Grants
Future Grant programme
The shifting political climate worldwide has also impacted Dutch policy, resulting in significant budget cuts at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This has also affected Movies that Matter: to our heartfelt regret we will not have grant application rounds in 2026 and beyond until further notice. We do our utmost best to continue our efforts as we have been building and co-creating this important ecosystem of human rights film festivals worldwide since 2007. We advise you to stay up to date via this website, English newsletter, or social media channels in case new (funding) opportunities arise in the future. For other possible resources check out the ‘Advice & Resources‘ section.
—
We offer a start-up grant for new human rights film events and an impact grant for established human rights film events that want to increase their impact or want to add new activities to their programmes. These events can take various forms, such as human rights film festivals, LGBTI film festivals, environmental film festivals and mobile cinema projects. Please check our criteria & regulations before applying. Movies that Matter judges every project on its individual quality.
We support film festivals, mobile cinema and other types of film screenings that promote public debate on human rights. Please note that we don’t finance film productions, industry events or workshops on film production. You can find an overview of possible resources for film production here.
The selection committee of the Movies that Matter Support programme consists of people with various backgrounds and expertise. For 2025, the selection committee consists of:
- Chris Belloni, director International Queer & Migrant Film Festival & Foundation Art. 1
- Mira Chowdhury, Latin America programme lead at Free Press Unlimited
- Will Janssen, Director Business Development at Hivos
- Margje de Koning, artistic director of Movies that Matter
- Julian Ross, Head of Film Programming & Distribution at Eye Filmmuseum
Since 2007, we supported over 375 human rights film events in more than 85 different countries for a grant total of over 2,4 million euros. These projects combined reached more than 3,6 million (online) visitors. Check out our recently supported projects: