Throughout history, artists have relied on powerful and wealthy individuals and families to fund their artistic visions. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also members of the Medici family. Jackson Pollock had Peggy Guggenheim. For more than 20 years, the documentary community has relied on wealthy investors in Impact Partners and the Artemis Rising Foundation.
Now, Hollywood celebrities including Chris Pine, Oscar Isaac and Sarah Silverman are turning to wealthy art world patrons to help bring to life film and TV projects that deal with difficult issues.
A-list stars rely on Utah-based nonprofit investment group Harbor Fund to connect them with wealthy individuals who believe in the power of film and television to impact society.
“We want to permanently take over Hollywood, the most powerful public relations machine in the world, and we believe we can do it,” said Harbor Fund co-founder and CEO Lindsay Hadley.
Since launching two years ago, Harbor has raised $15 million from 82 donors, with an average gift of $250,000. The $10 million has been allocated to 22 projects, including Pine’s documentary “Evicted” and Mark Wahlberg’s “By Any Means,” a crime thriller set in the civil rights era that Paramount Pictures released on Sept. 4.
Citing Amy Redford’s 2026 Sundance speech honoring her late father Robert Redford, Hadley said, “Filmmakers and the entire creative community are the shamans of our culture. Whether we watch it through a screen, in a theater, streaming at home, or how we consume media, it is literally our proverbial campfire.”
Hadley added, “That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing at the Harbor: connecting philanthropists and patrons of the arts with the kings and queens of culture.”
It’s no surprise that celebrities seek funding from billionaires, and in some cases billionaires, to fund their projects. Corporate consolidation in Hollywood has reduced risk and diversity among studios and streamers, and increased in-house content to create complete IPs.
Films with strong social impact elements that promote social justice and humanitarian action (like Erin Brockovich, The Constant Gardener, Blood Diamond, etc.) are no longer being made. When director Jeff Skoll decided to close Participant in 2024, he put the proverbial nail in the coffin for “do-good” films and Hollywood’s business model, which marginally prioritizes social impact over profit.
On June 28, Silverman, Zachary Levi, Matthew Modine, Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby, and Edward James Olmos traveled to Sundance Mountain Resort to participate in the third annual invitation-only four-day Harbor Film Forum, an opportunity to pitch their projects to Hadley’s hand-picked wealthy audience.
The film “raises the question of what is real,” Modine said. The actor is set to write and direct the film, which stars John Cleese, Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave and Eddie Izzard.
“We can’t afford everything right now,” said Modine, who is currently scouting locations in Italy. “I once said I would defer my salary to make a movie.”
Edward James Olmos pitched “The Valley of the Heart.” The film, written by Luis Valdez, will be directed by Olmos about two secret lovers, a Japanese-American and a Mexican-American whose lives are torn apart by the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film’s budget is $41 million.
“This is more than just a historical drama,” Olmos said. “This is a deeply human love story of perseverance, identity, sacrifice, and hope, and a reminder that even in the darkest moments of American history, humanity survives through compassion, resilience, and love. At a time when division, intolerance, and fear are once again on the rise in our world, this story feels more urgent than ever.”
Over the past 20 years, Geralene Dreyfuss, co-founder of documentary equity fund Impact Partners, has paired documentary filmmakers and arts patrons, including Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, Roger Ross Williams, and most recently, Ask E. Jean director Ivy Mehropol.
“Scripted films have a much larger impact and audience than documentaries,” Dreyfaus said. “That doesn’t mean documentary film isn’t important, but both formats are in crisis right now. Independent film is very vulnerable. What you’re seeing at Harbor Forum is people like Bob Redford 40 years ago. They want to find a way to do things independently of studios and streamers, so they pitch their projects to people who can do that and hope that leads to distribution.”
Executives from Amazon and Angels Studios attended the Harbor Forum.
Harbor’s missions are similar to Participant, but don’t call Harbor Participant 2.0.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants like Jeff Skoll and his team because they set the precedent for this kind of filmmaking, and he brought his philanthropist capital to this filmmaking,” Hadley said. “But even if the participants published ‘Green Book’ or had success with ‘Wonder’ or ‘Spotlight,’ it could not cover all of the studio’s overhead costs. More than 100 employees drained the capital and it closed. It was not built sustainably.”
Hadley added, “The difference is they were the studio that made the movie. We’re just investing. We’re just venture capitalists on the finance side. That allows us to be ridiculously lean. So even if we were to raise a billion dollars into this fund one day, we’d never have more than 10 full-time employees.”
The current goal is to put $100 million into the Harbor Fund over the next two years.
Flight of the Conchords stars Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby and producer Rosie Carnaghan-Darby also attended the forum to promote Wool Kings, a comedy about two rival New Zealand sheep farmers who compete for the top sheep farm in the country. Although the film is a comedy, the trio said it is as essential as any film that has an impact on society.
“People need to laugh,” Carnahan Darby said. “Especially now.”
The script for “Wool Kings” has been completed. Mr Schall, Mr Darby and Rosie Carnaghan Darby are seeking development funding.
“One of the things I realized on ‘The Wool Kings’ is that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself and your friends,” Schaal said. “It didn’t work through agents. It didn’t work out with the typical studio production model either. Good ideas for movies get looked at in a white light, so it feels like reinventing the game.”
Schaal said she read the email several times when she received the invitation to join Harborfan.
“I thought, ‘Hold on, we can come and talk about our idea to people who might give us money to make it happen,'” Schaal said. “It’s like Willy Wonka. To be honest, Reese, Rosie and I were all a little skeptical, because that’s not how it works. Right now, the way it works is you can’t make your own movie.”
Darby said he felt optimistic after pitching “The Wool Kings” and another project he pitched called “Gordon’s Girl.”
“Funders approached us and asked how much money we were looking for,” he says. “I didn’t know what to say: $4,000, $40,000, $40 million. I just stood there.”
Utah was the title sponsor of the third annual Harbor Film Forum.
“Utah’s film industry has generated more than $736 million over the past decade, and we remain committed to investing in film and the creative energy and collaboration that drives it,” Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox, Office of Economic Development, said in a statement to Variety. “Gatherings like the Harbor Film Forum are an important part of this effort. We want meaningful films to be shown, funded, developed and produced in Utah.”
Harbor Fund’s advisory board includes filmmakers Patty Jenkins and Mark Burnett.
