Jewish Story Partners is celebrating its 5th anniversary by awarding $560,000 to 22 new projects, TheWrap can exclusively reveal.
This brings the independent film funder’s total to $4.5 million in grants across 136 projects since the JSP launched in 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation.
The latest batch of films to receive funding features cultural figures such as Leonard Bernstein, Marc Chagall, Ram Dass, Robert Frank, Judy Heumann and Jessica Savitch, just to name a few.
“With our pressurized, intensive review process, the films that emerge as JSP grantees are diamonds,” executive director Roberta Grossman said in a Friday statement. “Just this year, three JSP films were shortlisted for an Academy Award. All of JSP’s diverse films are sent out into the world to preserve Jewish stories, bridge divides and serve as engaging delivery systems for Jewish education and connection.”
The Spring 2026 jury consisted of Josh Kun, Tia Lessin and Laura Nix, who made their selections from over 240 applications. They issued the following statement, as well: “It was exhilarating to engage with this expansive array of artful, risk-taking films, which wrestle with the urgent issues of today while shedding new light on the past. We believe this remarkable slate offers a window into our common humanity, and will inspire robust debate among many audiences, just as it did for us.”
Check out the full list of Spring 2026 recipients, below:
New Grantees
Anchorwoman
Director Anne Alvergue, Director and Producer Jeff Daniels
At a time of dramatic flux in the women’s movement and broadcast news, Jessica Savitch’s meteoric rise to become one of the first national news anchorwomen in America, and her struggle to retain her status, becomes a heightened lens through which to understand gender, ethnicity, power and media in 1970s and ’80s America.
Berlin Chic
Director Sigal Rosh, Producer Dorit Hessel
The Holocaust and the world of fashion collide in “Berlin Chic,” which chronicles how Nazi “Aryanization” wiped out Berlin’s thriving Jewish fashion industry and reconstructs its stolen place in history and in global style today.
Calendars of Love
Director Ayelet Heller, Producer Hilla Medalia
After 55 years of shared life, Dorit, a recently transitioned transgender woman, and her wife Kumi, now fading into dementia, poignantly witness each other’s transformations and reflect on past journeys as they prepare for an unknown future.
Chagall
Director Petter Ringbom, Producers Ruchi Mital and Bryn Silverman
In the first feature documentary film in over 50 years about one of the most important artists of the 20th century, “Chagall” tells the story of a Jewish artist who responded to extreme poverty, persecution, displacement and heartbreak with a relentless imagination and beauty.
Daring Lives Dangerous Times
Directors and Producers Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman
Lesbian pioneer Eve Adams and her companion Hella Olstein met and fell in love as Jewish refugees in Paris in 1933, defying the sexual, immigrant and antisemitic barriers of their times. Their disappearance during the Holocaust remained a mystery — until now, as their descendants on two continents attempt to uncover their lost story.
Family Pictures
Director Abraham Troen, Producer Rebecca Lichtenfeld
When murder claims filmmaker Abraham “Abie” Troen’s sister, brother-in-law and great-grandmother a century apart, his family’s past and present collide, forcing each generation to decide how to carry forward a legacy of dignity, peace and justice.
Here Now: The Revolution of Ram Dass
Director and Producer Mark Landsman, Producer Peter Kline
An immersive cinematic journey into the mind, body and soul of Dr. Richard Alpert, who undergoes a profound search for meaning that transforms him into Ram Dass, author of “Be Here Now,” the best-selling “bible of the counter-culture” that introduced Eastern ideas of the soul, ego and being in the present moment to the West, launching a spiritual revolution that endures to this day.
I Want To Tell My Story
Director and Producer Tomer Heymann, Producer Leigh Heiman
Cutting-edge technology brings the past to life in this immersive cinematic journey into the memories of 99-year-old Holocaust survivor Shimon Rothschild, turning history into a deeply personal and emotional experience.
Jewish Women Escape Iran (Untitled)
Directors Erez Tadmor and Michal Zys, Producers Aviv Ben-Shlush, Sam Feuer and Lee Kuperman Ben-Shlush
Following the Iranian revolution in the 1970s, three Jewish women risk everything to escape persecution in Iran and rebuild their lives, revealing a deeply personal story of courage, identity and survival.
