Fiscal Sponsorship

One of Northwest Film Forum’s key artist support services is Fiscal Sponsorship. The Forum currently sponsors over 100 film projects and organizations.

If your film or project is approved for this program, we extend the Forum’s 501c3 status as a sponsor for the project, opening up opportunities for grants and fundraising available to nonprofit organizations. Fiscally sponsored projects can solicit tax-deductible donations from organizations or individuals. We administer donations made on behalf of the project and send donor acknowledgments. Our administrative cost is 7% for funds granted, but we do not take any ownership of the project.

Please note that this program does not provide direct financing or fundraising services.

PICTURED: The feature film, Thin Skin, directed by Charles Mudede.


Eligibility

In order to be considered for fiscal sponsorship, the production, as represented by the Project Producer(s) must:

  • Be consistent with Northwest Film Forum’s mission
  • Demonstrate clear commitment to the project and provide detailed documentation and guidelines for how the project is to be achieved
  • Be a Washington State resident
  • If you wish to apply, please fill out our online application

If you have any questions, please contact Christopher Day, Managing Director, at chris (at) nwfilmforum.org.


Sponsored Projects

703

703

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703 features James, an elder gay male protagonist who works through a marital betrayal while calling in his usual pizza delivery order. Claire is a middle-aged musician who makes ends meet working at the pizza delivery call center. It’s Friday night, and James almost always happily chats while he orders the usual from Claire. But tonight is not business as usual; Claire senses something is terribly wrong.

Atopic

Atopic

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Coping with her failing health due to Topical Steroid Withdrawal Syndrome (TSWS), a young, Black theatre actress escapes her pain through musical fantasies only to discover she must face her reality to get the help she needs.

Big Sonia

Big Sonia

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“National treasure,” local celebrity, Holocaust Survivor – Sonia (89) has just been served an eviction notice for the last (and most popular) shop left in a dying suburban mall. Following Sonia on the motivational speaker circuit to schools and prisons – even as she navigates her own struggles – Big Sonia explores what it means to be a survivor and how trauma is passed down through generations. Will you let your trauma define you? Or will your past make you stronger?

Black Cinema Collective

Black Cinema Collective

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Black Cinema Collective (BCC) is a Seattle-based group of artists and scholars who examine and celebrate works of African and African diasporic filmmakers through programmed screenings and community discussions. With both a Black Feminist and Black Global lens, we hold space for the complex existence and storytelling inventions of Diasporians.  We consider intersectional histories and topical stories by supporting multiple forms of filmmaking from local and global artists, activists, documentarians, and organizers. Through our focused events on Black film and visual productions, we exercise agency and care as custodians and students of a broader spectrum of Afro-Diasporic cultures.

Cloud Chamber

Cloud Chamber

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A “folk science fiction”. Years after the death of her daughter, a rank-and-file scientist is sent to work on an experiment that uses a mysterious technology to pull material from the cosmic vacuum.

Coffee & Sugar

Coffee & Sugar

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Coffee & Sugar is an animated exploration of the memories of a 93-year-old woman as she reflects on her marriage of 62 years. Through an abstract and fantastical mixture of 2D and stop motion animation, Coffee & Sugar will explore the beautiful complexity of love, memory, and time.

Detention

Detention

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When four high schoolers get “Saturday Detention,” they quickly realize things just got a whole lot worse when their waste-of-time detention turns into a bit of a nightmare… group therapy! Forced to share their most personal and traumatic stories by a sleep-deprived, postpartum therapist with extreme mood swings, the kids soon find themselves tip-toeing around her, so as not to unleash the beast. We get a glimpse into each kid’s family situation, along with the practical, emotional and psychological challenges each of them faces. This is a sensitive, empathetic and realistic story about growing up that has humor, conflict, heartbreak, and romance. It is both surprising and uplifting. Detention is a modern day Breakfast Club with a deeper dive into the hardships of home life.

