Black Public Media presented Laura Varela (Producer), IWC communications director, and her colleague Andrew J. Gonzales (Producer/Director) with the Jacquie Jones Memorial Fund Award for their upcoming film American Sons.

The $380,000 award will assist the duo in completing their documentary film, which follows a cadre of Marines after deployment in Afghanistan as they reunite over the loss of their brother and work to heal from physical and emotional wounds. The documentary film is slated for a PBS premiere in 2025.

Made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Jaquie Jones Memorial Fund supports makers in the tradition of the late Peabody Award-winning director and BPM’s second executive director, Jacquie Jones, who helped foster diverse content creators. For more on the Fund, click here.

The award was presented during the PitchBLACK Awards, which awarded $610,000 to film and immersive projects and creatives at its seventh PitchBLACK Forum — a prominent pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists developing new projects about the global Black experience.