MPI's History
Founded in 2005 by human rights advocate Thor Halvorssen, the Moving Picture Institute is unlike any other foundation dedicated to promoting the ideal of liberty. At MPI, we believe that film, more effectively than any other medium, can bring the idea of freedom to life. In keeping with that belief, we are working to ensure that film becomes a center of genuinely democratic art in the coming years. Our goal is to guarantee that film's unique capacity to give shape to abstract principles—to make them move and breathe—is used to support and promote liberty. Toward that end, we fund films from development through post-production, support up-and-coming filmmakers, and serve as a high-level intern placement service.
Historically, the film industry has been largely unconcerned with developing a distinctive and nuanced portrait of deep-seated American values such as free speech, freedom of association, and the free enterprise system. Such values have been defined and defended almost exclusively in print and through oral argument. But as visual media become increasingly prevalent, we depend more heavily upon movies for our philosophical, moral, and social guidance. If the ideal of freedom is to endure—if it is to maintain its vitality and relevance in our society—it must find its way into film, our most vital, relevant, and far-reaching art form. Freedom must be seen to be believed.
America needs a filmography of freedom. MPI exists to meet that need.
To date, MPI has helped develop, fund, produce, or promote a range of feature-length films dealing with topics such as the repressive climate on our nation's college campuses, environmental activism's role in perpetuating Third World poverty, anti-communist humor's cultural history, and Hungary's and Estonia's revolutions against totalitarianism.
MPI films are making a strong and immediate impact. Appearing regularly in prominent film festivals, they have won international critical acclaim. Widely reviewed and sought after, they have garnered coverage from such pivotal news outlets as Newsweek, the New York Times, National Review Online, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News. Hammer & Tickle, Ben Lewis' exploration of how jokes helped topple the Soviet Union, was screened at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and won Best New Documentary Film at the 2006 Zurich Film Festival. Freedom's Fury, Colin Keith Gray and Megan Raney Aarons' portrayal of the dramatic water polo showdown between Hungary and the Soviet Union, was also screened at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and in cities around the world in honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. And The Singing Revolution, James and Maureen Tusty's award-winning account of Estonia's peaceful bid for independence, is the most popular documentary film in Estonian history. MPI films have also been broadcast on BBC television, France's ARTE channel, and the Sundance Channel.
MPI films have made strong impressions on policy makers, playing to packed houses on Capitol Hill and helping shape some of the most pressing issues of our day. More than eighty global NGOs have tried to suppress Mine Your Own Business, an incendiary documentary about how radical environmentalism is keeping the world's poorest people in poverty; MPI has produced a Spanish-language version so that the film can reach Latin American audiences. Indoctrinate U has brought national attention to the repressive climate on our campuses. And the Free Market Cure video series is changing this country's debate about health care.
MPI also helps filmmakers establish their reputations through the medium of short film. MPI's shorts combine documentary and narrative approaches to address such diverse topics as the failures of single-payer health care, "libel tourism" among terror financiers, the dangers of institutionalized egalitarianism, and more.
