NEW YORK — Ken Burns is inaugurating an annual prize for makers of historical films with a $200,000 grant to the people behind an upcoming movie about the late Georgia writer Flannery O’Connor.

Ken Burns is inaugurating a new prize designed to promote historical films. Its first $200,000 grant will go to the directors of “Flannery,” about the late Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, the author of “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, file

The movie “Flannery” shows the influence behind the novelist and short story writer’s work, as she lived in a rural Southern town and struggled with lupus. The author of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” died in 1964 at age 39.

Burns, the noted documentarian, said he knows from experience the expense involved in getting projects like these done.

The film by Elizabeth Coffman and Mark Bosco “made me go out and buy her books,” he said.

Burns’ nonprofit Better Angels Society is collaborating with philanthropists Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine and the Library of Congress in funding the award. Judges sifted through some 80 entrants, he said.

“We were stunned not only by the volume of submissions but by the quality of them,” he said.

A $50,000 grant is being given to the makers of “Mae West: Dirty Blonde,” the awards’ runner-up, with four $25,000 grants given to other finalists.

The annual prize will recognize a documentary maker who uses original research and a compelling narrative to tell stories that touch on some aspect of American history.