Amid the federal government’s elimination of all Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding, Firelight Media is stepping in with a new rapid-response initiative aimed at supporting filmmakers of color.

On Nov. 17, the organization announced the inaugural recipients of the Firelight Fund, which will distribute $580,000 in unrestricted grants to 18 documentary projects by Black, Brown and Indigenous creators. The initiative was launched by Firelight Media’s new president and CEO, Loira Limbal, within her first 100 days of leadership.

“The elimination of federal support for public media has created a manufactured crisis for documentary filmmakers, especially those from Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities who have historically relied on public media and CPB-funded initiatives,” Limbal said. “We launched the Firelight Fund knowing there is an urgent need for timely, community-led storytelling about what frontline communities are experiencing right now.”

Grants range from $20,000 to $50,000, with no strings attached, allowing recipients to use the funds across development, production, post-production or distribution.

“This Fund represents our commitment to resourcing filmmakers using documentaries as tools for social change and movement building, while also recognizing that it is the unique, creative visions of filmmakers of color that will point the way forward,” Limbal added.

The fund received over 550 applications, evaluated based on artistic vision, community connection, feasibility and impact potential.

2025 Firelight Fund Recipients

The following filmmakers and projects were selected to receive support from the inaugural Firelight Fund:

Lori Webster, Signs & Wonders
In a world where race and disability are often overlooked in the same breath, Valerie McMillan—Black woman, only hearing child of Deaf adults (OHCODA), and professional sign language interpreter—reclaims her voice, reshapes cultural norms, and bridges generational gaps in a community too often left unheard.

Diego Estrada Bernu, The Weight of a Dream (working title)
In Aurora, Colorado, a former Venezuelan Taekwondo team member chases his dream of competing in one of the world’s top MMA organizations. As he fights to prove himself inside the cage, he must also navigate a country that questions his worth beyond it.

Assia Boundaoui, Within Sight and Sound
Within Sight and Sound chronicles two years in the anti-war movement in Chicago, home to the largest Palestinian community in the U.S., where thousands collectively demand an end to genocide in Gaza. The film visually deconstructs the making of narratives and the ways that power produces history.

Christopher Frierson, Untitled Cop City Project
In the wake of the uprisings of 2020, the city of Atlanta announced plans to construct the largest police training facility in America. The ensuing years would see pitched political battles in city hall, mass mobilization in the streets, an activist shot dead in a forest, and a city divided.

Aurora Brachman, Dear You
After escaping an abusive marriage and fleeing to the U.S., Grace James finds herself trapped in the U.S. asylum system for 10 years. In this poetic portrait of a woman in limbo, haunting memories begin to resurface of Grace’s past life and her disappearing homeland—the island nation of Kiribati.

Lauren Waring Douglas, Rooted
In Rooted, Germaine Jenkins creates an urban farm on a city lot, bringing fresh produce to a food desert in North Charleston, South Carolina. As she embarks on a journey to own the land, this documentary follows her as she navigates the government and the realities of becoming a community leader.

Christina Ramirez, Norma
In the heart of Texas’s borderlands, Norma follows Sister Norma Pimentel, a Catholic nun and renowned humanitarian on the frontlines of America’s immigration crisis. In today’s sharply divided political climate, she faces the fiercest backlash of her career. Can one person defy the tide when mercy itself is in question?

Sara Chishti, Taxi Driver
Amid crippling debt and relentless exploitation, New York City’s immigrant taxi drivers fight to reclaim their humanity and the “American Dream,” navigating a city-sanctioned medallion lending scheme that has left their community in financial ruin.

Christina DiPasquale, Barrio Television
Barrio Television reveals how Puerto Rican activists fearlessly disrupted public television in the 1970s to launch Realidades, the first bilingual Latino series in U.S. history. With original creators and never-before-seen materials, the film revives their unfinished fight for media power, a struggle that remains as urgent today as ever.

Sarah Krusen, Soft
Soft examines rest as a radical act of resistance for Black women. Blending archival imagery, interviews, and movement, the film connects historical exploitation to modern exhaustion, revealing rest as a practice of healing, liberation, and reclamation rooted in science, spirit, and intergenerational wisdom.

Shiraz Ahmed, No Discount
As a pandemic exposes the cracks in Detroit’s safety net, three generations of Black Detroiters reveal how charity-based care keeps people alive in a city neglected by government and industry. But is charity a solution, or a symptom of a broken system?

Enrique Pedraza-Botero, S.E.C.T.O.R. B
S.E.C.T.O.R. B observes how autonomous surveillance systems and the expanding economy of military futurism transform immigrant neighborhoods into spaces marked by invisible pressure and suspicion, altering how people move, gather, and disappear.

Razi Jaffri, Uncommitted
Uncommitted follows Arab and Muslim American activists who launched a historic protest vote during the 2024 U.S. election, challenging the Democratic Party’s silence on Gaza. Centered in Dearborn and at the DNC in Chicago, the film captures their courage, backlash, and fight to redefine democracy and political inclusion in America.

Marialuisa Ernst, A Place of Absence
Decades after the disappearance of her uncle during Argentina’s Dirty War, filmmaker Marialuisa Ernst joins the Caravan of Mothers, a group of Central American women traveling the migrant trail in search of loved ones who have disappeared trying to reach the U.S.

Hao Wu, TikTok Never Dies
To save TikTok from a U.S. ban, three creators join the platform’s lawsuit against the government, only to discover that their unexpected ally is Donald Trump, the very president who first tried to kill the app in 2020.

So Yun Um, Americana Bang Bang
After losing a family member due to gun violence, filmmaker So Yun Um goes on a journey to learn more about where Asian Americans stand on gun ownership and violence.

Sonia Desai Rayka, Untitled Camera Workshop Film
As a group of children navigate the uncertainty of their family’s asylum case, they take photo walks across New York to document the homes they’ve built in a city growing increasingly more hostile toward them.

Elise Hu, Windswept
After catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles upend their lives, four different teens from a cross-section of LA face extraordinary loss while navigating the ordinary challenges of adolescence: When your world burns down, how do you grow up?