The Sundance Institute has selected 29 feature-length documentaries to receive US$582,000 in grants from its Documentary Film Program (DFP), including  two films selected to receive grants from the Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute and one Time Warner Foundation Fellow.

Among the projects receiving support is Canadian copro doc Leone Stars (pictured above), which follows the Sierra Leone Single-Leg Amputee Sports Club’s pursuit of a world championship in its league. Filmmakers Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh won TIFF’s Pitch This! competition this fall, earning them $10,000 in development funding.

The awards come with the DFP set to celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2012.  Since its inception it has awarded grants to more than 300 documentary  filmmakers in 61 countries.

“For many of these filmmakers, receiving a grant will be just the beginning  of our relationship with them,” said Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance  Institute Documentary Film Program. “These filmmakers are also eligible for  year-round creative support through our programs, including Creative Labs,  work-in-progress screenings, and events and activities at the Sundance Creative  Producing Summit and Sundance Film Festival.

Proposals for the DFP are accepted twice a year. Visit Sundance.org in January for information about  the Spring 2012 round of funding.

The full list of projects, including their stage of production and  a description of the title provided by Sundance, follows below:

Development projects:

The Bill (U.S. / Philippines)
Director: Ramona Diaz

A political firestorm hits the Philippines when “The Bill,” a reproductive  health bill that could legalize birth control in the world’s 12th most populous  nation, pits tradition against reform and brings the culture war into the  streets and churches.

Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (U.S.)
Director: Richard  Rowley

Reporting from the battlefields of the war on terror, journalist Jeremy  Scahill investigates the wars waged by and against an empire, and constructs a  global picture of asymmetric warfare today.

Leone Stars (Canada / Sierra Leone)
Directors: Ngardy Conteh and  Allan Tong

Surviving war, poverty and prejudice, the Sierra Leone amputee soccer team  dreams of victory at the 2012 world championships. Can victims become  champions?

The Mouse That Roared (U.S. / Iceland)
Director: Judith  Ehrlich

A great struggle for free speech in the 21st century will be fought online,  and the first volley has been fired in Iceland. This film follows Birgitta  Jónsdóttir, trailblazing Icelandic Parliamentarian and former WikiLeaks leader,  as she takes us inside the global fight for Internet freedom.

The New Black (U.S.)
Director: Yoruba Richen

The New Black is a documentary that uncovers the complicated and  often combative histories of the African-American and gay civil-rights  movements.

The Reckoning With Torture Project (U.S.)
Director: Doug  Liman

Reading from secret documents chronicling the United States’ post-9/11  torture program, Americans from all walks of life join with leading cultural  figures and former military and civilian officials to create a rolling, national  performance.

Projects in production:

A Whole Lott More (U.S.)
Director: Victor Buhler

Lott Industries, outside of Detroit, employs more than 1200 workers, all with  developmental disabilities. For decades the workers excelled at assembling car  parts. However, the decline of the auto industry has pushed this unique  workplace to the brink of survival.

Cooked (U.S.)
Director: Judith Helfand

Cooked is a story about extreme heat, poverty and the politics of “disaster”; Whoever gets to declare “disaster” also gets to determine when it started, when  it’s over and how to fix it.

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare (U.S.)
Directors: Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke

Escape Fire exposes the perverse nature of American healthcare,  contrasting the powerful forces opposing change with the creative solutions and  compelling stories of pioneering leaders and the patients they seek to help. The  film is about finding a way out, and about saving the health of a nation.

These Birds Walk (U.S. / Pakistan)
Directors: Omar Mullick and  Bassam Tariq

A portrait of contemporary Pakistan is created through the eyes of an  ambulance driver and a runaway boy who call a humanitarian and his mission-based  organization home.

Gideon’s Army (U.S.)
Director: Dawn Porter

In the deepest South a group of dedicated lawyers is determined to find a way  to represent the poor. But with large caseloads, long hours, low pay and harsh  sentences can they honor their intentions?

Gulabi (India / Norway)
Director: Nishtha Jain

In Bundelkhand, India, a revolution is in the making among the poorest of the  poor, as Sampat Pal and the fiery women of her Gulabi Gang empower themselves  and take up the fight against gender violence, caste oppression and widespread  corruption.

The History Of The Universe As Told By Wonder Woman (U.S.) 
Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

Through the fascinating journey of the beloved superhero, Wonder Woman, the  film explores the evolution of heroic women in American pop culture from the  birth of the comic book in the 1940s, to TV action heroes of the ’60s and ’70s,  and, finally, the big screen blockbusters of today.

