The AFAC Documentary Program supports creative documentary films in the Arab region. The program welcomes submissions of short and medium-length documentaries in production and post-production and features documentary film projects that are in development, production, or post-production phases.

The program provides annual grants of up to fifty thousand U.S. dollars for Production and a maximum of twenty-five thousand U.S. dollars for Post-production grants.

Eligible Expenses

AFAC only covers project-related expenses (including artist fees up to 30% of the total grant amount). Neither running operating costs nor the purchase of equipment can be covered by the grant

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Eligible Candidates

• AFAC is open to receiving project applications from Arab directors and producers living in the Arab region or in the diaspora.
• A non-Arab producer can apply for a grant provided that the film director is Arab.
• Film projects applying to the production and post-production grants having producers attached to them is a plus.
• Moreover, project applications are accepted irrespective of age, years of experience, country of residence, ethnicity, gender, or religion.

A film producer is eligible to apply with a maximum of two projects per category per cycle provided the two projects are not attached to the same director. However, if a film producer has one open grant, s/he can apply with one project. If s/he has two open grants, s/he is not eligible to apply before closing one grant at least.

How to Apply

Applications are only accepted through the online application forms available on our website. Applications submitted via regular mail or e-mail will not be accepted.

The applicant will receive a confirmation e-mail once the online application has been received.  AFAC will not contact applicants if any part of their application is incomplete.

Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

To apply, please log in with your username and password. visit the program page you are interested in applying to and click on apply. In case you don’t have an existing account, please create one here.

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Supporting Material

• If the application is submitted by the producer, make sure to provide samples of the director’s previous works if any.
• If applying for a post-production fund, a rough cut (10 minutes and above for medium-length projects; 25 minutes and above for feature-length projects) is mandatory. Moreover, you can send a trailer in addition to the rough cut.
• If you are applying for a production fund, you need to submit a selection of edited scenes (not less than 5 minutes) from the submitted project. You can send a trailer in addition to the edited scenes.
• If you are applying with a project that is partly or fully animated, the submission of a mood board is mandatory.
• Supporting files/samples for the submitted project and previous works smaller than 10 MB can be uploaded directly to the application.
• Supporting files/samples for submitted projects and previous works exceeding 10 MB should be included as links to files on sharing websites (such as Dropbox, Vimeo, YouTube…).
• For further inquiries regarding supporting material, contact the AFAC grants management team.
• In addition, it is mandatory to add a detailed budget for all projects.

Evaluation and Selection Process

AFAC will conduct an administrative check to ensure that applications are complete and adhere to the guidelines. Only applications that pass the administrative check will be processed. An independent readers’ committee will then assess the proposals and select the applications to send to the independent jurors’ committee. The jurors’ committee will assess the preselected applications and choose the projects to be granted. Please see Evaluation Process for more details.

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Payment Conditions & Schedule

For development grants, the grantee will receive 70% of the grant amount as a first payment. Once the project is completed and the grantee has submitted the deliverables, narrative and financial reports, the remaining 30% will be transferred.

For production grants, grantees will receive 25% of the grant amount as the first payment. When 80% of the first payment has been spent AND the shooting has started, the grantee must submit an interim narrative and financial report to AFAC. Once the report is approved, grantees will receive 60% of the grant total amount as a second payment.

With the submission of the final deliverables and reports, the remaining 15% of the grant total amount will be transferred and the grant will be closed.

For post-production grants, grantees will receive 50% of the grant amount as the first payment. Once the project is completed and the grantee has submitted the deliverables, narrative and financial reports, the remaining 50% will be transferred.

Grantees should provide AFAC with ten copies of the final outputs of the project, when applicable.