Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,

The Andrew Berends Film Fellowship is proud to announce that the 2026 Fellowship applications are now open! We’d also like to share updates from previous Fellows, below.

Please note: the deadline for all submissions is July 30, 2026.
Click here to apply: Submissions

Andy was a courageous and talented filmmaker who sought out stories in places the mainstream media ignored. He shone a light on communities, people, and children facing unimaginable hardships. He traveled, shot, edited, and promoted his work with intense dedication.

Before applying, we strongly recommend screening at least 2 of Andy’s films, available here, and learn more about the previous Fellows here, to get a sense of the specific types of projects we support.

Eligibility Requirements
Eligible projects must be in the spirit of Andrew Berends’ work.
The Fellowship accepts applicants, 18 years or older, from all backgrounds and locations, working on their first, second, or third feature-length documentary.
Projects must be in production, with at least 25% of production completed.
Applicants must submit a trailer or sample, strictly between 4 and 10 minutes, of their current project, consisting primarily of original material.
The project’s primary story must take place in the present, e.g. no historical documentaries or primarily interview-based documentaries will be considered.
We are looking forward to seeing all of the project submissions!

Cutting Through Rocks (ABFF Fellow, 2021)

We are proud to share that the Andrew Berends Fellowship Winner Cutting Through Rocks was nominated for Oscar: Best Feature Documentary at the 98th Academy Awards, and was winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

To see the full list of awards and nominations, see their IMDB page. The film has screened at over 120 film festivals thus far and continues to play at festivals worldwide.

Congratulations to Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni!

Black Snow (ABFF Fellow, 2021)

ABFF Fellowship winner Alina Simone has had great success with Black Snow. Broadcasts include PBS / POV (USA), SVT (SWEDEN), and MDR (GERMANY).

Black Snow recently received the News & Documentary Emmy Award Nomination for Best Documentary!

Seen here with Alina at the DOC NYC North American premiere, “the real” Erin Brockovich joined the team as an Executive Producer. Brockovich lauded Black Snow for illuminating “the vast reach of these environmental issues and the extraordinary lengths a mother will go to protect her children, family, and community.”

The film has won other awards, nominations, and participated in many festivals. For more info see the press kit. Congratulations Alina Simone!

The Fellowship is always looking for new Mentors for upcoming Fellows. If you would consider joining the prestigious ABFF Mentors, please reach out to us at info at andrewberends dot net

Many thanks,

The Fellowship Board:
Jason Gardner
Brenden Hussey
Maria Ibrahimova
Michiel Pilgram
Aaron Soffin

Cutting Through Rocks winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
We are proud to share that the 2021 Andrew Berends Fellowship Winner Cutting Through Rocks is nominated for the Oscars.

Congratulations to Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni

Sara and Mohammadreza appeared on PBS’s Amanpour and Company on February 12 talking about the film.

Cutting through rocks by Andrewberends fellows Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni in the World Cinema Documentary Competition Sundance 2025.

Cutting Through Rocks is a feature length documentary, ready to be released. Supporters include Sundance Film Institute, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Doha Film Institute, Firelight Media, Hot Docs CrossCurrent Doc Fund, IDFA Bertha and Classic, Bertha Foundation, Andrew Berends Film Fellowship, among others.

More on the sundance website or the filmmaker’s website.

DOC NYC Award Ceremony David Estrada Nov, 19, 2024.
The 2024 Andrew Berends Film Fellowship awarded a $10,000 grant and a year-long mentorship with an industry expert to David Estrada for his project To Die for a Soul, a work praised for its boldness and emotional depth. Presented at the DOC NYC Pitch Day.
Press release here

Maria Ibrahimova, David Estrada, Michiel Pilgram @ DOC NYC 2024

Black Snow played at DOC NYC this past week. Nov 24, 2024.

Natalia Zubkova the woman known as “the Russian Erin Brockovich” is getting support from… the real Erin Brockovich.

Cinephil has acquired world rights.
Indiewire article about DOC NYC winners

Black Snow, directed by Andrew Berends Fellow Alina Simone (2021), made its world premiere at CPH:DOX this year, where it won the prestigious FACT Award for best investigative documentary. The film went on to screen at fifteen more festivals around the world including Hong Kong Film Festival, Sheffield, Dokufest and Sydney International Film Festival, where it won the Sustainable Future Award.

In November, Erin Brockovich joined the team as an Executive Producer.
In her comment to Deadline, Brockovich lauded Black Snow for illuminating “the vast reach of these environmental issues and the extraordinary lengths a mother will go to protect her children, family, and community.” Black Snow had its North American premiere at DOC NYC where it was awarded a Special Mention from the U.S. Competition jury.

The Andrew Berends Film Fellowship is proud to announce its 2022 Fellowship Winner.
We were honored to receive more than 75 applications for this year’s Fellowship. 

A total of $10,000, is presented to Asmahan Bkerat for Concrete Land.
Cecile Weiland will be her mentor.

An intimate portrait of a Bedouin family of three generations, in its struggle to hold on to its traditional life under the pressures of urbanization. Their only wish is to stay together, with their loyal yet eccentric pet sheep, Badrya, firmly by their side.

Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker.Bkerat’s first short documentary “Badrya” won the Jury Prize for Best MiniDoc at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. She is currently working on her first feature-length documentary “CONCRETE LAND”. Asmahan is an alumna of Sundance, IDFA, The Whickers, The American Film Showcase, Cannes Docs in progress, Dhaka doc lab, Doc Edge, AIDCand DMZ.

Learn more about all fellows on our Fellows page here.

We are beginning to plan for next year’s Fellowship. If you are an experienced filmmaker and interested in being a mentor, e-mail us at  info at andrewberends dot net
And please consider contributing to the Fellowship through our fiscal sponsor here.

We were honored to receive over 150 applications for this year’s Fellowship. A total of $20,000, personal mentorships with leading filmmakers Tom Lennon and Daniel DiMauro (learn more about the mentors here), and other opportunities for career and project advancement are presented to:

• Alina Simone for her brave and surprising portrait of a Siberian citizen-journalist fighting for her community in Black Snow (working title);
• Sara Khaki and Mohammad Reza Eyni for Cutting through Rocks (working title), the story of a woman who challenges the status quo and inspires the younger generation.

Learn more about each of the Fellows and their projects on our Fellows page here.

At the same time, our first Fellowship year is wrapping up successfully for the 2020 Fellows. One Fellow writes: “The Fellowship connected me with a dedicated mentor that went above and beyond in advancing my film throughout pre production into production.” And another says: “Without their mentorship and financial support we would not have been able to keep our documentary project alive through the tough times of Covid-19.” We are looking forward to staying touch with the Fellows as they finish their projects in the coming years.

And we are beginning to plan for next year’s Fellowship. If you are an experienced filmmaker and interested in being a mentor, e-mail us at  [email protected]. And please consider contributing to the Fellowship through our fiscal sponsor here.

We are proud and excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the second year of the Andrew Berends Film Fellowship. Submissions will be accepted until Jan 30, 2021.

The Fellowship is accepting applicants, 18 years or older, from all backgrounds and locations, who are currently working on a feature documentary project in the spirit of Andrew Berends’ work. Andy was a courageous and talented filmmaker who sought out stories in places which the mainstream media ignored. He shone a light on communities, people, and children facing unimaginable hardships. He traveled, shot, edited, and promoted his work with intense fervor and dedication.

Learn more about the Fellowship, the submission requirements, and how to apply here.

We were honored to receive nearly a hundred applications. Initially, we had planned to announce one winner. The number of worthy applicants and the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in led us to re-evaluate our potential. We decided that our sponsors’ generosity allowed us to grant awards to three sets of filmmakers and projects.

A total of $20,000, personal mentorships with leading filmmakers Gary Hustwit, David Sampliner, and Gretchen Hildebran (learn more about the mentors here), and other opportunities for career and project advancement are presented to:

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• Braulio Jatar and Anaïs Michel for their moving depiction of Venezuelan refugees trying to rebuild their lives in Cùcuta (working title);
• Angelos Rallis for his heart-rending portrait of an orphaned girl in Bangladesh searching for her birth father in Mighty Afrin (working title);
• Tom Laffay for his stirring work about the identity and spirituality of the Siona indigenous people in Colombia in Tigre Eléctrico (working title).

Learn more about each of the Fellows and their projects on our Fellows page here.

We are proud to support these brave and ambitious filmmakers and to help them move forward with their projects in a time of much uncertainty. We can’t wait to see these films and see them shared with the world.

It has been more than a year since we lost Andy. We miss his friendship, his partnership, his laughter, and his work. We are moved to see his legacy embodied in this year’s Fellows.

The Andrew Berends Film Fellowship would like to thank all of our generous donors, both individuals and foundations, as well as our friends at IFP, VICE, D-Word, Pure Non-Fiction and the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship. Special thanks to Fellowship Board members Aaron Soffin, Michiel Pilgram, Brenden Hussey, Maria Ibrahimova, and Jason Gardner.

Even as we announce this year’s winners, we are beginning to plan for next year’s Fellowship. Please consider contributing to the Fellowship through our fiscal sponsor here.

Download Full Press Release

Filmmaker Andrew Berends appeared multiple times on the IFC Center stage for the screening series Stranger Than Fiction (now called Pure Nonfiction). His films as a director include THE BLOOD OF MY BROTHER documenting life in Iraq under U.S. occupation; DELTA BOYS about militants in Nigeria’s oil conflict (which landed him briefly in Nigerian jail); and MADINA’S DREAM about refugees in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. He also served as a camera person on other projects including the Oscar-winning FREE SOLO. In March 2019, he took his own life at the age 46, after bouts of depression and being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The news brought an outpouring of testimonials from his admirers. This tribute brings together his friends and colleagues to share clips from his films and stories from his life. Donations from this event where used to launch The Andrew Berends Film Fellowship, to support independent filmmakers.

With: Thom Powers, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Dr. Isabella Alexander, Aaron Soffin, Mike Liss, Jason Gardner, Philip Robertson, Doug Block, Thomas Lennon and others.
This evening was co-sponsored by the Fulbright Film Series.
http://www.ifccenter.com/series/purenonfiction/
https://www.fulbrightny.org/
https://www.d-word.com/