Sponsored Projects

Fueling Creativity, Driving Change

Our Sponsored Projects bring critical stories to life by connecting creators with the resources they need to make an impact. These projects—backed by sponsors who believe in the power of art as advocacy—raise awareness, challenge injustice, and inspire action through bold creative expression.

Creative Projects That Need Your Love, Guidance, and Support

Behind every powerful creative project is a visionary in need of resources, mentorship, and advocacy. Whether you contribute funding, offer expertise, or help spread the word, your involvement makes a difference. Explore projects in need of sponsorship and be part of a movement where creativity fuels justice. Your support transforms ideas into action.

1. Unfinished Portraits

Categories: Legal Barriers & Systemic Injustice | Best Short Film Award

A documentary exploring the lives of those who have fallen into homelessness, exposing dreams deferred, systemic failures, and the fight for survival. Through intimate interviews, raw street footage, and artistic recreations, it reveals how a single crisis—medical debt, disability, or job loss—can push anyone into homelessness. More than just a story of loss, it challenges audiences to confront the policies and indifference that keep people trapped outside the system.

Artist: Dante Morales – A documentary filmmaker and social justice advocate, Dante has spent years capturing stories of resilience and survival in marginalized communities. His previous works have focused on housing insecurity, migration, and economic disparity, using film as a tool to challenge perceptions and drive policy change.

2. Fractured Realities: Art & War in Ukraine

Categories: Freedom & Liberty | Best Photography & Visual Storytelling Award

A powerful photography and multimedia series that confronts misinformation, champions liberty, and demands accountability in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Through a blend of documentary photography, personal narratives, and artistic collaborations, this project exposes the realities of war beyond mainstream narratives. It highlights the emotional impact of those living through conflict, the resilience of Ukrainian artists, and the role of creativity as resistance.

This series will feature real-world stories interwoven with the work of Ukrainian creatives—models, makeup artists, painters, photographers, and other visionaries who continue to create despite the destruction at home or around them. Their art, alongside raw documentary photography, offers a layered perspective on war’s impact—not just on landscapes and lives, but on culture, identity, and expression.

Artist: multiple artists. Directed by & Produced by: Matt Ordeshook – An award-winning, multi-talented artist with over 20 years of experience in brand advancement, Matt has shattered perceptions and embraced emotional well-being through his creative endeavors. His recent projects, Pink: Different Aspects of Mental Health Throughout the Creative Industry and Shattered Impressions LA, reflect his commitment to pushing creative boundaries and addressing mental health challenges. With Fractured Realities, Matt brings his eye for storytelling to the human cost of war, capturing voices and visions from Ukraine that demand to be seen.

3. Through Their Eyes

Categories: Unhoused Mental Health Rights | Experimental & Mixed Media Award

A virtual reality experience that immerses users in the realities of navigating homelessness while battling mental illness, forcing them to confront the impossible choices that define survival. Players step into the world of Alex, a once-independent individual forced onto disability due to severe mental health challenges. What starts as a temporary safety net quickly spirals into a labyrinth of bureaucratic obstacles—endless paperwork, waitlists, denied applications, and the daily struggle of maintaining stability while experiencing depression, anxiety, PTSD, and mood swings.

This VR experience blends real-life testimonies, documentary-style environments, and interactive decision-making to replicate the overwhelming, often impossible choices unhoused individuals must make daily. Using effects - step in the mind of those with disabilities. By the end, users won’t just understand the crisis—they’ll feel it.

Artist: Matt Ordeshook – An award-winning, multi-talented artist with over 20 years of experience in brand advancement, Matt has shattered perceptions and embraced emotional well-being through his creative endeavors. His recent projects, Pink: Different Aspects of Mental Health Throughout the Creative Industry and Shattered Impressions LA, reflect his commitment to pushing creative boundaries and addressing mental health challenges. With Survival Mode, Matt combines technology and storytelling to expose the brutal, cyclical nature of homelessness for those battling mental illness—one that too often offers no way out.

4. Redacted Memories

Categories: Freedom & Liberty | Best Photography & Visual Storytelling Award

A gripping photo series documenting books, art, and personal histories erased or censored due to racial and political suppression. Blacked-out texts, blurred images, and destroyed archives reveal a battle against forced invisibility.

Artist: Zach Carter – A digital activist

5. The Invisible Grid

Categories: Legal Barriers & Systemic Injustice | Illustration & Graphic Design Award

A dystopian graphic novel revealing how digital surveillance disproportionately targets marginalized communities, limiting freedom and reinforcing oppression.