Dollhouse

Dollhouse

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Simone Pin Productions present Dollhouse, a southern-gothic inspired dance performance.

DRAG!

DRAG!

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Strutting beyond the lip-sync legacy, ‘DRAG!’ is a feature documentary that spotlights a fierce ensemble of drag performers as they collaborate to concoct an original Broadway-style theatrical musical, blending their own songs and stories to transform the stage and tuck the traditional into something spectacular.

East of the Mountains

East of the Mountains

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Retired Seattle heart surgeon Ben Givens (Washington’s own Tom Skerritt) doesn’t have long to live. A year into a cancer diagnosis and a year into being a widower, he’d rather end his life on his own terms. Without telling his daughter (Oscar® winner Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite) about his decision, he and his dog Rex hop into his car and head east over the Cascade Mountains with only a backpack and a shotgun in tow. Now among the apple orchards and gorges of Eastern Washington and near his boyhood home, he is determined to tie up loose ends before he takes matters into his own hands. But as is customary in this kind of story, his journey takes a few unexpected turns, forcing him to reassess what truly matters in life.

Even Hell Has Its Heroes

Even Hell Has Its Heroes

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Even Hell Has its Heroes is a documentary film by Clyde Petersen, in collaboration with the legendary Seattle drone band Earth. Pioneers of the drone metal genre, the members of Earth have a legacy of 25 years of musical innovation and personal reinvention.

Exes and Babies

Exes and Babies

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The Exes & Babies Podcast, hosted by co-parent coach Sydney Swonigan, offers co-parents and blended families practical advice and expert insights on how to build and maintain a healthy co-parenting relationship. The show features interviews of real, diverse families who’ve overcome co-parenting challenges and family professionals who provide actionable tips for better family outcomes after divorce. The podcast creates a friendly atmosphere full of authentic storytelling that provokes introspection, connectedness, and even laughter leaving listeners feeling informed and hopeful.

Finding Bapu

Finding Bapu

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Finding Bapu is a comedy about grief. It explores a child’s perspective into the complex world of loss, cultural identity and belonging. Sometimes, the hardest part of loving someone is learning to let go.

Finding Chaz

Finding Chaz

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Finding Chaz is a pilot adaptation of the young adult novel of the same name, which follows the journey of Roxie Nazari, a young Iranian American girl in the mid-2000s navigating the complexities of high school and life in a homogenous small town in the Pacific Northwest. The pilot covers the events of the first few chapters of the novel, introducing us to Roxie’s world which includes her close bond with her older brother, Nick, her relationship with her best friend, Hanna, and her longstanding conflict with Chaz Humbert, a male classmate notorious for harassing girls at school.

Fruitbowl: An Oral History of Queer Sex

Fruitbowl: An Oral History of Queer Sex

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A documentary film and podcast series that features a diverse cross-section of queer Americans talking about their adolescence and the unique ways they discovered their sexual preferences.

The Fruit Salad Show

The Fruit Salad Show

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The Fruit Salad Show is an all-ages, intergenerational comedy/variety show and community event that centers on diverse queer voices. We strive to remove financial barriers for audiences while compensating collaborators with competitive stipends and opportunities for growth and exploration.

Goshen

Goshen

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In a near future where the State of Israel has ceased to exist, Goshen puts an intimate frame around two women navigating the Jewish Diaspora on conflicting paths of righteousness. A graduate student thesis film, this 20-minute morsel of cloistered science fiction offers a twist on the ‘Nazi Hunter’ genre that’s bound to cause a stir.

Grandma's Roses

Grandma's Roses

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In GRANDMA’S ROSES, filmmaker Jordan Thierry explores the poignant life of his grandmother, and that of others, to reveal the complicated relationship America has with women’s love and labor. Reflecting on his experience as a grandson and recognizing that he knew her only as a grandmother but not as a whole person, the filmmaker travels across the country to hear the stories of similarly dynamic, wise, and courageous grandmothers who’ve lived boldly in the face of sexism and racism to see striking parallels emerge. GRANDMA’S ROSES expands upon the familiar notions of grandmothers as centerpieces of family life by also showcasing their contributions outside of the home reflects on the expectations set for them by society.

