The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation is a major supporter of IDA’s biennial Getting Real conference, which brings together documentary filmmakers and industry professionals to build relationships and develop the documentary community. With support from JLFF, IDA also launched the Logan Elevate Grant in 2018, which provides funding to emerging women and non-binary filmmakers of color working on investigative projects, and delivers training and advocacy work to deepen the impact of documentary film.
The Logan Elevate Grant recipients are:
Concrete Land (2024)
Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker. Her first feature documentary, Concrete Land, is an intimate look into the complex dynamics of a three-generational Palestinian Bedouin family and their pet sheep. As they navigate increasing hostility from their neighbors, they struggle to hold on to their lifestyle and tradition under the constant threat of displacement.
Gay Games (2024)
Cherish Oteka (they/them) is a BAFTA award-winning filmmaker. Gay Games is their first cinematic feature-length documentary and will explore the games, the athletes and the organizers as they work through the complexities of delivering a ‘fair and inclusive’ sporting landscape for LGBTQ+ athletes.
We Are Volcanoes (2024)
Sharon Yeung is a Hong Kong-based director/producer who tells stories across multiple formats, including interactive VR pieces. In 2017, she founded Singing Cicadas, a female-run production company turned impact agency that creates nonfiction stories and campaigns around social justice issues in Asia.
Confidential Project (2023)
Janay Boulos is a Lebanese journalist and filmmaker. Her focus is on sharing stories of lived experiences within the Middle East, particularly from Lebanon and Syria.
Untitled (2023)
Arya Rothe is an Indian filmmaker and a co-founder of NoCut Film Collective. Her current untitled project follows an indigenous woman from India who fought as a Naxalite (armed Maoist Guerrilla) to defend the land rights of her people. Her efforts to build a permanent home are cut short when another community claims ownership of her land.
Coach Emily (2023)
Pallavi Somusetty is an Oakland-based filmmaker who creates documentary portraits centering BIPOC voices. Her current project follows a queer Black rock climbing coach who trains a diverse group of BIPOC girls and non-binary kids to conquer the pervasive discrimination they face in the great outdoors.
Remaining Native (2022)
Paige Bethmann is a Haudenosaunee director and producer based in Reno, NV. Remaining Native focuses on Ku Stevens, a high school senior and talented distance runner from a Paiute reservation in Nevada who sets out to run the same 50-mile route that his great-grandfather took to escape from an Indian boarding school at the age of eight.
The Untitled 19th* News Film (2022)
Chelsea Hernandez is an Emmy-nominated Mexican American filmmaker based in Austin, TX. The Untitled 19th* News Film chronicles the launch of an all-women and non-binary news start-up spearheaded by veteran journalist Emily Ramshaw.
The White Doctor (2022)
Zippy Kimundu is an award-winning Kenyan filmmaker and founder of the creatives collective Afrofilms International. The White Doctor documents the case of an American missionary in Uganda who is accused of causing the deaths of more than one hundred children while allegedly posing as a doctor.
Exodus Stories: Voices from the Caravan (2021)
Ilse Fernandez is a Colombian-born U.S. immigrant, documentary filmmaker and docu-series showrunner. Exodus Stories follows the dangerous journeys of three immigrants fleeing violence and seeking asylum at the U.S. border.
Untitled Rintu Thomas Project (2021)
Rintu Thomas is a director-producer from India and co-founder of Black Ticket Films, an award-winning film production agency based in New Delhi. Rintu’s films have been used as advocacy tools for social impact. Her documentary feature Writing with Fire debuted at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it won two awards.
Untitled Chinese in Africa Project (2020)
Jialing Zhang is an Emmy Award-nominated independent Chinese filmmaker based in Massachusetts. This documentary will offer an insider look at a powerful Chinese industrial zone in West Africa, and the profound and complex challenges facing the local community.
An Act of Worship (2020)
Nausheen Dadabhoy is a Pakistani-American director and cinematographer from California. An Act of Worship explores what it means to be a Muslim in America.
De-Documented (2019)
Nina Alvarez is a journalist, documentarian and video photographer. Her film follows a family in Washington, D.C. as they face the threat of deportation and family separation.
Hidden Letters (2019)
Violet Du Feng was a 2018 Sundance Non-fiction Producing Fellow and co-director Zhao Qing is an award-winning director and producer of documentary television and film. Their film follows two Chinese Millennial women, one living in rural and one in metropolitan China. As they navigate their career and family choices in a male-dominated world, they look toward the wisdom of Nushu, an ancient, secret woman-only script.
Always in Season (2018)
Jacqueline Olive is an independent filmmaker and digital media producer. As the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present, Always in Season follows both the relatives of the perpetrators and the victims who are seeking justice and reconciliation in the midst of heated national debates surrounding the value of Black lives.
Through the Night (2018)
Loira Limbal is an Afro-Dominican filmmaker and DJ. Through the Night explores the personal cost of our modern economy through the stories of two working mothers and a child care provider, whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center.