Lead the next chapter of independent storytelling.

ITVS Seeks Its Next President & CEO

Get Funded

Get Funded

You have a powerful story to tell—let’s bring it to life together. We offer development and co-production funds for short and feature documentaries.

EXPLORE OUR PROGRAMS

Our Funds

Independent Lens Creator Lab

Independent Lens Creator Lab

Not currently accepting applications

Up to $36k in production funds for vertical content with hands-on mentorship and industry guidance.

View Independent Lens Creator Lab

Incubator Fund

Incubator Fund

Not currently accepting applications

Early-stage funding for nonfiction web series and features, and a three to six-month incubator to advance your program materials while growing skills.

View Incubator Fund
Working With Us
Documentaries
Documentaries

As the leading incubator and funder of independent documentaries, ITVS has co-produced over 1,400 projects since our founding in 1988.

EXPLORE OUR DOCUMENTARIES
Emmy Award Winning Film

Dolores

Dolores

While tracing Dolores Huerta's trajectory through radical social and cultural movements of the past 50 years, Dolores provides an unflinching look at the barriers faced by women and people of color within the very communities they're fighting for.

Our Work

Where We Stream
About
About ITVS

We amplify powerful stories and voices that represent the breadth of our communities across America.

Read More About ITVS
Who We Are
Donate
Search

Opening January 4, 2027 at 9am PST

Independent Lens Production Call

Your story has come this far—partner with us to finish your film.

With co-production support from ITVS, your film gains a path to a national audience.

What Independent Lens Production Call Funds

Production or early post-production support for standalone feature documentaries between 60 and 90 minutes.

What You Get With ITVS Funding

Up to $200k in funding for feature-length projects.
Co-production support, creative development, and feedback from ITVS and Independent Lens.
You maintain full editorial, creative, and financial control.
You maintain your copyright.
Public media distribution, with certain streaming and broadcast rights licensed to ITVS during the term.

Questions?

We’re happy to connect.

itvs@itvs.org
415-356-8383

We’re looking for exceptional, U.S.-based stories that align with our mission and the Independent Lens spirit—stories that take risks, tackle important issues, address the needs of American audiences, and use storytelling to connect people across lines of difference.

We recognize the hard work you’ve already put into your project. We want to partner with you to help you complete it and ultimately bring it to a national audience on the award-winning PBS series, Independent Lens.

The Independent Lens Production Call offers up to $200,000 in co-production funding to independent producers of nonfiction documentaries. The feature-length documentary can cover any U.S.-based subject, from any viewpoint, and in any style. Projects must be in mid- to late-stage production and seeking to complete post-production by summer 2028.

The Independent Lens Production Call is neither a grant nor a guarantee of distribution on the series. Instead, we will be co-producing partners, collaborating editorially to realize your vision. You receive funding in the form of a co-production agreement that assigns ITVS certain broadcast and streaming rights to your project for the contract term. Our shared goal is to deliver finished programs for upcoming Independent Lens seasons, starting in 2028.