Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant

Overview

The Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant is a $6,500 film completion grant awarded annually to a woman filmmaker for a film about physical or developmental disability issues. The grant is administered by New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) through its Fund for Women Filmmakers, and is funded by Loreen Arbus, a disability rights advocate and media executive. The grant has been running for over 15 years, with the 2025 recipient being director Madeleine Farley for Fist Bump, a feature documentary about Marcus Knight's fight for education access.

The grant is one of three funding opportunities administered through NYWIFT's Fund for Women Filmmakers, alongside the Ravenal Foundation Grant and the Bridge Multimedia In-Kind Grant. Together, these programs provide cash and in-kind services to women directors and producers each year.

If you are a woman filmmaker in post-production on a film whose central subject is disability, this grant has a narrow applicant pool compared to general completion funds. Review the official grant page for current application status and deadlines.

What It Funds

The grant is a completion fund. It supports the post-production phase of a film that has completed principal photography. Eligible costs include:

• Editing and picture lock
• Color grading
• Sound design and mix
• Music licensing
• Accessibility features including closed captioning and audio description
• Preparation of festival deliverables

The $6,500 is not intended to cover the full cost of post-production. It provides a meaningful contribution to completion expenses, typically stacked alongside other finishing funds, crowdfunding campaigns, or in-kind support.

Additional In-Kind Support

The grant comes with supplementary in-kind support that increases its practical value beyond the $6,500 cash award:

• Audio description asset: Courtesy of Michele Spitz through Woman of Her Word, the winning film receives a post-production in-kind grant to produce an audio description asset, making the film accessible to blind or visually impaired audiences
• Captioning and distribution support: ReelAbilities Film Festival, the largest disabilities film festival in North America, provides captioning services for the winning film and supports outreach and distribution through the ReelAbilities North American network of festivals

This in-kind package can add several thousand dollars in value on top of the cash grant, particularly for filmmakers who had not yet budgeted for accessibility features.

Eligibility

Who Can Apply

• The applicant must be a woman director or producer
• The film's central subject must be physical or developmental disability issues
• Principal photography must be completed
• The film must not yet be distributed
• The filmmaker must be US-based

Format and Genre

Both documentary and narrative films are eligible. Both short and feature-length formats are eligible. There are no runtime restrictions.

The Disability Subject Requirement

The disability subject requirement is substantive. The film's central subject should be disability itself, not a film where disability is a peripheral or incidental element of the story. Films that use disability as a plot device without centering the disability experience will not be competitive.

Application Timeline

The grant opens for applications annually, typically in the first quarter of the year. Historical deadlines have fallen in early to mid-March (the 2023 deadline was March 10). As of July 2026, submissions are currently closed. Filmmakers should check the NYWIFT Fund for Women Filmmakers page for the next open submissions date.

Who Should Apply

Women directors or producers in post-production on a film whose central subject is physical or developmental disability. The grant is open to both emerging and established filmmakers. Given the specific eligibility criteria (woman filmmaker, disability subject, completed photography, not yet distributed), the applicant pool is relatively targeted, making this less competitive than broader completion funds that accept any subject matter.

Filmmakers who have already budgeted for accessibility features (captioning, audio description) will find the in-kind support from Michele Spitz and ReelAbilities partially redundant. Filmmakers who have not yet planned for accessibility will find the in-kind package particularly valuable, as it covers costs that many post-production budgets overlook.

How This Grant Fits in a Financing Stack

The $6,500 cash award positions this grant as a supplementary completion fund rather than a primary financing source. Filmmakers should treat it as one layer in a stack that might include:

• Larger completion grants from funds like the Sundance Documentary Fund or ITVS
• Crowdfunding campaigns (Kickstarter, Indiegogo) targeted at the disability community
• Fiscal sponsorship through a 501(c)(3) organization to unlock foundation grants
• In-kind post-production support from labs and fellowships

The disability-specific focus means this grant can be listed in applications to disability-focused foundations and organizations as evidence of community support, which can strengthen subsequent funding applications.

Notable Past Recipients

The 2025 recipient was director Madeleine Farley for Fist Bump, a feature documentary about Marcus Knight's fight for an education after being unfairly denied due to systemic bias against people with disabilities. The film received the cash grant plus audio description services from Woman of Her Word and captioning and distribution support from ReelAbilities Film Festival.

See Also

For post-production planning and storage cost estimation, use the Storage and Footage Calculator. For an overview of film financing and grant stacking strategies, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack. For understanding distribution pathways for disability-focused documentaries, see Distribution Deals: What Filmmakers Need to Know.