Global Film Initiative

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The Global Film Initiative (GFI) was a non-profit film organization that supported cinematic works from developing nations and promotes cross-cultural understanding through use of film and non-traditional learning resources. Its most notable programs are the Global Lens Film Series, a traveling film-series that premieres annually at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and is accompanied by educational screening-programs for high school students, and the Granting program, which has awarded numerous grants to narrative film-projects from around the world, many of which have been nominated as official country selections for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards.

The Global Film Initiative was founded by Susan Coulter Weeks in 2002 and is advised by a board of directors, and a film-board composed of filmmakers such as Mira Nair, Lars von Trier, Pedro Almodóvar, Bela Tarr, Carlos Reygadas, Christopher Doyle, and Djamshed Usmonov. In 2004, it entered into a partnership with First Run Features for distribution of all films in the Global Lens Film Series, and in 2006, it moved its offices from the West Village of New York to the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco, California (USA). Their office is currently located in the Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco.