decades, leaving an indelible mark on American art that the culture is only now coming to terms with.

JOUD (wt)
Director(s): Diana El Jeiroudi
Producer(s): Diana El Jeiroudi, Orwa Nyrabia
Description forthcoming

Kongo Is Burning
Director(s): Arnold Aganze
Producer(s): Ali Musoke
A documentary portrait of La Duchesse and Consolée, two transgender women who forge fulfilling lives in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. While their homeland is frequently depicted through the narrow prisms of resource extraction, armed conflict, and post-colonial struggles, this film shifts perspectives by celebrating resilience, creative expression, and joy.

Mexicanamerican
Director(s): Eddie Sánchez
Producer(s): Michael Rogerson, Eben Sánchez
Using present-day interviews and the VHS home movies his family once sent across the border, a filmmaker explores how and why his parents migrated to the U.S. from Mexico, revealing a personal mosaic of one family’s struggle to reconcile two cultures between two generations.

Our Home Is Not Of This World
Director(s): Russ Finkelstein
Producer(s): Phil Pinto, Manuel F. Contreras, Adriana Trujillo, Elaisha Stokes
Dr. Stern is the sole medical examiner in Laredo, Texas, where she identifies migrants who perish crossing the border. She wants to retire, but Webb County can’t find her replacement. A meditation on the bureaucracies and rituals that surround death through the lens of the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.

Paraíso Artificial: El legado de Cine Mujer
Director(s): Alejandra Wills
Producer(s): Carolina Gómez, María Posada
The Cine Mujer Foundation (FCM) was Colombia’s first feminist audiovisual group. Active from 1978 to 1999, it stands as a cornerstone of social cinema and women’s filmmaking in Colombia and Latin America. Due to the limited resources allocated to audiovisual preservation in Colombia—and cultural agendas that have deprioritized social and women’s struggles—its archive of more than 80 audiovisual works is at risk of being forgotten. This documentary seeks to honor the legacy of Cine Mujer and its body of work, while reflecting on gender violence and inequalities both within Colombian society and inside the audiovisual industry.

Principios
Director(s): Susana “Shula” Erenberg
Producer(s): Abril Schmucler Íñiguez
A portrait of Juan Ernesto Méndez, a man who has devoted his life to promoting and defending the dignity and rights of men and women, no matter where they come from. From a very young age, he worked to defend the rights of workers, as well as those of political prisoners in Argentina. As a result of this, he was persecuted by the State, arrested by the police, imprisoned, and tortured. Since his release, he has worked in the universal field of human rights and the abolition of torture, contributing with “The Méndez Principles.”

Relative Strangers
Director(s): Deann Borshay Liem
Producer(s): Deann Borshay Liem, Sam Pollard, Sarah S. Kim
During and after the Korean War, thousands of mixed-race children were abandoned by their American GI fathers, stigmatized by Korean society, and sent to be adopted by couples in the West. Today, many are searching for their original families, initiating unexpected discoveries about self, family, race, and culture. Relative Strangers follows their stories, uncovering the racial and social inequalities of the world’s largest international adoption program and its impact on individuals and societies.

RETRIEVAL
Director(s): Tracy Jarrett
Producer(s): Tracy Jarrett, Rebecca Stern, Emma Moley
If science allowed you to hold onto someone you lost, would you? Faced with the death of her fiancé, Christina retrieves his sperm posthumously, starting a journey of self and scientific discovery as she tries to keep their hopes of a family alive.

SHAHID
Director(s): James Adolphus
Producer(s): Robe Imbriano, Valerie Hong
SHAHID reveals the remarkable voice of Reginald Dwayne Betts, a man whose journey from felon to poet, lawyer, and relentless advocate challenges our understanding of what kind of people are locked up in this country. This documentary is a lyrical exploration of forgiveness, love, safety, and the indelible impact of incarceration. As a ‘shahid’, or witness, Betts offers a profound perspective on the brutal realities of the criminal justice system, reflecting on his past as both a perpetrator and a survivor of a broken system. Through Betts’s eyes, we gain invaluable insights into who we are as a society and what we might yet become, making SHAHID a powerful testament to the human capacity to carry our histories, both good and bad, with us forever.

Sons of Detroit
Director(s): Jeremy Xido
Producer(s): Amanda Burr, Joe Brewster, Lori Cheatle, Michèle Stephenson, Russell Stewart
After a heart attack onstage nearly kills him, performer/filmmaker Jeremy Xido returns home to Detroit for the first time in over 20 years to confront demons from his past. The only child of leftist parents and the only white kid in his neighborhood, Jeremy was taken in and raised as one of the cousins in a Black family in 1970’s Detroit. He returns home many years later to find their house in ruins, his family scattered. To piece together what happened, he searches out his cousin, Boo, who is recently home after 20 years in prison. Together, the two men unravel tangled threads of race, belonging, violence, and love that shaped their lives.

Spaceman in Kongo
Director(s): Maisha Maene
Producer(s): Leo Nelki, Josune Hahnheiser
Spaceman in Kongo follows three generations in the evolving quest for an African space program: two young engineering students, Nestor and Isaac; their mentor, Jean-Patrice Keka, a charismatic Congolese engineer who has spent nearly two decades building rockets from salvaged parts; and the visionary spirit of Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, the 1960s Zambian “afronaut” who once dared to dream of sending Africans to Mars. For Nestor and Isaac, members of a new Congolese generation that has watched the global giants of capital feed on their country’s resources, space is an opportunity to reclaim the forces of technology.

