Fondazione Prada launches €1.5 million annual film fund to support independent cinema worldwide

Fondazione Prada has announced the establishment of the Fondazione Prada Film Fund, a new annual initiative aimed at supporting independent cinema worldwide. The Fund, valued at €1.5 million, is scheduled to launch in autumn 2025 with an open call for entries. The initiative will be based in Milan, Italy, where Fondazione Prada is headquartered, and aims to provide financial support to 10 to 12 feature films each year, regardless of geographical origin or genre. The primary objective is to foster works of high artistic merit, furthering the foundation’s two-decade involvement in film and visual culture.

The selection process for the Fund will focus on the quality, originality and vision of submitted projects, with the intent to aid crucial phases of film development, production and post-production. The jury will be composed of cinema professionals, including producers, curators and internationally recognised experts. According to Fondazione Prada, the Fund will operate with editorial independence, in line with the organisation’s stated mission to encourage intersections between different artistic disciplines and visual languages.

Miuccia Prada, president and director of Fondazione Prada, commented: “Cinema is for us a laboratory for new ideas and a space of cultural education. For this reason, we have decided to actively contribute to the realization of new works and to the support of auteur cinema. For over twenty years, the Fondazione has been investigating these languages in different ways, thus advocating a free, demanding and visionary idea of cinema. Through this Fund we intend to deepen and broaden a dialogue with creation and contemporary experimentation.”

The project is being developed by Paolo Moretti, curator of the Fondazione’s Cinema Godard programme and former Director of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival, together with Rebecca De Pas, a member of the selection committee at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and former co-director of FiDLab.

The Film Fund is the latest in a series of cinema-related initiatives by Fondazione Prada, which has engaged with film since the early 2000s. Past projects have included collaborations with the Tribeca Film Festival and Venice Biennale, film restoration programmes and exhibitions featuring directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Quentin Tarantino and Jean-Luc Godard. The foundation’s Milan venue also houses Cinema Godard, a dedicated screening space and Bar Luce, a café designed by Wes Anderson.

The open call for the inaugural Fondazione Prada Film Fund is expected in autumn 2025, with further details to be announced closer to the launch.

The editorial unit

For further information visit the Fondazione Prada website here.