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JEWISH STORY PARTNERS ANNOUNCES GRANTS TO SIX DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECTS AND OPEN CALL FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS

JEWISH STORY PARTNERS ANNOUNCES GRANTS TO SIX DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECTS AND OPEN CALL FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS

JEWISH STORY PARTNERS ANNOUNCES $175,000 IN GRANTS TO SIX DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECTS AND OPEN CALL FOR NEW SUBMISSIONS

JSP takes a film industry leadership role in support of independent films as federal funding is slashed

JSP announces new partnership with philanthropist and film producer Mickey Shapiro

JSP announces partnership with Atlanta Jewish Film

JSP grantees in Oscar race include All God’s Children, Ada – My Mother the Architect, Among Neighbors, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, Coexistence, My Ass!, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, Holding Liat, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Monk In Pieces, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – LastAir in Moscow, and Walk With Me

Call for Entries now open for next granting cycle

LOS ANGELES (Thursday, November 20, 2025) – Jewish Story Partners (JSP), a leading non-profit film funding organization, announced its new Reprise grants today, with $175,000 distributed among six feature-length documentary films, as well as two significant new partnerships that will further deepen JSP’s ongoing commitment to supporting documentary films with Jewish content.

With Reprise grants, Jewish Story Partners awards follow-up grants twice annually to a group of previously funded projects that have made significant progress. The Reprise Grant Program is designed to help accelerate JSP projects toward completion. Through this additional funding and extended qualitative support, JSP helps projects advance at key inflection points.

Launched in 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, JSP responds to a critical gap in funding for independent Jewish film as well as the pressing need for stories that reflect the broad and surprising spectrum of Jewish experiences, cultures, and encounters. JSP works to stimulate and support the highest caliber independent films that expand the Jewish story. Since its inception, JSP has awarded nearly $4 million in grants to 118 projects. Of these, fifty projects are now complete and launching at festivals or are in distribution.

In addition to Reprise Grants, JSP is also pleased to announce that second generation Holocaust survivor, businessman, and philanthropist Mickey Shapiro has made a generous gift to the JSP Holocaust Film Fund, continuing his unparalleled commitment to Holocaust memory and education. In 2025 alone, Mickey Shapiro’s gift has allowed JSP to support 14 excellent films with Holocaust content, including The Archives and Hitler’s Eye in the current Reprise cycle. Since its inception in 2021, 30% of JSP’s grants have been to films centering the Holocaust and now with Mickey Shapiro’s support, films about the Holocaust will continue to be a tent-pole of JSP granting into the foreseeable future.

Jewish Story Partners and ATL Jewish Film — the cultural organization behind the world-renowned Atlanta Jewish Film Festival — announce a new multi-year grantmaking partnership. Each year, ATL Jewish Film will expand JSP’s project support by giving finishing grants to promising feature documentaries already in the JSP roster. This inaugural grantmaking effort, made possible by ATL Jewish Film lead donors Kathy and Jason Evans, launches ATL Jewish Film’s Filmmaker Fund, a cornerstone of the organization’s campaign to establish ATL Jewish Film as a year-round hub for Jewish storytelling, film culture, and creative collaboration.

In addition to Reprise grants, JSP also announces the third cohort of its Education-Impact Program. In partnership with leading educational distributor Good Docs/Sage, JSP annually underwrites 600+ free screenings of three JSP-funded documentaries at non-profits, schools, universities, and religious institutions. This program offers these groups access to viewing guides and the opportunity to invite the filmmaker to join post-screening conversations. This year’s JSP-Good Docs selection is Ada – My Mother the Architect (Yael
Melamede), Among Neighbors (Yoav Potash), and Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny(Jeff Bieber and Chana Gazit).

Fifty JSP-funded films are now complete and 2025 has been a banner year for our projects, which are playing the most prestigious film festivals, winning awards, and reaching audiences widely. Running the gamut of topics and points of view, 12 JSP films are currently in contention for the Academy Award including All God’s Children, Ada – My Mother the Architect, Among Neighbors, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, Coexistence, My Ass!, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, Holding Liat, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Monk In Pieces, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, and Walk
With Me.

Visit jewishstorypartners.org/now-playing for detailed information on how to watch JSP films. JSP has now opened a call for entries for feature-length documentaries by U.S.-based producers and/or directors. Applications are due January 16, 2025. JSP currently accepts submissions via one open call per year, with juried decisions made in spring.

“I’m proud to support Jewish Story Partners. Preserving the memory of the Holocaust through film is something I’ve been passionate about for many years,” says Mickey Shapiro. “Supporting JSP means investing in our collective memory and ensuring these vital stories continue to inspire, educate, and connect us. It’s truly an honor to be part of this mission.”

 

“It is very exciting to see films we’ve supported at early stages come back to us with our faith in them abundantly rewarded. By giving a second grant to the most promising films, we are expediting the process of getting the most excellent films in front of diverse audiences,” said JSP’s Executive Director Roberta Grossman.