The 4/30 Project
Director(s): Bruce Thierry Cheung
Producer(s): Chananun Chotrungroj, Bao Nguyen, Jenni Trange Le, Kenneth Nguyen, Thao Ha
The 4/30 Project is a feature-length documentary about Vietnamese American families separated by deportation. It is a transnational portrait of belonging and displacement, survival and memory, carried across borders and generations. Filmed in the United States and in Vietnam, the story follows families living in the long shadow of war and migration. Decades after the fall of Saigon, the consequences of conflict, incarceration, and immigration continue to shape their lives in lasting ways.

The Coil Case
Director(s): Nivi Pedersen, Camilla Nielsson
Producer(s): Emile Herling Péronard, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Nils Hagen, Dorthe Gad, Dorthe Høegh Brask
Thousands of Inuit women in Greenland were fitted with IUDs by Danish doctors in the 1960s and ’70s—often without their consent. This film follows the women’s fight for justice and raises critical questions regarding Denmark’s colonization of Greenland.

The Empire of Ebony
Director(s): Lisa Cortés
Producer(s): Lisa Cortés, Roger Ross Williams, Alyse Shorland
The story of John H. and Eunice Johnson’s “The Johnson Publishing Company” is the stuff of legends. Started in 1942 in Chicago with a $500 loan secured by their family’s furniture, the company would grow into a publishing juggernaut that included not just its iconic magazines Ebony and Jet but books, cosmetics, fashion, television, and radio stations. They chronicled over 75 years of history, telling stories of Black struggle, the civil rights movement, and a changing America.

The Gardeners
Director(s): Crystal Kayiza
Producer(s): Brit Fryer
As keepers of one of the oldest Black cemeteries in Mississippi, the Worthy Women of Watkins Street nurture the liminal space between past, present, and future. The labor of these aging worldbuilders becomes a blueprint to navigate memory, legacy, and mortality, revealing the divine spirit residing in their daily lives.

The Story of Documentary Film
Director(s): Mark Cousins
Producer(s): John Archer
Spanning 16 hours, this epic documentary traces the global evolution of nonfiction film, revealing the filmmakers who discovered, innovated, and shaped documentary cinema into a dynamic lens for life.

The Virgin and the Troubled
Director(s): Everardo Gonzalez
Producer(s): Everardo Gonzalez
A research project about the religious fractures within the New Jerusalem community. The project delves into the complexities of polarization.

UNION TOWN
Director(s): Barbara Kopple
Producer(s): Barbara Kopple, Hannes Hosp
Set against the backdrop of New York City, UNION TOWN is an intimate and evocative portrait of ordinary people fighting for union contracts and demanding dignity at UPS, Amazon, and across the app-based food delivery industry; in cinéma vérité style, these workers and their families unite through shared struggle, friendship, and solidarity.

Unlocked
Director(s): Luke Terrell
Producer(s): Lauren Heimer, Alex Schmider, Annie Marr, Alexander Mok, Lily Wachowski, Lawrence Mattis, John Legend, Mike Jackson, Ty Stiklorius
Sentenced to life for crimes committed as teenagers, a group of inmates in Missouri’s death row prison teaches themselves to code without access to the Internet. When their tenacious leaders, Jessica and Chris, are released after over 25 years of incarceration, they use their coding skills to build Unlocked Labs, a prison education company disrupting the predatory prison-industrial landscape.

Untitled Darius Clark Monroe Documentary Film
Director(s): Darius Clark Monroe
Producer(s): Darius Clark Monroe, Lauren Domino, Alon Simcha
A surrealist hybrid docu-memoir that examines identity, perception, and the evolving role of legal professionals in shaping society. Through the personal and professional journeys of judges, attorneys, and legal scholars, the film explores how historical and cultural forces influence those who interpret and uphold the law.

When a Poet Goes to War
Director(s): Aung Naing Soe
Producer(s): Han Yan Yuen
When peaceful protests fail to sway the country’s dictator, a Burmese poet and his fellow artists pick up arms to fight the well-resourced military junta. Deep in the jungles they are gaining ground, but the former pacifists struggle with the mental and physical realities of a brutal war.

Winnie and Nelson
Director(s): Dawn Porter
Producer(s): Kim Reynolds
Explores the lives and marriage of one of modern history’s most powerful, controversial, and misunderstood couples: Nelson and Winnie Mandela. As one of the most celebrated political leaders of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela’s story has been told by numerous biographers and historians. But his relationship with his wife has gone largely unexplored, as has her story. The film—part dual biography, part political thriller—examines how a courtship on the streets of Johannesburg between Winnie and the much older Mandela led to a revolution decades later that changed not only South Africa but the world, leaving Mandela as the victor and Winnie as the villain.

You Don’t Know My Name
Director(s): Tommy Franklin
Producer(s): Tommy Franklin, Rajal Pitroda, Samantha Steele, Darcy McKinnon
In 1984 in Louisiana, Tommy Franklin was snatched from his mother’s arms at birth in prison and thrown into the foster system. He is a formerly incarcerated filmmaker who constantly imagines what his birth mother may be like. Tommy unites with prison birth workers to build a stronger community of support and healing to incarcerated mothers and their children. He spends time with pregnant, incarcerated people and mothers who have given birth behind bars. They discuss the complicated world of prison and post-prison life that can haunt someone forever. These conversations allow all parties involved to mirror one another’s feelings of wonderment, curiosity, and hope.