Ideas to Impact Blog

Grant Recipient Spotlight: Moving Picture Institute

mpi-logoYou’ve heard the complaints.

I wish Hollywood wasn’t so woke! I’m tired of anti-American, anti-capitalist films made by people who benefit mightily from America’s capitalist system. But the worst is when they wrap woke garbage in the franchises and stories we loved… or we used to love.

As a member of the Bradley Impact Fund community, you probably sympathize with those whose favorite stories are being destroyed by the cultural iconoclasts who run Hollywood. But you’re also impatient with mere complaining. What can we do about it?

The Moving Picture Institute (MPI) is answering that question in a powerful way. Through its core programs, MPI Original Films and the Rising Filmmaker Program, MPI is creating high-impact films designed to entertain, inspire, and educate audiences with captivating stories about human freedom. In 2023, MPI’s Pinball and Project Home went from earning awards at film festivals to going live on dozens of streaming platforms in the US and abroad. And in a co-production partnership with Paramount’s BET, MPI launched the award-winning feature Kemba, which the New Yorker said was “better than all ten of the 2023 nominees for best picture.”

In other words, MPI is building the sane alternative to woke Hollywood right now, and for the long term. That’s why Impact Fund members have shown particular interest in the MPI’s Rising Filmmaker Program, a growing network of accomplished writers, directors, and creatives who have come together to recruit talent and provide career development and networking opportunities for promising talent.

All in all, 930 fellowships and 285 internships have gone to young film professionals through Rising Filmmaker, which is supported by Impact Fund donors. With nine films in production through the Rising Filmmaker Program, MPI Original Films continues to scale to meet the demand for more honest, hopeful, and challenging American stories with the highest, elite-award-winning production levels.

The response to Hollywood’s embarrassingly bad, woke movies shouldn’t be equally bad conservative movies: it should be great movies. With the backing of the Impact Fund, this Hollywood alternative is becoming more real every day.