Fondazione Prada Announces Film Fund To Sustain The Future Of Independent Cinema

Fondazione Prada is launching the Fondazione Prada Film Fund—a bold, €1.5 million annual commitment to champion the future of independent cinema. Debuting in Fall 2025 with an open call for submissions, the Fund is designed to support films of exceptional artistic ambition, deepening the institution’s two-decade engagement with the moving image.

Each year, a jury of seasoned professionals will select 10 to 12 feature films for support—regardless of origin, language, or genre. The only benchmarks: quality, originality, and a singular vision. The Fund’s purpose is clear—to offer meaningful support at key stages of filmmaking, from early development through post-production.

“Cinema is a laboratory of ideas and a site of cultural education,” says Miuccia Prada, President and Director of Fondazione Prada. “That’s why we’re committed to helping bring new works into the world—works that demand something of the viewer and open up new ways of seeing. This Fund continues our long-standing dialogue with the radical, the visionary, and the free.”

Rooted in editorial independence, the Fondazione Prada Film Fund works closely with an evolving team of producers, curators, and internationally recognized cinema experts. Its rigorous curatorial framework reflects the broader mission of Fondazione Prada: to generate unexpected encounters between disciplines and foster new creative languages.

With an eye toward inclusivity, the initiative is structured to embrace a wide range of filmmakers—from established auteurs to emerging voices to those working in experimental or research-based modes. By doing so, the Fund aims to enrich the vibrant, pluralistic landscape of contemporary cinema, not just with resources, but with faith in the power of the cinematic imagination.

Fondazione Prada Film Fund is a project developed by Paolo Moretti—curator of Fondazione Prada’s Cinema Godard program, director of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival from 2018 to 2022, head of the Cinema department at ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne), and Director of Cinémas du Grütli in Geneva—in collaboration with Rebecca De Pas, a member of the selection committee at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, art consultant for the Viennale, and co-director of FiDLab—an international coproduction platform—from 2009 to 2019.

Brooke Wise's Aloha From Hell Is An Apt Short Film Festival To Conclude A Nightmarishly Long Year

text by Avery Wheless

As we wrap a year of the unpredictable and frightening, it’s clear that comedy serves as a good access point to observe the macabre in life. This is no new approach for curator Brooke Wise, who is notorious for utilizing humor while approaching complicated topics. Wise reasons, “You can get so much across with humor, especially with so much darkness happening at the moment, it’s the best tool we have.”

Luckily, Wise has blessed us once again with her fourth round of Aloha From Hell, a film festival calling together creatives of all kinds with proceeds benefiting Planned Parenthood LA in partnership with Depop.

Aloha from Hell is typically a Halloween festival, but in a year where schedule is neither here nor there, Wise delivers her satirical and spooky cinematic experience right in time for the holidays.

Unlike most film festivals, submissions are open to all creatives, musicians, artists, comedians, and more. The resulting selection features traditional filmmaking, experimental video, narrative and performance art— proving you don’t need to be an actual filmmaker to make a video.

This year features creatives such as Chloe Wise, Benny Drama, Mia Kerin, Kate Jean Hollowell, Mark Indelicato, Miles McMillan, Dinah Rankin, Ew Yuk! And musical guests, Okay Kaya and Kacy Hill. The festival’s common thread of uncanny and outlandish opens conversations through a visually experimental context, while addressing raw and diverse topics in regards to gender and sexuality.

Known for combining her curatorial work with raising funds for charitable organizations, Wise chose Planned Parenthood specifically for Aloha from Hell, as an open expression of gender and sexuality is rooted at the core of many of the showcased films. 

Reasoning that the best way to face all things scary is through a lens of playfulness, Aloha from Hell delivers just the right amount of the obscene, kooky and irreverent, brightening the quarantine and making us all feel a little less fucked up. 

Aloha From Hell will be screened virtually on December 22 from 5-8pm PST.

Brooke Wise Teams Up With Comedy Central & Sexy Beast To Host Aloha From Hell Film Festival

This Halloween, curator Brooke Wise teamed up with Sexy Beast and Comedy Central on a special third installment of her short film festival, Aloha From Hell, with proceeds benefitting Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. All of the wild, comedic, satirical and spooky videos selected for the festival are under 5 minutes in length, chosen via open online submission, and crafted in response to this year’s theme: SHE DEVILS.