Her Mad Hatter

Her Mad Hatter

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Her Mad Hatter is a twist on Alice in Wonderland. Danika, fairy godmother to villains, has very little time before Hatter’s sanity slips away forever. If she doesn’t find his true love, Wonderland will disintegrate with him. Danika knows that person is “Alice.” But, which one? Opening his heart to and losing Alice after Alice over centuries has chipped away at Hatter’s confidence and sanity.

Hooyo Macaan

Hooyo Macaan

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Samira is a recent college graduate and a current disappointment to her mother. She is faced with the biggest challenge yet, her mommy issues. Samira comes head to head with her mother when they attend a Somali tribal party. Despite her poetic way with words, she can’t seem to find the right ones to stand up for herself against her mother’s constant dismissal. This results in a dance-off, the massive consumption of goat meat, and a kid figuring out how to want herself. Hooyo Macaan creates a space that highlights the beautiful, ugly, and heartbreaking aspects of having a relationship with a maternal figure. It is told through the eyes of someone who is historically unseen in media. This story asks a universal question: “Am I wanted?” and answers it in a new and refreshing way.”

Ingress

Ingress

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A woman who can move between realities loses her husband tragically and seeks the help of a spiritual channel to try and find her way back to him. Ingress is a character driven, high-concept exploration of the nature of reality, relationships, loss and love.

I Watched Her Grow

I Watched Her Grow

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Seven years after the mysterious death of her mother, an isolated botanist meets an enigmatic, teenage runaway in a creek. Forming an unexpected bond, the two embark on a harrowing journey to confront their respective pasts, all while slowly realizing that they may not have to face their uncertain futures alone.

Life After Life

Life After Life

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As Americans reconsider their relationship with death and dying after the Covid-19 Pandemic, LIFE AFTER LIFE, follows the opening of the worlds first large scale human composting facility, RETURN HOME, as they explore how their process can reconnect humans to ritual and grief through nature.

Lucy is a Loser

Lucy is a Loser

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A dark comedy romance from Wendy Jo Carlton, about creatively coping with heartache and depression, as queer drummer Lucy Gatlin, while living in a garage and trying to stay sober, finds out she has inherited something from her Aunt, and must go back home and face her demons to find out what it is!

Marcie's

Marcie's

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Marcie, a bartender with a dream, has to rally her people to save her community and the surrounding forest from development.

The Marsha Turner Taylor Visionary Award

The Marsha Turner Taylor Visionary Award

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The Marsha Turner Taylor Visionary Award extends the philanthropic goals of the Thread LLC by supporting charitable activities and making grants to individuals who embody the social and media activism of Marsha Turner Taylor, who at 15 years old, helped launch and grow the Free Breakfast for Children Program, created by the Black Panther Party in Oakland, CA in the late 1960s. Her family now lives in the Pacific Northwest where the Marsha Turner Taylor Visionary Award is based. The Award acknowledges youth media artists with a unique vantage point to a game-changing moment in history, and who use their position to make the world a better place.

The Most Dangerous Year

The Most Dangerous Year

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In 2016 a group of Washington State families with transgender kids join the fight against the wave of discriminatory anti-transgender legislation sweeping through the nation and into their home state. With the help of a coalition of state lawmakers and civil rights activists, these families embark on an uncharted journey of fighting to protect and preserve their children’s inalienable human rights and freedoms in this present-day civil rights movement.

Peach Fuzz

Peach Fuzz

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Based on the lyrical novel The Geography of Girlhood by screenwriter Kirsten ‘Kiwi’ Smith of 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, and She’s The Man, PEACH FUZZ is the story of Penny– a chubby, 15-year-old girl growing up in the PNW, desperately trying to figure out who she is. Which is, as nearly all of us have learned the hard way, a rocky path with unexpected swerves and curves.

