"Fund Festival: The Council on Foundations," International Documentary…

"Fund Festival: The Council on Foundations,"
International Documentary, March 2002

By Pat Aufderheide

A film festival that celebrates the funders of a film or video? That's what the annual
Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival does. It showcases a dozen selections of
films and videos produced over the last few years at several of the conferences held each
year by the Council on Foundations, an association of private foundations. The festival
debuts at the annual conference, and then travels to smaller COF conferences targeted at
corporate, community and family foundations. It evidences foundations' growing
awareness of the importance of media in a wide range of action agendas, and their
increasing interest in funding outreach as well as production.

Conference-goers can watch the films on closed-circuit cable in their hotel rooms, or in a
suite of the hotel where the films run in permanent rotation. The festival is only open to
attendees, but directors and producers of the showcased productions are sometimes
invited. There, the questions reflect the concerns of the crowd: Do you circulate this to
people in rural areas? Does this video have a study guide? How many calls did you get on
the 800 number? Did broadcasters air that public service announcement in afterschool
hours? And of course, there are also the familiar questions that producers everywhere
want answers for: How do you get to audiences?

The Festival began in the politically tumultuous years 1960s, when some foundation
officers saw that media were critically important tools for social change, and that
communications technologies offered new opportunities for expression and access to
audiences. To educate and inspire their colleagues, they decided to show off good media
funded at least in part by private foundations. The festival has since become a treasured
part of the Council's activities.

In the several years that I've been asked to curate the festival, working with a selection
committee made up of COF members, I have been impressed by the many kinds of
creative collaboration between funders and makers, to produce media that makes a
difference. Foundations are often instrumental in shaping a project.

Sometimes funders commission media to be at the center of a major project. Take this
Heart (a 1999-2000 selection), Katheryn Hunt's powerfully moving, cinema verité
portrait of one successful foster family, is one example. It was the centerpiece of the first
phase of The Foster Care Project, designed and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation
and Casey Family Fund, in partnership with the Seattle public TV station KCTS and the
Child Welfare League.

The foundations, which are concerned with children and families, wanted to address
foster care. The number of children who need it has risen dramatically over the last
decade, while the number of foster families has declined. The film was designed as a
high-profile focal point of an action and policy strategy. Partnering with public television



                                             1
ensured broadcast. They also commissioned several versions of the film, including 3-
minute and 8-minute versions, to be used in discussion and advocacy, as well as other
outreach tools such as an 800 number, printed materials and a website. In communities
around the country, grassroots organizations used the broadcast and off-broadcast
versions of the film to increase support for foster children and foster parents.

Another example of foundation-driven media projects is the award-winning, three-part
set of half-hour training videos for caregivers of children who live in violent
environments, The Power of Our Relationships (a 2000-2001 COF selection). It was
developed by the producers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Family Communications,
working with nonprofits concerned with children, at the request and with the backing of
the Heinz Family Endowments and state government agencies. The directors of The
Heinz Endowments, two family foundations working collaboratively to improve quality
of life in southwestern Pennsylvania, wanted to intervene in the cycle of violence at the
early childhood level. They focused on training of childcare providers, and chose video
for its power to model successful behaviors, to capture the many subtle ways in which the
caring adults demonstrate the supportive, structure-building behaviors that help childen at
risk learn and grow. Each of the three resulting videos concludes with a series of short,
"trigger" videoclip excerpts from the video, keyed to the training manual. The package
has been so successful that it's been adopted in other states as well.

Funders can also adopt projects into their campaigns. Reproductive health is a large issue
for many foundations, including the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a leader in
innovative mass media strategies for public health education generally. Blood Lines (in
the 2000-2001 COF festival) got on MTV, under the title It Could be You, with strategic
help from Kaiser. Two HIV+ teens, Jennifer Jako and Rebecca Guberman, had decided to
make a film out of their own and other teens' experience with HIV, although they had no
expertise when they started. "We just felt that a lot of what was out there wasn't made in
a way that youth would really watch," said Jennifer Jako. They got startup help from The
Equity Foundation, founded by the gay and lesbian community of Oregon to fund
conversations and connections among all Oregonians.

Vicky Rideout, director of the foundation's Entertainment Media and Public Health
Program, saw a rough edit of the film they had offered to MTV, and was impressed
enough to offer crucial post-production funds that made it MTV-friendly. Kaiser has an
ongoing, multimillion dollar relationship with MTV to raise awareness on sexual health.
"MTV had a perfect audience for us, and knows how to speak to that audience in a voice
that is authentic and compelling," said Rideout. "Here they found two young filmmakers
who spoke directly from the heart about an incredibly important issue to young people."
Kaiser also paid for outreach at the grassroots throughout the U.S, using a special
nonbroadcast version funded by The Funding Exchange's Paul Robeson Fund for
Independent Media, which supports progressive media.

Major foundations, such as the Ford Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, often now
build a media element into any large project, whether it is about community housing
initiatives or micro-credit or rural development. Far rarer among foundations is



                                            2
grantmaking for film art. That is why the Rockefeller Foundation's media arts
fellowships are treasured. The latest COF festival season features two Rockefeller
fellows's documentaries. Mexican filmmaker Juan Carlos Rulfo, the son of renowned
Mexican author Juan Rulfo, was funded to make Juan, I Forgot I Don't Remember, a wry
and nostalgic look at the peasant world his father left behind. In interviews with
sometimes cagey oldsters, memories freely mix with fantasies. Alan Berliner's Nobody's
Business, an instant classic as a portrait of his cantankerous father, was completed with
funds from Rockefeller.

Increasingly, the COF festival draws submissions that use new communications
technologies. This year, the work of Witness is highlighted. Witness, an organization that
creates and uses video as a tool of human rights activism, Witness has capitalized on the
fact that camcorders are now a commonplace piece of luggage for human rights activists;
if they lack the basics to do amateur video, they can use a Witness training video (don't
swing the camera around, beware noisy environments, avoid close close-ups). Witness
counts more than half a million hits a month on its website, witness.org. There, if you
have a fast modem you can watch videos from Kosovo, India, Mexico, Burkina Faso--or
wherever a human rights activist has taken video that shows you the need to act for
human rights. Then you can click over to a website that lets you take action. The Reebok
Human Rights Foundation was an early funder of Witness, which musician Peter Gabriel
co-founded and continues to support.

"It's a very different kind of festival," remarked filmmaker Judith Helfand, whose The
Uprising of '34, co-directed with George Stoney, and whose A Healthy Baby Girl were
both COF festival selections. "You have to remember you're there to present, not to
pitch. But I wish there were more natural forums for funders and filmmakers to talk about
the impact of our work."

For more information on the festival, go to http://www.cof.org/glossary/index.htm, where
there is a downloadable submission form, or write to Evelyn Gibson, Council on
Foundations, 1828 L St., Washington, DC, 20036. For more information on funders and
film, consult fundfilm.org.




                                            3