Harbor Fund, a nonprofit Utah-based investment group, is keeping independent cinema alive in Utah

Throughout history, artists have relied on powerful, rich individuals and families to fund their artistic visions. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo had the Medici family. Jackson Pollock had Peggy Guggenheim. For over two decades, the documentary community has relied on wealthy investors from Impact Partners and Artemis Rising Foundation.

Now Hollywood A-listers, including Chris Pine, Oscar Isaac and Sarah Silverman, are enlisting wealthy patrons of the arts to help them bring their film and TV projects about challenging issues to life.

The A-listers are relying on a Utah-based nonprofit investment group, Harbor Fund, to connect them with high-net-worth individuals who believe in the power of socially impactful film and TV.

Harbor Fund’s co-founder and chief executive, Lindsay Hadley, said, “We want to hijack the most powerful PR engine in the world, which is Hollywood, for good, and we believe that we can do that.”

Since launching two years ago, Harbor has raised $15 million from 82 donors with an average contribution of $250,000. Ten million dollars has been spread across 22 projects, including Pine’s “Evicted” documentary and the Mark Wahlberg movie “By Any Means,” a civil rights era-set crime thriller released by Paramount Pictures on September 4.

Quoting Amy Redford’s Sundance 2026 speech that honored her late father Robert Redford, Hadley said, “Filmmakers and the creative community at large are the shaman of our culture. Whether we are looking at it through screens, or in a theater, or streaming at home, or however you are consuming media, that is literally our proverbial campfire.”

Hadley added, “That is why we are doing what we are doing at Harbor. To match philanthropists or patrons of the arts with these kings and queens of culture.”

It comes as no surprise that celebrities are looking for money from millionaires — in some cases, billionaires — to fund their projects. Corporate consolidation in Hollywood has led to less risk and diversity across studios and streamers, and to more in-house content to create bulletproof IP.

Films with strong social impact elements that inspire social justice and humanitarian action — think “Erin Brockovich, “The Constant Gardener,” and “Blood Diamond” — aren’t being made anymore. When Jeff Skoll decided to shut down Participant in 2024, he put the proverbial nail in the coffin on “do-gooder” films and Hollywood business models that prioritized social impact slightly more than profits.

On June 28, Silverman, Zachary Levi, Matthew Modine, Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby, and Edward James Olmos traveled to the Sundance Mountain Resort for the third annual, invitation-only, four-day Harbor Film Forum to pitch their projects to high-net-worth individuals handpicked by Hadley.

Modine pitched “The Splendid Thing,” a film that the actor said, “begs the question of what is real.” The actor wrote and will direct the movie starring John Cleese, Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave, and Eddie Izzard.

“I’m out of pocket on everything right now,” said Modine, who is currently scouting locations in Italy. “I’ve even said I will defer my salary to get the film made.”

Edward James Olmos pitched “Valley of the Heart.” Written by Luis Valdez, Olmos plans to direct the movie about secret lovers, one Japanese-American and one Mexican-American, whose lives are torn apart by Pearl Harbor. The film’s budget is $41 million.

“This is not simply a period film,” Olmos said. “It’s a deeply human love story about endurance, identity, sacrifice and hope, and it reminds us that even in the darkest moments in American history, humanity survives through compassion, resilience and love. At a moment where division, intolerance and fear once again are rising in our world, this story feels more urgent than ever.”

Geralyn Dreyfous, co-founder of the documentary equity fund Impact Partners, has spent the last two decades pairing documentary filmmakers, including Oscar winners Alex Gibney, Roger Ross Williams, and, most recently, “Ask E. Jean” director Ivy Meeropol, with patrons of the arts.

“Scripted films have a much bigger footprint and audience than documentary films do,” Dreyfous said. “That doesn’t mean that documentary films are not important, but both forms are at risk right now. Independent cinema is very vulnerable. What you are seeing at the Harbor Forum is people like Bob Redford, 40 years ago, who don’t want to do what the studios want them to do. They want to find a way to do things independent of the studios and streamers. So, they are pitching their projects to people who can make them possible, and hopefully that will help them get distribution.”

Executives from Amazon and Angels Studios attended the Harbor Forum.

While Harbor’s mission sounds similar to Participant, don’t call the Harbor Participant 2.0.

“We stand on the shoulders of giants like Jeff Skoll and his team because they set a precedent for this type of filmmaking and he brought his capital as a philanthropist into it,” Hadley said. “But even though Participant would have a “Green Book” or a success with “Wonder’ or “Spotlight,” it never made up for the entire overhead of their studio. They had over a hundred employees hemorrhaging capital, and that’s why it shut down. It wasn’t built sustainably. “

Hadley added, “So the difference is that they were a studio that made the movies. We are just investing. We are just the venture capitalists that are on the finance side, which allows us to be ridiculously lean. So even if we had a billion dollars in this fund one day, we would never have more than 10 full-time employees.”

Currently, the goal is to bring $100 million into the Harbor Fund over the next two years.

“Flight of the Conchords” stars Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby, and producer Rosie Carnahan-Darby also attended the Forum to pitch “Wool Kings,” a comedy about two feuding New Zealan sheep farmers vieing to be the number one sheep station in the country. The trio said that while the film is a comedy, it is just as essential as social impact films.

“People need to laugh,” said Carnahan-Darby. “Especially right now.”

The scipt for “Wool Kings” is complete. Schaal, Darby, and Rosie Carnahan-Darby are seeking development funding.

“One thing I’ve realized with “Wool Kings” is that I can’t rely on anyone but myself and my friends,” said Schaal. “Through my agents it didn’t work. Through the typical studio producing model it didn’t work. It feels like reinventing the game because a good idea for a movie is met with blank stares.”

Schaal said that when she received the invite to attend the Harbor Fun, she read the email a few times.

“I was like, ‘Wait. We can come and talk about our idea to people who might give us money to make it real,’” said Schaal. “It is like Willy Wonka. Rhys, Rosie and I were all a little skeptical, to be honest, because it’s not how it works. Right now, how it works is you don’t get to make your movie.”

Darby said he felt optimistic following the “Wool Kings” pitch and another project he pitched called “Gordon’s Girl.”

“Funders have approached us and asked me how much we are looking for,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say – $4,000, $40,000 or $40 million. I just kind of stood there.”

The state of 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 focused on investing in film and the creative energy and collaboration that drive it,” Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox’s Office of Economic Development said in a statement to Variety. “Gatherings like Harbor Film Forum are an important part of this effort. We want meaningful films to be showcased, financed, developed, and created in Utah.”

Harbor Fund’s advisory board includes filmmaker Patty Jenkins and Mark Burnett.