LOS ANGELES/CMEDIA: A leading non-profit film funding organization, Jewish Story Partners (JSP) reportedly announced its new Reprise grants today for six feature-length documentary films with $175,000 distributed among them.
To further deepen JSP’s ongoing commitment to supporting documentary films with Jewish content, JPS aso included two significant new partnerships.
In addition to Reprise grants, JSP awards follow-up grants twice annually to a group of previously funded projects that have made significant progress.
Designed to help accelerate JSP projects toward completion, The Reprise Grant Program‘s additional funding extenda qualitative support in JSP projects advance.
“It is very exciting to see films we’ve supported at early stages come back to us with our faith in them abundantly rewarded. By giving a second grant to the most promising films, we are expediting the process of getting the most excellent films in front of diverse audiences,” said JSP’s Executive Director Roberta Grossman.
Supported by Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, JSP was launched in 2021.
Responding to a critical gap in funding for independent Jewish films, JSP also reflects the broad and surprising spectrum of Jewish experiences, cultures, and encounters.
Working to stimulate and support the highest caliber of independent films, since its inception, JSP has awarded nearly $4 million in grants to 118 projects, of which fifty projects are now complete and launching at festivals or are in distribution.
Besides JSP Reprise Grants,second generation Holocaust survivor, businessman, and philanthropist Mickey Shapiro, commited to Holocaust memory and education has made a generous gift to the JSP Holocaust Film Fund.
Shapiro’s gift has allowed JSP to support 14 films with Holocaust content in 2025 alone including The Archives and Hitler’s Eye in the current Reprise cycle.
“I’m proud to support Jewish Story Partners. Preserving the memory of the Holocaust through film is something I’ve been passionate about for many years,” says Mickey Shapiro. “Supporting JSP means investing in our collective memory and ensuring these vital stories continue to inspire, educate, and connect us. It’s truly an honor to be part of this mission.”
The cultural organization behind the world-renowned Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Jewish Story Partners and ATL Jewish Film, announced a new multi-year grantmaking partnership to expand JSP’s project support.
“We believe in the power of film to build bridges of understanding, empathy, and shared experience,” said Kenny Blank, ATL Jewish Film Executive and Artistic Director. “Jewish Story Partners has established the gold standard for championing accomplished filmmakers and advancing compelling, high-impact documentary projects.” The 2025 inaugural grant goes to The Day After from directors Yuval Orr and Aziz Abu Sarah.
In addition to its Reprise grants, JSP also announces the third cohort of its Education-Impact Program offering these groups access to viewing guides and the opportunity to invite the filmmaker to join post-screening conversations.
This year’s JSP-Good Docs selection is Ada – My Mother the Architect (Yael Melamede), Among Neighbors (Yoav Potash), and Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny (Jeff Bieber and Chana Gazit).
Fifty JSP-funded films are now complete and 2025 has been a banner year for our projects, which are playing the most prestigious film festivals, winning awards, and reaching audiences widely. Running the gamut of topics and points of view, 12 JSP films are currently in contention for the Academy Award including All God’s Children, Ada – My Mother the Architect, Among Neighbors, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, Coexistence, My Ass!, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, Holding Liat, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Monk In Pieces, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, and Walk
With Me.
Visit jewishstorypartners.org/now-playing for detailed information on how to watch JSP films. JSP has now opened a call for entries for feature-length documentaries by U.S.-based producers and/or directors. Applications are due January 16, 2025. JSP currently accepts submissions via one open call per year, with juried decisions made in spring.
FALL 2025 REPRISE GRANTEES
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks
Director and Producer Dempsey Rice, Producer Lori Cheatle
A newly discovered archive of personal audio/video combines with immersive animation to reveal the early professional life of Jewish neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks before he became famous. We experience his work with patients alongside his own struggles as he lays the groundwork for the modern neurodiversity movement.
The Archives
Director and Producer Bernadette Wegenstein, Producers Renée Frigo and Henrique Landulfo
In an age of dizzying disinformation and rising antisemitism, preserving Holocaust archives is more important than ever. The Archives tells the story of these hallowed grounds of truth, the archivists who safeguard them, and the victims’ descendants who turn to them, excavating the trauma of the past to build a better future.
The Day After
Director and Producer Yuval Orr, Director Aziz Abu Sarah, Producers Liel Maghen, Margaux Missika, and Chris Patterson
Amid rising tensions and the outbreak of war, a group of Israelis and Palestinians travel to Northern Ireland to hear, and to try to tell, an impossible story: how bitter enemies finally make peace.
Father Figures
Director and Producer Emma D. Miller, Producers Colby Day and Florrie Priest
When a retired theater director begins creating internet videos featuring intimate conversations with his growing collection of ventriloquist dummies — including characters modeled after Jewish family members — his daughter attempts to repair their relationship by exploring the psychological depths and possibilities of his strange new hobby.
The Greatest and the Loudest
Director and Producer Ron Frank, Producer Glenn Kirschbaum
From the 1960s through the 1980s, an unlikely duo – boxer Muhammad Ali and newsman Howard Cosell, a Muslim from Kentucky and a Jew from Brooklyn – found their calling sparring about sports on American television. Their good-natured, loving debates not only entertained audiences, but broadcasted a model for defying racism and antisemitism in a world riddled with segregation and hate.
Hitler’s Eye
Director Dror Moreh, Producers Sigrid Dyekjaer, Natalie Humphreys, Philippe Levasseur, Konstanze Speide, and Harry Vaughn
A Berlin man unearths a vast archive of photographs, taken by his father, of Hitler’s inner circle during WWII. He kept them secret for years out of shame, but now, in his elder years, decides these extraordinary images must come to light. Encountering this chilling, never-seen trove, we gain new depths of understanding of Hitler, his propaganda machine, and the visual ideology that metastasized within his cloistered world.
____
2025 Education-Impact Program Cohort
Film descriptions provided by grantees.
Ada – My Mother the Architect
Director and Producer Yael Melamede, Producer Hilla Medalia
Despite being one of Israel’s most important architects, Ada Karmi-Melamede remains largely unknown in the public sphere. Now her daughter- a former architect- sets out to tell the story of this most unusual role model, against the backdrop of the turbulent country Ada is rooted within.
Among Neighbors
Director and Producer Yoav Potash
In a small Polish town where Jews were murdered after World War II, an aging eyewitness risks imprisonment to search for the Jewish boy she loved 73 years ago. Bringing the past to life with evocative animation, Among Neighbors depicts a quest against war, hate, and time itself.
Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny
Director and Producers Jeff Bieber and Chana Gazit, Producer Salme M. López Sabina
Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny illuminates the extraordinary life and work of one of the most influential and fearless political thinkers of the 20th century. Arendt’s time as a World War II political prisoner and refugee generated daring insights about the human condition and totalitarianism, which continue to resonate profoundly today.
