Six-Time Emmy Winner Starts Program to Help Independent Filmmakers

The Independent Production Fund, a non-profit documentary production company headed by six-time Emmy award-winning Executive Producer Alvin H. Perlmutter, today announced that it would offer its unique brand of fiscal sponsorship to filmmakers in New York and nationwide. This special program commemorates its 20th anniversary producing landmark programs for public television.

"Without proper funding many important public interest films and documentaries never see the light of day. Fiscal sponsorship," said Alvin H. Perlmutter, "gives individuals and for-profit production companies an alternative to maxed out credit cards, personal loans, and the sale of rights typically required to finance independent films. IPF's non-profit status instead allows filmmakers access to foundation and government grants, providing them with stable funding and allowing them to keep ownership of their work."

The service, accessible at www.ipfmedia.org/fiscalsponsorship, is unique because IPF is the only public interest oriented documentary production company in NYC providing anything of its kind. It offers filmmakers comprehensive assistance - production support, fundraising consultation, financial management, online credit card donation processing and even executive producing (assisted by multiple Emmy award-winning producers) - fitting the needs of the most or the least experienced producer. "As independent producers we understand how difficult it is to secure funds and see assisting other filmmakers who also desire to educate, engage and challenge viewers as integral to our mission," said IPF Senior Producer Lisa Zbar.

While previously unavailable to the broader filmmaking community, IPF has been providing fiscal sponsorship by request for many years and has worked with important projects to secure millions of dollars in financing. One typical project IPF Fiscal Sponsorship made possible is a documentary by Peabody award-winning Riverside Films about the first doctors who traveled to Africa in the 1980s to fight the burgeoning AIDS epidemic there. Joe Dorman, head of Riverside Films, said of the sponsorship program, "IPF has been terrifically efficient, helpful, and easy to work with. I have enthusiastically recommended IPF to colleagues looking for a fiscal sponsor, and I will continue to do so."