Pinwheel Horizon

Pinwheel Horizon

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Pinwheel Horizon is a narrative short fantasy/drama about three elite warriors who must confront the division between them before facing 40 warriors—their final confrontation. The film is an allegory about long-term struggle and the courage it takes to grow and adapt, from writer/director Ian Ebright.

RADIOHEART: The Drive and Times of DJ Kevin Cole

RADIOHEART: The Drive and Times of DJ Kevin Cole

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RADIOHEART: The Drive and Times of Kevin Cole is a documentary film celebrating Kevin’s 50 years in music: both his passion for sharing it and the global community he helped to create. His is an exceptional, inspirational story of how music heals and how music matters. RADIOHEART tells the tale of a man dedicated to shining a light on visionaries and overlooked voices.

Reckless Spirits

Reckless Spirits

A metaphysical buddy comedy for a bleak new decade!

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RECKLESS SPIRITS is a hyperreal buddy comedy featuring two best friends—Yvette, a neurotic Asian American therapist, and Syd, a gender-fluid Latine performance artist—who are led by a series of supernatural events into an uncanny new world of psychics, spirits, and a cult leader that’s threatening to tear their friendship apart.

Reel Witness

Reel Witness

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Reel Witness follows Hameed — a young Muslim who left everything behind in war-torn Iraq at 16, in a solo quest for a brighter more peaceable future. Now 22, like Isatou of Little Rebel, his salvation is scholarship in Seattle bound by a big altruistic dream. From flight to refuge, Reel Witness seeks to humanize the facelessness of emigration and celebrate personal tales of resiliency.

Reflections of the River

Reflections of the River

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Thirty years following the filming of A River Runs Through It, Tom Skerritt returns to the Gallatin River to explore the various threats to the health of our nation’s rivers. By capturing this fragile moment in time, Skerritt aspires to lift people’s hearts and minds to remind them that the rivers, skies, trees, and wildlife are our birthright and protecting them is our sacred covenant.

Resilience

Resilience

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Generations of Blackfeet have, over the millennia, navigated impossible obstacles and successfully retained their native lands, traditions, and their independence. History paints a sensational picture of native culture from a bygone era, framing Native Americans as a part of a shared American history. This narrative underscores the reality of broken government treaties, reservations, and other atrocities the Blackfeet Nation has overcome.

This is a story of an ancient people who retain their spirit and culture surrounded by modernity and the threat of assimilation.

This is a story of resilience.

This is the story of the very first Americans.

Seattle Black Panthers Fight for Justice & Freedom

Seattle Black Panthers Fight for Justice & Freedom

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The Black Panther Party (BPP) shined the light on systematic oppression, police brutality, and the targeted victimization of black people; they led the charge to tear down the stronghold of institutional racism, inhumane treatment of black people, bigotry, and injustice in America and all over the world.

Shades of Mindfulness

Shades of Mindfulness

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Shades of Mindfulness is a 180 degree, stereoscopic, virtual reality documentary experience of an ongoing mindfulness group started for Women of Color.

Shelf Life Community Story Project

Shelf Life Community Story Project

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Shelf Life is a community story project motivated by the rapid change and displacement taking place in Seattle’s Central Area neighborhood.
We are recording oral histories with people who live, work, and/or have roots in the neighborhood.
We believe neighborhood stories can interrupt the narratives of erasure that accompany gentrification; contribute historical context to conversations about change; and reconnect those who are experiencing displacement.

She the Creator

She the Creator

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A dissociative, agoraphobic artist struggles to stay grounded in reality while her enamored caretaker becomes overly invested in the completion of her latest works.

Since I Been Down

Since I Been Down

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Since I Been Down explores the complicated balance and tensions between violent crime, punishment, justice, activism, and compassion. The documentary invites viewers to take an in-depth look at incarcerated men and women, in order to better understand processes of their transformations and their ultimate role, as models for all of us on being human.