 

“We believe in the power of film to build bridges of understanding, empathy, and shared experience,” said Kenny Blank, ATL Jewish Film Executive and Artistic Director. “Jewish Story Partners has established the gold standard for championing accomplished filmmakers and advancing compelling, high-impact documentary projects.” The 2025 inaugural grant goes to The Day After from directors Yuval Orr and Aziz Abu Sarah.

FALL 2025 REPRISE GRANTEES (Film descriptions provided by grantees)

The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks

Director and Producer Dempsey Rice, Producer Lori Cheatle

A newly discovered archive of personal audio/video combines with immersive animation to reveal the early professional life of Jewish neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks before he became famous. We experience his work with patients alongside his own struggles as he lays the groundwork for the modern neurodiversity movement.

The Archives

Director and Producer Bernadette Wegenstein, Producers Renée Frigo and Henrique Landulfo

In an age of dizzying disinformation and rising antisemitism, preserving Holocaust archives is more important than ever. The Archives tells the story of these hallowed grounds of truth, the archivists who safeguard them, and the victims’ descendants who turn to them, excavating the trauma of the past to build a better future.

The Day After

Director and Producer Yuval Orr, Director Aziz Abu Sarah, Producers Liel Maghen, Margaux Missika, and Chris Patterson

Amid rising tensions and the outbreak of war, a group of Israelis and Palestinians travel to Northern Ireland to hear, and to try to tell, an impossible story: how bitter enemies finally make peace.

Father Figures

Director and Producer Emma D. Miller, Producers Colby Day and Florrie Priest

When a retired theater director begins creating internet videos featuring intimate conversations with his growing collection of ventriloquist dummies — including characters modeled after Jewish family members — his daughter attempts to repair their relationship by exploring the psychological depths and possibilities of his strange new hobby.

The Greatest and the Loudest

Director and Producer Ron Frank, Producer Glenn Kirschbaum

From the 1960s through the 1980s, an unlikely duo – boxer Muhammad Ali and newsman Howard Cosell, a Muslim from Kentucky and a Jew from Brooklyn – found their calling sparring about sports on American television. Their good-natured, loving debates not only entertained audiences, but broadcasted a model for defying racism and antisemitism in a world riddled with segregation and hate.

Hitler’s Eye

Director Dror Moreh, Producers Sigrid Dyekjaer, Natalie Humphreys, Philippe Levasseur, Konstanze Speide, and Harry Vaughn

A Berlin man unearths a vast archive of photographs, taken by his father, of Hitler’s inner circle during WWII. He kept them secret for years out of shame, but now, in his elder years, decides these extraordinary images must come to light. Encountering this chilling, never-seen trove, we gain new depths of understanding of Hitler, his propaganda machine, and the visual ideology that metastasized within his cloistered world.

2025 Education-Impact Program Cohort (Film descriptions provided by grantees.)

Ada – My Mother the Architect

Director and Producer Yael Melamede, Producer Hilla Medalia

Despite being one of Israel’s most important architects, Ada Karmi-Melamede remains largely unknown in the public sphere. Now her daughter- a former architect- sets out to tell the story of this most unusual role model, against the backdrop of the turbulent country Ada is rooted within.

Among Neighbors

Director and Producer Yoav Potash

In a small Polish town where Jews were murdered after World War II, an aging eyewitness risks imprisonment to search for the Jewish boy she loved 73 years ago. Bringing the past to life with evocative animation, Among Neighbors depicts a quest against war, hate, and time itself.

Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny

Director and Producers Jeff Bieber and Chana Gazit, Producer Salme M. López Sabina

Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny illuminates the extraordinary life and work of one of the most influential and fearless political thinkers of the 20th century. Arendt’s time as a World War II political prisoner and refugee generated daring insights about the human condition and totalitarianism, which continue to resonate profoundly today.

WHO

JSP is grateful to our donor partners who make this vital work possible. These include founding JSP partners Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and the following donors of $10,000 or more in the past year (in alphabetical order): Anonymous (3), Bloomberg Philanthropies, Stephanie and Jon DeVaan, Gale Epstein, The Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Foundation, The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Jodi Harris, Hartman Family Foundation, Adam Irving, Marta Kauffman, The Klarman Family Foundation, Koret Foundation, Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Films, Kronhill Pletka Foundation, The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy, Julie Platt, The Posner Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Mickey Shapiro Foundation, The Jay and Terry Snider Foundation, Marcy Syms, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, and Twin Oak Fund.

For more information, please visit www.jewishstorypartners.org.
For more information about applying to JSP: jewishstorypartners.org/apply.

Learn more about our grantees here: jewishstorypartners.org/projects.
Learn more about our Education-Impact Program here: jewish story
partners.org/education-impact-program/
Facebook.com/jewishstorypartners
Instagram.com/jewishstorypartners

WHERE
jewishstorypartners.org/now-playing
More information about applying to JSP: jewishstorypartners.org/apply
Learn more about our grantees here: jewishstorypartners.org/projects
Learn more about our Education-Impact Program here: jewishstorypartners.org/education-impact-program/
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