Catapult Film Fund provides development funding to documentary filmmakers who have a compelling story to tell, have secured access to their story and are ready to shoot and edit a piece for production fundraising purposes. Our mission is to enable filmmakers to develop their film projects to the next level at a stage where funding is hard to find. We don’t require that films fit within specific issue categories. We support powerful stories and moving storytelling across a broad spectrum of issues and perspectives. As a result, we support of a range of films, from individual portraits to stories with global implications.

Lisa Kleiner Chanoff and Bonni Cohen founded Catapult Film Fund in November 2010. Catapult has two funding cycles per year, one in the Fall and one in the Spring. At each round Catapult awards grants of up to $20,000 and grants a total of about $100,000 per cycle. Since its first funding round in November 2010, Catapult has supported 19 projects and has committed nearly $300,000 to filmmakers getting their projects off the ground.

Catapult is based in San Francisco and considers projects from filmmakers across the United States. We also welcome projects with international subjects, although the filmmaking team should be based in the U.S.