Grants

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.

Every year we organise two selection rounds for our grant programme. The application deadlines for both 2024 rounds have passed and submission is no longer possible. Subscribe to our newsletter or follow our social media channels to stay up to date when the next call for project proposals opens.

The selection committee of the Movies that Matter Support programme consists of people with various backgrounds and expertise. For 2024, 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, film programmer and assistant professor at Leiden University

Since 2007, we supported over 350 human rights film events in more than 85 different countries for a grant total of over 2,2 million euros. These projects combined reached more than 2,8 million (online) visitors. Check out our recently supported projects:

Supported Projects 2024Supported Projects 2023 Supported Projects 2022 Supported Projects 2021 Supported Projects 2020Supported Projects 2019