Federal funding cuts affect Utah’s independent filmmakers

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.

Congress recently approved a $9 billion rescission package. The Trump-backed package revoked previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

The cuts remove all federal support to public media organizations NPR, PBS and roughly 1,500 member stations across the U.S.

Also affected is the Independent Television Service, or ITVS, which uses CPB money to fund and present documentaries on public television. While ITVS President and CEO Carrie Lozano said in a statement the service “remains committed to continuing [its] work,” the cut still makes an impact.

The organization reduced its staff by 20% in June due to funding uncertainty.

Utah Documentary Association Secretary J.R. Hardman said ITVS is not the only public service supporting documentary and film affected by federal cuts. She said the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds many documentary projects, has been decimated. The entity rolled back grant projects in April to align with Trump administration initiatives. Many documentary projects were affected, including the documentary “Nancy Drew: The Case of the American Icon,” exploring the cultural significance of the fictional sleuth.

The Trump administration also started canceling National Endowment for the Arts grants in May. Utah filmmaking programs were part of the arts cuts.

“I know filmmakers personally through my work with the Documentary Producers Alliance that have lost their entire budget because the NEA and NEH funding has been canceled,” Hardman said.

Funding has always been a challenge

But documentary association treasurer Brannon Richardson said funding has always been the number one challenge in the independent documentary and film industries, which have a long history in Utah.

“If you want it seen, it’s easy to get it seen. You slap it on YouTube and direct people towards it, it will be seen,” he said. “But if your objective is to have it seen and make money, that’s where the challenge really is. And that’s always been the case.”

Utah Film Center Executive Director Mariah Mellus agreed. She said advancements in technology have made films easier to make, but the cost of filmmaking has not decreased.

“The idea of making money on an independent film is like catching lightning in a bottle,” Mellus said. “It happens, it just, it’s not very often.”

And since films are easier to make — Mellus said decent films can be shot on an iPhone — there are more filmmakers than ever.

However, the number of donors hasn’t increased. This means more projects are going after the same amount of funding.

“You’ve really got to have a great pitch and, you know, a really inspiring storyline and credible crew in order for somebody to want to invest in it,” Mellus said.

Independent film acquisitions decrease

Part of the funding challenge is a decrease in independent film acquisitions. Hardman said streaming platforms aren’t buying independent films and documentaries at the rate they used to. Instead, they’re producing most of their content in-house.

Hardman said distributors also aren’t picking up films from festivals as much either.

“In the past, you might expect, if you got a film into Sundance or Tribeca or a big festival like that, that you would have maybe an 80% to 90% chance of selling your film to a distributor, and in the past few years, it’s gone down to like a 10% to 20% chance, and that’s for docs and fiction,” Hardman said.

Mellus said it’s a multifaceted problem that didn’t start overnight. Many streaming services have decided to partner up and share content, like Hulu and Disney+. Mellus said this has decreased the need for new content. The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike added to the problem.

Richardson said filmmakers have other avenues, like YouTube to showcase their work, though it’s not always on a broad scale. And Hardman said some are using social media to generate a following so they can stream their films at local cinemas. Filmmaker groups are also working together to organize small events that showcase multiple films at once.

Lack of creativity in new films

Streaming platforms passing on independent films is adding to another problem in the industry: a lack of creativity.

Hardman said distributors producing content in-house has caused a lot of similar content to be made.

“It’s the same people making the decisions about what they think will be commercially successful, rather than relying on filmmakers who go out and find these just unimaginable, sometimes, stories to bring to the screen and paying them for the rights to those projects,” Hardman said.

Mellus said the films distributors are buying are true crime documentaries and celebrity biopics because they get a lot of eyeballs. But Hardman and Richardson said films about underserved communities rarely get picked up.

However, Mellus said there are still resources available to filmmakers. She said the center’s fiscal sponsorship is booming and last year the organization brought in almost $20 million in donations to support independent filmmakers.