Thank you for your interest in Impact Kickstart, a program that has helped underrepresented filmmakers create strategic goals for impact and specific plans to engage future partners, funders, and audiences in meaningful ways.

Now in its eight year, we invite our community of filmmakers to apply to Impact Kickstart. We will select and support a cohort of filmmakers with impact campaign funds in the range of $10,000 - $20,000, with an anticipated announcement in late 2025 and disbursement in early 2026. In addition to funding, awardees will have access to mentorship and impact strategy support from the Working Films team, towards their impact campaign plans.

We are accepting applications from underrepresented filmmakers with feature length documentary films that are recently completed (released within the last 2 years) or finishing (at least fine cut stage) or release phases. 

For full information on eligibility and program details please visit: www.workingfilms.org/impactkickstart/

To be considered for Impact Kickstart 2026, please complete the application below. The deadline is Friday, October 3, 2025 at 11:59 pm ET.You’ll need to create an account/login so that you can work on your application and have your information saved. Before you get started you can find a preview of the application questions in this PDF. Please also check out this document of frequently asked questions.  

If you have any additional questions, join us for a webinar Q&A on Tuesday, September 16 at  3 - 4 pm ET. Register for it here! If you can’t attend, we will be recording it and adding it to our Call for Applications page. If you have any additional questions in the meantime, please email hhearn@workingfilms.org.

2026 HHFF Works in Progress Lab: Call for applications

The Hayti Heritage Film Festival Works-in-Progress (WiP) Lab supports social justice documentaries with a focus on Black storytelling. Co-designed and coordinated by Working Films, participating artists receive feedback on their work-in-progress and explore audience engagement strategies through workshops, consultations, and community screenings during the festival in Durham, NC. The 2026 HHFF Lab takes place from March 4-7, 2026. We will be accepting applications from Aug 29 through Oct 19, 2025!

Program Details

Residency

Working Films and Hayti Heritage Film Festival are teaming up again for the 2026 Works In Progress Lab. Selected filmmakers will come to Durham, NC for a 3 day residency which includes trainings, workshops and community engagement screenings. Participants should plan for arrival on Wednesday March 4th and return home on Sunday March 8th, 2026. The lab begins on Thursday March 4th and runs through Saturday March 7th.

Filmmakers will spend time participating in workshops with the Working Films and Hayti Heritage Film Festival teams. They will be joined by experienced documentary filmmaker mentors. Previous mentors include Resita Cox, Randall Dottin, Lana Garland, Byron Hurt, Natalie Bullock Brown. We create a tight knit atmosphere of peer support where the facilitators and mentors lead the cohort in giving one another feedback on their work in progress. Using Working Films’ 25 years of experience in creating impact campaigns for documentary films, we also spend time workshopping the impact strategies for participating films.

And finally, during the residency, filmmakers will have an opportunity to screen their work-in-progress footage with organizations and individuals who are working on the issues which their film addresses. These are intimate screenings where attendees are invited to watch and discuss the film. The audiences are change leaders, whose lived experiences and work align with the film content, who can provide valuable feedback for filmmakers as they continue to edit and plan for how their film can make an impact once it’s completed.

Filmmakers will also have down time to work on their edit, write, relax, explore Durham and attend the other festival screenings and events. Previous cohorts have found the downtime creates the perfect opportunity to build lasting relationships and share experiences & learnings with their peers.

Eligibility

The Hayti Heritage Film Festival WiP lab serves the needs of directors making social issue documentaries. Films may be shorts, features, or episodic, but must be nonfiction.

Films can be at any stage of development, but we find that filmmakers benefit most when they are in the production or post production phase of their project. We will need some sample footage to show at community engagement screenings. This could be an assembly, sizzle reel, rough cut, or fine cut. It’s up to the filmmaker to decide what to show. The goal is to have these opportunities for feedback be of benefit to the director wherever they are in their process.
 

What’s Included

Working Films and Hayti Heritage Film Festival cover the following expenses for each selected director:

• Round trip transportation to Durham, NC for the lab.
• Accommodations.
• Most meals during the residency.
• Airport transfer and most local transportation during the residency.
• All-access passes to Hayti Heritage Film Festival.

Note: At this time we remain hopeful that we will be able to continue the WiP Lab in person as the schedule is presented above. We will certainly keep applicants updated if there are any adjustments to the current program details.