Artist: Eli Novak – A comic artist using visual storytelling to question authority and demand accountability.

6. Break the Lease

Categories: Housing Justice | Best Short Film Award

A satirical short film exposing landlord abuse, slumlords, and rental discrimination through absurdist, dark humor based on real-life horror stories.

Artist: Sam Patel – A filmmaker blending surreal comedy with social critique.

7. Echoes in the Walls

Categories: Immigrant & Minority Rights | Music & Sound for Impact Award

A sound installation using recorded testimonials, spoken word, and immersive soundscapes to tell the stories of immigrant families fighting for dignity.

Artist: Lucia Hernandez – A sound designer and immigrant rights advocate.

8. Color Me Free

Categories: LGBTQ+ Rights & Safety | Performance Art Award

A large-scale interactive mural where the community paints over hateful slurs with affirmations of love, strength, and pride.

Artist: River James – A street artist reclaiming public spaces for justice and healing.

9. A Seat at the Table

Categories: Legal Barriers & Systemic Injustice | Performance Art Award

A live performance piece using a dinner table as a stage to reenact real stories of workplace bias, systemic exclusion, and the fight for equity.

Artist: Taylor Ross – A theater artist merging storytelling with activism.

10. Barriers Unseen

Categories: Disability & Accessibility | Best Short Film Award

A dance film performed in inaccessible locations, forcing viewers to confront how environments exclude disabled individuals.

Artist: Nina Lee – A dancer and disability rights advocate.

11. Toxic Blueprint

Categories: Housing Justice | Illustration & Graphic Design Award

Detailed illustrations depict how redlining and industrial zoning place communities of color in polluted, hazardous environments.

Artist: Kevin Tran – A visual artist focused on environmental justice.

12. Lost in Translation

Categories: Immigrant & Minority Rights | Spoken Word & Poetry Award

A multilingual short film weaving poetry and documentary footage to explore the experience of immigrants struggling to express themselves in a world that refuses to listen.

Artist: Amira Said – A poet and filmmaker centering language and cultural identity.

13. The Cost of Freedom

Categories: Legal Barriers & Systemic Injustice | Music & Sound for Impact Award

A hip-hop and spoken word album featuring firsthand accounts from formerly incarcerated individuals, exposing the true cost of mass incarceration.

Artist: Malik Grant – A musician who served time and now dedicates his work to criminal justice reform.

14. Veiled Truths

Categories: Freedom & Liberty | Best Photography & Visual Storytelling Award

A photography series exploring the politics of women’s clothing, from hijabs to miniskirts, and how society weaponizes personal choices to control female bodies.

Artist: Sophia Navarro – A feminist photographer challenging gender norms.

15. Burned Bridges, Broken Systems

Categories: Housing Justice | Digital & Motion Art Award

An AR exhibit overlaying images of demolished homes and displaced families onto luxury developments, exposing the cost of gentrification.

Artist: Xavier Lowe – A digital activist using tech to preserve erased histories.

16. Vanishing Point

Categories: Immigrant & Minority Rights | Best Short Film Award

A documentary capturing Indigenous land displacement, blending oral histories, drone footage, and animated storytelling to reclaim stolen narratives.

Artist: Cedar Blackwolf – A Native filmmaker using cinema to honor his ancestors.

17. Threading Resistance

Categories: Survivor Art | Experimental & Mixed Media Award

Handmade garments stitched with protest slogans and historical symbols, designed to be worn as living statements against oppression.

Artist: Rina Ahmed – A textile artist blending tradition with rebellion.

18. Erase Me Not

Categories: Legal Barriers & Systemic Injustice | Digital & Motion Art Award

An animated series that takes a bold, unfiltered dive into the world of AI—its creative potential, ethical dilemmas, and controversial implications. From deepfake politics and AI-generated art to bias in hiring algorithms and censorship, each episode unpacks a new layer of how artificial intelligence is shaping society. Using satirical storytelling, visual abstraction, and experimental animation, the series sparks debate on who controls AI, who benefits, and who gets left behind.

Artist: Matt Ordeshook – An award-winning, multi-talented artist with over 20 years of experience in brand advancement, Matt has shattered perceptions and embraced emotional well-being through his creative endeavors. His recent projects, Pink: Different Aspects of Mental Health Throughout the Creative Industry and Shattered Impressions LA, reflect his commitment to pushing creative boundaries and addressing mental health challenges. Matt's work continues to inspire and challenge audiences to rethink the role of creativity in society.