The documentary follows men and women in Washington State prisons, incarcerated between 13 and 25 years of age for violent crimes, and who are remarkably turning their lives around and creating social justice programs from within prison in spite of the controls of public life.

Skagit

Skagit

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An experimental horror film about four friends who leave Seattle for a weekend in a remote, rain-soaked corner of the rustic Skagit Valley. The foreboding October landscape begins to warp their minds, plunging each of them into alternate realities where they must grapple with personal demons, sexual tensions, and a sinister natural world as they claw their way back to sanity.

A Taste of Home

A Taste of Home

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A Taste of Home is a feature length documentary tracing a new Asian immigrant’s journey to find her sense of place in a foreign America, through food. The film followed Val’s search for a taste of home, through 100 years of Asian American history and into the kitchens of 5 of the oldest food establishments in Seattle Chinatown. On her quest, Val was confronted with a bigger question: “Are Chinatowns dying?

Thank You, MS PAM

Thank You, MS PAM

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Part Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Mister Rogers, part Solid Gold and Arsenio Hall, Thank You, MS PAM is an educational and entertaining television show for all ages starring and created by artist, Tariqa Waters who owns and operates, MS PAM (Martyr Sauce Pop Art Museum) located in downtown Seattle’s Historic Arts District, Pioneer Square.

Thin Skin

Thin Skin

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The film Thin Skin, which is based on based on Ahamefule J. Oluo’s grand-scale comedic pop opera of the same name, is about a musician and struggling stand-up comedian named Aham. His marriage has just collapsed. He is desperately trying to sever all physical, financial, and emotional connections to this bad marriage. He is moving into a new place. He is adrift. He has to rebuild his life from scratch. One night, Ahamefule performs at a local jazz club and meets a young woman, Megan…

 

TotemBridge

TotemBridge

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A young, black father and self-taught fly fisherman leaves the inner city to join an Indigenous-led voyage throughout Salmon country to fight for the historic freeing of the Snake River.

Unincarcerated Productions

Unincarcerated Productions

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A team of formerly incarcerated visionaries and our friends, out to change the world by telling previously unheard stories. We specialize in documentaries and podcasts, along with streaming video and educational programs.

UN-[TITLED]

UN-[TITLED]

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Opening March 23rd  – 26th 2023, UN-[TITLED] is a multisite-specific series of performances and offerings where guests are guided through engagements and reckonings with site histories, community meaning, cultural memory, and healing in the Central and Chinatown International Districts of Seattle.

upstart crow collective

upstart crow collective

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upstart crow collective produces classical plays with diverse casts of women and non-binary people, re-imagining these works for a contemporary audience.

Vanishing Seattle

Vanishing Seattle

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Vanishing Seattle documents the displaced and disappearing institutions, small businesses, and cultures of Seattle – often due to gentrification and development – and celebrates the spaces and communities that give this city its soul.

IG: @vanishingseattle
Twitter: @vanishing206
FB: facebook.com/vanishingseattle
E-mail: vanishingseattle@gmail.com

 

Wa Na Wari

Wa Na Wari

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Wa Na Wari creates space for ​Black ownership, possibility, and belonging ​through art, historic preservation, and connection.

Yes I Am - The Ric Weiland Story

Yes I Am - The Ric Weiland Story

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The story of the life and legacy of Ric Weiland, technological pioneer, LGBT rights activist, and philanthropist, whose private struggle to find meaning, led to his death by suicide in 2006.

Your Lucky Day

Your Lucky Day

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Your Lucky Day is a morality tale set on Christmas Eve in a small convenience store near the bottom of the socioeconomic food chain where a hostage situation breaks out over a $156 million lottery ticket. When things inevitably spiral, the film becomes a hardboiled look at how the poisonous heart of the American dream is actually a nightmare.

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Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave,

Seattle, WA 98122

206 329 2629


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