{"id":668051,"date":"2025-05-09T06:20:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T03:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/im-one-of-the-filmmakers-doge-targeted-at-the-neh-heres-why-were-in-trouble-guest-column\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T06:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T03:20:23","slug":"im-one-of-the-filmmakers-doge-targeted-at-the-neh-heres-why-were-in-trouble-guest-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/im-one-of-the-filmmakers-doge-targeted-at-the-neh-heres-why-were-in-trouble-guest-column\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m One of the Filmmakers DOGE Targeted at the NEH. Here\u2019s Why We\u2019re In Trouble (Guest Column)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tI just became a member of a group I never wanted to join \u2014 filmmakers whose National Endowment for the Humanities grants were terminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs you may have heard, President Donald Trump and DOGE recently cut<\/a> the vast majority of staff and grants at the NEH. It\u2019s hit documentary filmmakers hard.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the NEH cuts, DOGE has targeted 89 documentary and related \u201cmedia<\/a>\u201d projects (this includes podcasts). Among them are a four-part Ken Burns docuseries<\/a> exploring the history of our criminal justice system; Rita Coburn\u2019s film on W.E.B. Du Bois; and Matia Karrell and Hilary Prentice\u2019s documentary Coming Home: Fight for a Legacy,<\/em> about America\u2019s overlooked female World War II aviators. Even documentaries on baseball and Nancy Drew saw their funding stopped. The future of many of these projects is now uncertain.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn many cases the films were stopped midstream \u2014 Karrell and Prentice were able to get 20 percent of their funds, for instance, but the remaining $480,000 are currently inaccessible.\u00a0This sum \u2014 earned after a decade of research, filming and personal investment of time \u2014 is everything to the filmmakers, even as it\u2019s peanuts to the federal government.\u00a0Between $10 million and $20 million in \u201cmedia funding\u201d were cut. That may sound hefty, but it\u2019s only about 10 percent of the NEH\u2019s overall budget (many other grantees of course saw cuts too) and 0.003 percent of the total federal budget. Hardly a deficit buster.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe mass termination of NEH awards is unprecedented in the agency\u2019s 60-year history, and doesn\u2019t just affect filmmakers. It also impacts the cultural lifeblood of our country.\u00a0The NEH was established in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and in the years since has awarded $6 billion in grants to humanities councils in 56 states and jurisdictions in support of projects that deepen understanding of our shared humanity. Many NEH-funded films have had major social impact, from Gordon Parks\u2019 1984 made-for-public television film Solomon Northup\u2019s Odyssey<\/em>,\u00a0based on the Twelve Years a Slave<\/em> author\u2019s odyssey\u00a0to A Midwife\u2019s Tale<\/em>, a docudrama based on the diary of an early American midwife that aired on PBS\u2019s American Experience <\/em>in 1997. Or 2020\u2019s Crip Camp<\/em>, an empowering look at the disability rights movement by James Lebrecht, one of its activists and founders. All that is now imperiled.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy own letter was a gut punch. I\u2019d been working on\u00a0a documentary,\u00a0My Underground Mother<\/em>, for over a decade. The film traces my search<\/a> for my late mother\u2019s hidden Holocaust past, which included time at a Jewish women\u2019s forced labor camp that she and 60 other inmates wrote about in a secret diary (a band of resisters who I locate around the world in real time, combining written passages with new interviews). Their story highlights an untold aspect of the Holocaust and the evil consequences of antisemitism.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut\u00a0the nonprofit sponsoring my work (all NEH films have one)\u00a0received a letter last month from Michael McDonald, the NEH\u2019s acting chair, that stated my documentary \u201cno longer effectuates the agency\u2019s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement,\u201d based on a rarely used clause that gives federal agencies broad authority to stop funding projects that don\u2019t adhere to an administration\u2019s agenda.\u00a0\u201cYour grant\u2019s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