The Limits of Truth
Director and Producer Zeva Oelbaum, Producer Susan Margolin
Newly unearthed home movies and private diaries by a Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist, reporting from Berlin, capture a never-before-seen chronicle of 1930s Germany’s chilling descent into dictatorship and antisemitism. His writings are eerily current.
Polyphony
Director and Producer Michèle Ohayon, Producer Haim Mecklberg
In a land divided by religion, politics and painful history, young Jewish and Arab music students dare to do the unthinkable: unite through the power of classical music at Polyphony, a conservatory in Nazareth. Relationships form and conflicts arise as they work towards a performance that will challenge them to play as one on a global stage: Carnegie Hall.
Salut Robert
Director Laura Israel, Producer Ryan Krivoshey
Assembled from decades of unseen personal footage and home movies, “Salut Robert” is a diaristic portrait, a posthumous autobiography of revered photographer-filmmaker Robert Frank told in his own words and images.
The Silver Cord
Director Alyssa Grossman, Producer Leda Zimmerman
Combining contemporary footage with home movies taken by the filmmaker’s Jewish ancestors who emigrated from Belarus to New York in the early 20th century, this auto-ethnographic documentary explores memory, history and family, and what it means to examine everyday life through the medium of film.
To Be Heumann
Directors Chana Gazit and Jim LeBrecht, Producer Sarah Keeling
From a childhood shaped by polio to the front lines of a revolution, Judy Heumann, “Mother of the Disability Rights Movement,” wielded raw courage and strategic brilliance to become one of the great civil rights leaders in American history.
When Elephants Fight
Director and Producer Paula Eiselt, Producer Ronny Merdinger
Filmed over two years across Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and the United States, a Jewish American filmmaker sets out to make sense of a war that has followed her home.
Young People’s Concerts Documentary (Untitled)
Director and Producer Luisa Conlon, Producer J. Daniel Torres
Between 1958 and 1972, Leonard Bernstein brought his Young People’s Concerts to network television, democratizing music education for millions of Americans. ‘Young People’s Concerts Documentary Untitled’ weaves these original broadcasts with archive and interviews to trace Bernstein’s journey through these years — and what he hoped to offer a nation in crisis.
Reprise Grantees
Buildings Remember People
Director and Producer David Shapiro
An unorthodox film about the pitfalls and necessity of re-presenting the Holocaust — mixing essay, humor, verité and witness testimony — “Buildings Remember People” interweaves three narratives: an Arizona synagogue built by survivors, a German artist’s ongoing monument and the 2024 election to interrogate fault lines of memory, fascism and filmmaking itself.
Curse of the Mutant Heirloom
Director Debra Schaffner, Producer Julie Wyman
A daughter excavates decades of estrangement from her Holocaust-survivor mother, fueled by the discovery of an unwelcome bond — the BRCA cancer gene mutation. In a world of expendable female body parts, can an alien girl find a true connection to her robot mother?
Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie
Director and Producer Steven Pressman, Producer Lisa Stark
Many know Woody Guthrie as the quintessential Oklahoman balladeer who wrote “This Land Is Your Land,” but few are aware that Jewish culture had a hand in shaping his private life and career. “Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls” explores Guthrie’s moving relationship with his mother-in-law, prominent Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, and the impact she had on his songwriting.
Our Home Is Not of This World
Director Russ Finkelstein, Producers Manuel Contreras, Phil Pinto and Elaisha Stokes
In a rural south Texas medical examiner’s office, a Jewish physician works with a tiny team to identify the growing number of anonymous migrants who perish crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. With cases surging, her office is stretched beyond capacity. Will she be able to retire after decades of service if no one is willing to replace her?
Postmortem
Director and Producer Marilyn Ness, Producer Beth Levison
“Postmortem,” a hybrid documentary film and theater project, is a boundary-pushing crime drama about an abused girl who didn’t tell her childhood secret — and the woman she becomes, who does.
White Rose
Director Julie Cohen, Producer Tia Lessin
Excavating the story of Sophie and Hans Scholl, German, non-Jewish resistance leaders beheaded for disseminating potent leaflets countering Hitler’s lies, “White Rose” follows family members, researchers and German students as they reveal how — in today’s truth-endangered times — the very act of re-exploring a legacy can be revolutionary.
The application window for the Fall 2026 Reprise Grant cycle for current JSP grantees closes on Aug. 7, with new submissions to open in November.
