From The Heart Productions
Fiscally Sponsored Indie Films and Projects
From the Heart Productions Fiscal Sponsorship Program
is designed to carry out our mission to help independent filmmakers who have unique projects that make a contribution to society, get their films funded.
Working with our 501(c)3 non-profit, fiscally sponsored filmmakers can offer donors tax deductions for their donations. Our “boutique” program sets itself apart by offering hands-on personalized attention, support, and film funding advice from our board members and staff.
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Tough Times
Short Film
After losing his job, his wife, and a reason to exist; Guy, a former accountant for a scandalous corporation, faces his demons through a tape-recorded piano lesson left in his father’s will.
After meeting with his father’s lawyer, Guy, a former accountant fired for fraudulent accounting, receives a collection of audiotapes marked as his father's will. He discovers the tapes come together to form a piano lesson his father recorded. Determined to play through the piano lesson and engage with the art form his estranged father seemed to care about more than anything, Guy not only comes to terms with his resentment towards his father but also finds a new outlook on himself.
TRUFFLE SAUCE
Short Film
TRUFFLE SAUCE, a drama short, is about Tweet, a tattoo artist, who needs to pay one more tuition bill in order to graduate from community college to fulfill the agreement with her grandparents. Graduate = get a tattoo shop. But Tweet keeps letting life get in the way. Not this time. She's gonna sell the truffle sauce, pay her bill, and start over... for real this time. That is until a customer arrives and begins to push her into a setback. Ugh, not again.
Trusted Sources
Documentary Film
Caught up in an attention-driven media landscape, idealistic journalists struggle to overcome public distrust, re-shaping the future of news publishing.
Trusted Sources examines the reasons many people don’t trust news outlets. We go behind the scenes to see how news is gathered and reported, sitting in on editorial meetings where decisions are made that determine what gets published. Trusted Sources demystifies the journalism process, reveals the factors that influence how – and whether – stories are covered, and provides the audience with skills for deciding what news to trust.
Ukraine: Fetal Stem Cell Pioneers
Documentary Film
Ukraine is the only country in the world where fetal stem cell therapy is legal and regulated. After curing their first patient of bone marrow failure in 1991 using fetal liver cells, a group of Ukrainian scientists have learned to extract up to 24 different organ types of fetal stem cells and deliver them to patients. Aside from taking a deep dive on the science behind this technology, this story follows patients from the United States who have made the journey to Kyiv, Ukraine to be successfully treated for muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and autism. The Russian invasion has complicated this journey. Eric Merola is the only journalist on earth covering this story.
Undone
Narrative Feature
Unlocking Desire
Narrative Feature
Victor Frankenstein
Narrative Feature
Voices of Grief, Honoring the Sacred Journey
Documentary Film
The Documentary Film – “Voices of Grief, Honoring the Scared Journey” - shares a fresh perspective on the many ways we navigate successfully through grief or companion others along their journey. Wisdom from contemporary authors, grief experts and spiritual teachers is woven through personal stories of loss to explore the roles of compassion, community, and connection in this sacred journey.
Void
Short Film
A married couple comes one final time to their late son’s apartment to pick up his last belongings.
After a chain of events and a change of heart, their grief and needs prove to be incompatible.
Mainstream media has successfully presented the trauma of losing a loved one. But surprisingly few films explore the incredibly personal sorrow that can explode even genuinely loving marriages. We aim to explore and make visible this familiar yet unseen drama.
'Void' talks about the individuality of the healing process: everybody has different needs in order to deal with grief, and sometimes this can get in the way of love.
Water
Short Film
Water is a short filmed based on a real encounter I had with a probable homeless man when I lived in Los Angeles. I witnessed him accessing a water line illegally to fill up a number of plastic water bottles he was carrying in his tattered vehicle. His car was filled with clothes and day-to-day items. He was likely one of the estimated 16,000 Angelenos who live in their vehicles full or part-time.
We are like Waves
Documentary Film
Along the South Coast of Sri Lanka, surfing is everywhere. Yet only foreigners and local men fill the lineups. Surfing is not seen as a sport for girls. This is a result of cultural and societal expectations that place women inside the household, particularly in rural areas. Young girls are expected to follow certain standards: be kind, look nice, and smile. Attend school, study, work. Get married, and start a family. Be a housewife, cook, and clean.
The ocean is simply not seen as a place for women.
Sanu must decide if she wants to continue a typical life as a housewife, or risk carving her own path as a surfer. This is a story of finding one’s voice in a sea of expectations.
What's in a Name
Documentary Film
Three trans women fight to overturn a harsh law that binds them to their past.
Tania Cordova, Eisha Love, and Reyna Ortiz are suing the state of Illinois to strike down a law that prohibits people with felony convictions from legally changing their names. A male name on their government ID exposes the women as transgender, which opens them up to harassment and danger on a daily basis. WHAT'S IN A NAME shares the personal journeys of three women who, at the risk of exposing themselves - not only as trans, but as people with felony backgrounds - have become key activists involved in the effort to pass HB2542, a state bill that strikes down the name change law.
When I Was a Human: The Movie
Narrative Feature
Being human is no walk in the dog park. Indy, an ex-shelter dog, has begun to understand it soon after turning himself into a human by eating a miracle dog biscuit. But he must expose the lies by his owner's new love interest. Human Indy is ready to take back Kimmy, his owner's affection!
Among all the confusing rules and behaviors that Indy has to understand, he sees the pain he's causing Kimmy by disappearing as her dog. It will take more than living as a human for Indy to secure his spot by Kimmy's side; it will take discovering what it means to love and be loved.
When Mountains Fall
Documentary Film
The children of three families from Syria and Iraq struggle to rebuild after surviving war and forced migration. With ever-increasing barriers in their new home in Europe, the challenges are daunting. But these kids are not lost—they are working to rebuild new lives, meet new challenges, and prepare for adulthood. In this film they tell their own stories.
When the Bass Drops
Narrative Feature
Whitehead: An Improbably Charmed Life
Documentary Film
Born to a working class English family just after World War Two, Paul Whitehead was destined for ordinariness but his unique outlook, unquestionable talent, and joie de vivre led him to extraordinary adventures, friendship with rock luminaries, and experimentation with identity and perception that is anything but ordinary. Now in his 70s and forced to move from downtown LA, Paul looks back on a life of playing with perception and identity as he finds the setting for his third act. He’s not who you think he is and you might not be either.
WOVEN IN TIME
Narrative Feature
Logline: A figure skater with her eyes on Olympic gold, finds herself catapulted toward suicide, after she is suddenly disabled from a car accident.
Description: The pilot as a narrative feature, is adapted from the Summer Ray book series. The (protagonist) is Summer Ray Sherwood; a Yankee woman who grew up near the Gettysburg Battlefields. Summer is a college student and an aspiring figure skater, well on her way to Olympic glory! Yet, while researching the Battle of Gettysburg for her history class, she unexpectedly meets an embittered Civil War ghost, Union Colonel Michael Moses McDaniels, on Big Round Top in Gettysburg. Woeburn the (antagonist) vows to stop her promise of peace.
Yellow
Short Film
You Don't Look Sick: A Documentary Series
Web/TV Series
YOU DON'T LOOK SICK: A DOCUMENTARY SERIES follows the lives of 3 people with autoimmune disease and fibromyalgia during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. Throughout the 6-episode series, Aliza, Justin and Ariana share their experiences getting diagnosed, living with chronic pain, maneuvering the healthcare system, finding effective treatments, managing intimate relationships, and enduring the struggle.