\n\tApp<\/a>arently my small independent film wasn\u2019t only deemed a waste of taxpayers\u2019 money by this administration \u2014 its very funding was imperiling the \u201curgent\u201d fiscal needs of our nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this seemed especially peculiar given how President Trump is currently at war with major universities for their alleged failures to combat antisemitism.\u00a0\u00a0The irony wasn\u2019t lost on Sen. Elizabeth Warren either \u2014 she\u00a0singled out<\/a>\u00a0My Underground Mother<\/em> as an especially egregious example of a bad cut decision.\u00a0President Trump also stated that many of the terminated projects focused on DEI, but it\u2019s hard to see how that applies to movies about the likes of artist Frida Kahlo or Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the Academy Award-nominated director Immy Humes \u2014 a grantee who has been working on a film about the little-known indie-cinema figure Shirley Clarke and who has organized a group of filmmakers to fight the moves \u2013 notes,\u00a0\u201cThe cuts are too sweeping and undefined.\u201d\u00a0She adds, \u201cI was on cloud nine when I was notified about my NEH grant award. And then boom. This crazy termination with no warning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile DOGE\u2019s Elon Musk has characterized federal grants as handouts and grant recipients as freeloaders scamming the federal government, let me be the first to tell you, the NEH grant process isn\u2019t for those looking for easy payouts. Statistically, it\u2019s harder to win an NEH grant than to gain admission to Harvard, and it\u2019s often preceded by rejections. My first award, a film development grant of $75,000, was the culmination of nearly a decade of research, writing, filming, pitching and fundraising.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m not sure the vetting process here was nearly as thorough. One insider said that the only DOGE people who visited were two young men who only spent a few days at the office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNeedless to say, the impact of these cuts will be huge and resonate far beyond the documentary world. Defunding\u00a0these grants means harming every library, historical society, museum and organization that produces, distributes and plays these films. This pipeline is further damaged by Trump\u2019s proposed gutting of the NEA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0It\u2019s hard to know what the next steps could or should be. Instead of issuing clear guidelines on how to appeal, the administration issued a series of confusing directives, extending the 30-day appeal window by another 30 days but also stating:\u00a0\u201cNEH is not offering a means of dispute resolution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA lawsuit has been filed against the NEH in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association. It\u2019s up to the nonprofit organizations the NEH works with, not individual filmmakers, to seek legal redress for the grant terminations. But this makes for a scattershot approach, with many choosing to accept termination out of fear of losing overdue reimbursements. Others, like Prentice, whose production partner Women Make Movies is filing an appeal on behalf of her film, have decided to push back.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome recent wins in court, most notably by journalists from the Voice of America, do give hope. (Though an appeals court just reversed<\/a> the ruling.) V.O.A. was founded during World War II to broadcast fact-based journalism to troops and citizens abroad and counter Nazi propaganda. And if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned from my film\u2019s deep dive into history, it\u2019s that there\u2019s no better way to counter hate than by humanizing the other. I\u2019ve seen first hand how meeting a Holocaust survivor, whether in person or through a project, can dispel the most deep-seated antisemitic beliefs.\u00a0But if the NEH, NEA and local humanities councils are defunded, the platforms that can bridge divides will be severely limited. And so, too, will our chances of stemming hate\u2019s rising ride.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history,\u201d wrote George Orwell. As we celebrate the Allies win over hatred with the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day on Thursday, we can hope, pray \u2014 and fight \u2014 to ensure that organizations like the NEH are here to stop that destruction.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarisa Fox is a veteran journalist and television producer and the director of <\/em>\u201cMy Underground Mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just became a member of a group I never wanted to join \u2014 filmmakers whose National Endowment for the Humanities grants were terminated.\u00a0 As you may have heard, President Donald Trump and DOGE recently cut the vast majority of staff and grants at the NEH. It\u2019s hit documentary filmmakers hard. With the NEH cuts,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":668052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2209745674.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[152683,4941],"class_list":["post-668051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-doge","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}