How To Survive a Plague (U.S.)
Director: David France

Highlighting a small group of activists that exploded into a mass social  movement over a 10-year period, How to Survive a Plague uncovers the  little known story of how AIDS stopped being a death sentence.

Invisible War (U.S.)
Director: Kirby Dick

The Invisible War is an investigative and powerfully emotional  documentary about the under-reported epidemic of sexual assault in our U.S.  military, and its startling and profound personal and social  consequences.

Let The Fire Burn (U.S.)
Director: Jason Osder

Philadelphia, 1985: tensions between the radical African American group MOVE  and the city police spiral out of control, resulting in a fire that claims  eleven lives and destroys sixty-one homes in a forgotten national tragedy that  still resonates today.

Nuclear Underground (U.S.)
Directors: Peter Galison and Robb  Moss

How can humankind dispose of and live with nuclear waste, a material that  remains dangerous for a period as far into the future as we are from the Ice  Age?

Noces Rouges (Red Wedding) (Cambodia)
Directors: Lida Chan and  Guillaume P. Suon

Between 1975 and 1979, at least 250,000 women were forced into marriages by  the Khmer Rouge. Noces Rouges (Red Wedding) is the story of one of its  victims, Pen Sochan, who pits her humanity against an ideology and a system  designed to annihilate people like her.

Strong Island (U.S.)
Director: Yance Ford

Set in the suburbs of the black middle class, Strong Island  chronicles the director’s investigation into her brother’s violent  death 20 years ago.

Untitled: 1971 (U.S.)
Director: Johanna Hamilton

Filmmaker Johanna Hamilton continues her exploration of social movements and  the limits of dissent, this time turning her lens to domestic contradictions in  North America.

Who Is Dayani Cristal? (UK/Mexico)
Director: Marc Silver

A man is found dead at the U.S./Mexico border. An investigation uncovers a  tale of family and faith, discovered by tracing his body’s only identifying  feature; a tattoo reading “Dayani Cristal”.

Audience Engagement  grants:

Crime After Crime (U.S.)
Director: Yoav Potash

Two attorneys fight for the freedom of Deborah Peagler, 20 years into her  life sentence for the murder of the man who abused her. The audience engagement  campaign will partner with policy makers, legislative organizations, and legal  education groups to inform other states about the successful California law  allowing incarcerated survivors of domestic violence to petition for their  freedom.

Fix Food (U.S.)
Director: Robert Kenner

Building on Oscar-nominated Food, Inc., Fix Food is a cross-media  film and social action project using viral videos, an interactive website and  community engagement to activate a mainstream audience to help transform the  food system, which over time can lead to broader social change.

Gasland (U.S.)
Director: Josh Fox

It is happening all across America; rural landowners wake up one day to find  a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property.  Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of  natural gas.” The audience engagement award will support Fox’s ongoing effort to  educate potentially vulnerable communities to the dangers of fracking; inspire  political engagement around unregulated drilling; and bring together state and  local grassroots efforts nationwide.

Our School (Romania / U.S.)
Director: Mona Nicoara

Shot over four years, Our School follows three Roma children in a  small Transylvanian town who are among the pioneer participants in an initiative  to integrate the ethnically segregated Romanian schools. The audience engagement  award will support targeted screenings in the human rights community  internationally, as well as mobilize new energies at a moment that is ripe for  change, when Europe has its own Brown vs. Board of Education moment.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful (U.S.)
Directors: Rachel Libert and  Tony Hardmon

When Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger’s young daughter dies from a rare type of  leukemia, his search for the cause leads him to the shocking discovery of one of  the largest water contaminations in U.S. history. The audience engagement award  will support the effort to help notify families who may be affected by  contaminated water on military bases, and help support screenings for  legislators interested in health care for affected veterans.

Cinereach Project at Sundance  Institute

The Kill Team (U.S.)
Director: Dan Kraus

The Kill Team tells the story of an  American soldier who attempted to thwart U.S. war crimes even more heinous than  Abu Ghraib, and who himself is now standing trial for murder.

The Shadow World (U.S.)
Director: Johan Grimonprez

The Shadow World explores the arms industry: a business in which  profits are calculated in the tens of millions of dollars, while losses are  counted in human lives.

The Time Warner  Foundation

The Silence of Others (U.S. / Spain)
Director: Almudena  Carracedo

After decades of silence, children stolen during Franco’s brutal dictatorship  begin the search to find loved ones and to confront the perpetrators. The  Silence of Others will be a deeply personal account of Spain’s transition  from dictatorship to democracy.

From realscreen