Docubox - The East African Documentary Film Fund

“A country without documentary is like a family without a photo album”
- Patricio Guzmán

We believe good documentaries are intimate observations of the world’s identities and people captured by talented, driven, creative filmmakers: films able to uncover new realities because they are authored by authentic local voices; films that offer viewers new perspectives of society. We are enabling filmmakers in East Africa to create authentic work that provides personalized glimpses into worlds, issues and lives that would ordinarily remain undocumented by giving grants of between $1500 and $20,000 per project. The $1,500 per project will support 12 trailers, from which 4 to 6 films will go on to be selected and granted amounts of upto $20,000 each to produce. In addition, guidance throughout the process of making the film will be given by internationally experienced and acclaimed documentary filmmakers, so selected projects will be suported not just financially but also with periodic advice. Making documentary films is a long and often lonely journey, and DOCUBOX aims to build a community of peers to share and grow with whilst hosting frequent workshops and screenings for our community. In addition to hosting screenings of both internationally celebrated documentary films and our own local documentary films, we will strive to create a safe environment where we can share our work and receive honest feedback that will make us all better filmmakers both at live forums and online through our website community pages. We have a modest library of great documentary films - - - but its growing and community members will soon be welcome to come watch films in-house at soon-to-be agreed times. We are also working on the best way to source and share online resources that any seriously committed East African documentary filmmaker will be able to access. We have financial support through till 2014, but time flies fast when you're making films, and so we will strive to grow this support so that we can keep going for at a few more years, thus growing a cohesive community of filmmakers. We aim to create a movement that will challenge ideas and assumptions about the world we live in. We believe that to change and inspire society, we need to support films that can spark off thought or debate, films that get talked about, films that contribute to the formation of a vibrant documentary film movement across East Africa. And we want to do this because we believe that true stories well told make the world a better place to live.