Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/2024 Venice Film Festival + Biennale Photography Initiative (ID: 22732659)/Final Report
Report Status: Under review
Due date: 30 December 2024
Funding program: Rapid Fund
Report type: Final
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[edit]- Applicant username: saraa.kom
- Organization name: N/A
- Amount awarded: 5000
- Amount spent: 5000 USD, 5000
Part 1: Project and impact
[edit]1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
WikiPortraits attended the 2024 Venice Film Festival and sent two photographers, Arielaortizb and Harald Krichel. Our photographers attended and shot multiple red carpets daily which featured films, filmmakers, actors, and other celebrities of high significance.
Specifically, we captured photos for films and individuals from all over the world and a diversity of backgrounds. We took photos of many internationally renowned celebrities like Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, Hoyeon Jung, Nicole Kidman, Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Monica Bellucci, and many more.
From our photos, we were able to provide hundreds of new or updated photos to Wikimedia Commons, place them on hundreds of Wikipedia pages, and even write a few Wikipedia pages for notable individuals whom we captured images of.
With some funding that we had left over, we were able to attend some smaller events such as CES in Las Vegas in January 2025, ASSA (Economists) in San Francisco in January 2025, Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in September 2024, and Renaissance Weekend 2025. We apologize for the delay in our report, we were waiting on numbers and final information to report from these later and smaller events.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
All of our images can be conveniently viewed on Wikimedia Commons at .
We primarily used the GLAMorgan tool to track usage of our photos across Wikimedia projects: We uploaded 325 photos total encompassing roughly 100 individuals for Venice Wikipedia. Used on 131 language versions of Wikipedia as of February 2025. A total of 206 files were placed on Wikipedia pages; altogether, we garnered 36,510,524 views through those photographs alone in January of 2025. Our most-viewed photos in January of 2025 were photos of Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Hoult, both of which garnered over 4 million views each.
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
Venice guide for future years https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T6VcibvdBEVvXJb-jvWkBfIlktgyHEsJRTSIxyod4QU/edit
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) | A large part of our focus was photographing individuals from underrepresented backgrounds, particularly by photographing red carpets and events regarding films and filmmakers from minority backgrounds, as well as those who are non-men.
We hope to continue to connect and work with photographers outside of North America like Harald Krichel. |
Part 2: Learning
[edit]4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: This project, in conjunction with our work at Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes 2024, helps to build a repeatable and scalable template for experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers to get press credentials at well-established cultural events. Our intent with this is to continue to elevate the Wikipedia presence at global-level events such as Cannes, the Venice Film Festivals, and the Berlin Film Festival (covered by Wikimedia Deutschland since 2017).
We are still learning which international cultural events have credentialing offices which are receptive to Wikimedia photographers with an assignment letter.
Secondly, we are learning different funding models to get more professional-quality Creative Commons-licensed portraits onto WikiCommons. Our rapid grant for SXSW covered only one-third of the total cost of the 10-day project, with the rest coming from private donors and sponsors.
With this rapid grant, we are still testing the blend between self-financed and wholly paid for WikiPortraits festival coverage — partially subsidized/reimbursed trips in exchange for uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons. We did a micro-version of this for Tribeca 2024 and SXSW 2024, where a photographer who was already on assignment at SXSW and Tribeca was willing to add her celebrity photos to WikiCommons in exchange for subsidized housing.
We believe there are a number of professional level photographers, both already active on Wikimedia Commons and ones that could be recruited, who would donate their time and pay for part of their own travel if they can get credentialed access from big film festivals. They do this in part so they can build their portfolios and also because they have other clients.
Historically, volunteer Wikimedian photographers are not plugged into the media infrastructure that is built around credentials because there is no “editor in chief” or “assignment editor” at Wikipedia. WikiPortraits helps fill this gap since we can have an assignment editor. Given the support from the letters and the high metrics Wikimedia Commons photos can generate, we hope that the credentialing decision makers of these global caliber events will become more receptive to having Wikimedia photographers participate, as it only serves to amplify the cultural impact of their events across the many language wikis.
We went to many smaller red carpet premieres, which allowed us to befriend the red carpet managers, shoot lots of up and coming actors and directors. Sometimes we were the only photographer at these shoots, and we ended up being able to help festival organizers by giving them the photos we took at these smaller carpets. There were many carpets every day, however, and we weren’t able to get to all of them with only two photographers. Perhaps next year we will be able to expand our team to cover more of the festival.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
We were able to get two press accreditations but only one place on the red carpet, which made sense to us. However, our place wasn’t a permanent one so we had to request via email to be assigned a new position every day and pick up a new badge every day in a short timeframe, 11.00 - 13.00 and 14.00 - 15.00. Luckily we were assigned a place on the main red carpet every day. Next year, we hope to move up in the system.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
Moving forward, we hope to continue introducing and integrating WikiPortraits into the broader Wiki community at events like Wikimania and WikiConference North America. Our sessions at these events attract easily 40-50 people per session and are recorded. We also collaborated with Wikimedia NYC for a WikiCurious photography session in November that drew around 70. At Sundance this year, we hosted a Wikipedia Day event that included lightning talks, workshops, and a day-long edit-a-thon, as well as a Wikipedia birthday celebration!. Our Eventbrite pulled in almost 1,000 RSVPs, and we had around ~50 attendees in person as well as a few attendees online. Additionally, we ran our WikiPortraits studio on several days throughout the Sundance Film Festival to introduce people to the project and add their portraits to Wikimedia Commons. Altogether, we shot images of over 200 individuals. We also talked about WikiPortraits at the recent WikiCredCon in San Francisco, specifically in the context of taking high-quality photography of non-men and people of color in an effort to expand representation on Wikimedia Commons and defend underrepresented biographies from deletion. On top of these recent events, we are working with a high school photography teacher/WikiPortraits contributor to bring some WikiPortraits and Wikimedia Commons knowledge to his curriculum. Generally, we plan to create and produce more materials that will be used to promote the cause of WikiPortraits and Wikimedia Commons photography, as well as train photographers and editors alike on how to upload and use photos on Wiki properties. Finally, we continue to share our knowledge on Wiki and in our international WikiPortraits group chats with countless Wikipedians. We’ve also uploaded all of our photos on Wikimedia Commons, some of which have gone into illustrating Wikidata and Wikipedia articles.
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 100 | 100 | |
| Number of editors | 5 | 5 | |
| Number of organizers | 2 | 2 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 100 | 0 | 206 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 100 | 325 | 325 |
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
5000
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
5000
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
As we noted in our original proposal, if we had funds left over we planned to dedicate them to smaller events where we could continue to further the WikiPortraits mission. With this grant, we were able to put some of the funds towards CES in Las Vegas in January 2025, ASSA (Economists) in San Francisco in January 2025, Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in September 2024, and Renaissance Weekend 2025.
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A