While documentaries revealing the truth and challenging misinformation are more important than ever, finding funding and secured distribution of social issues and political documents has become a tough, formidable task.
On Saturday at Maine’s Camden International Film Festival, documentary filmmakers, executives and producers gathered in the third edition of “Re: Distribution | A Documentary Town Hall” to discuss the creation of a more resilient and comprehensive non-fiction media ecosystem that will tell the truth, allow for democratic discourse and citizen engagement.
There are several reasons for the current documentary crisis.
For one, his major streamers have significantly cut documentary budgets and doubled their celebrity and true crime fares over the past five years. More recently, the streamer, along with the television network, revealed that he is away from Donald Trump’s crosshairs. In other words, their appetite for political document fares is the lowest ever.
Another blow to the Doc Community ended in April when the National Fund for the Humanities (historically one of the genre’s most reliable sources of funding) ended. That news has been followed by more disastrous news – PBS, the flagship of local documents, is currently cutting its budget due to Congress’ decision to remove around $500 million in federal funds from public television and radio.
Documentary producer Felipe Estefan and Doc Society’s Beadie Finzi facilitated the discussion.
“We all understand the problems because we live in person every day many of these problems,” Estefan said. “For many of us and many of our communities, our lives, our bodies, our rights are constantly threatened. We know it’s a tough moment, but what we need to do, what we need to do, is for us to think together, think deeply, come up with solutions.”
Finji asked the crowd to consider three questions. What should I remember from the past? What do I need to protect now? And what should we rethink for the future?
Both Estefan and Finzi tried to brighten up and lift the meeting. The audience was asked to consider the worst fears, whispered to tissue paper offered by the festival, and tossed the paper into the air. Then there was a quick dance party.
“The bondage of our past and present does not define our future potential,” Estefan said. “Even the most challenging and most challenging moments, we still have agents. We still have options and we still have each other.”
Lauren Pabst and Jax Deluca of the MacArthur Foundation on Journalism and Local News, a Shorensteind-Cookie by Public Interest Fellow and Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz, gave a brief presentation on focusing on how to make change today beyond the crisis.
Having created three feature documents funded by public media, Lewis spoke about the evolution of ITV, which funds more than 1,400 documents. The director performed a clip of independent filmmaker Loni Ding in 1987. In front of a Congressional subcommittee, he used independent infrastructure to fund and distribute independent work.
“I am an independent producer myself,” Din testified at the time. “I’m here… I’m talking on behalf of about 10,000 such producers… We’re a microcosm of this country… We’re simply against giving market power a totally free rein.”
Lewis told the crowd that after the hearing, President Reagan signed the Telecommunications Act of 1988, and ITVS was created. The director underscored the fact that Din represents a broad and diverse coalition of independent filmmakers who spent eight years preparing for the hearing.
“It was a group of independents who didn’t agree with each other,” Lewis said. “They had all sorts of personal shit with each other. They discussed, and there were all sorts of purity tests. “No, this is documentary. It’s journalism. It’s art.” You can imagine.
Lewis encouraged his colleagues to unite and begin organizing.
“We need to take a conflict,” he said. “The fight is much bigger than we do. Many of us who organize and push this next wave will probably not benefit from what’s coming, but we’ll still have to move forward.”
In addition to consolidation and fighting as a single cohesive unit, filmmakers were encouraged to view YouTube as a serious distribution platform.
In a pre-recorded video, Channel 4 distribution manager Harry Calfayan explained that the station had decided to create a documentary programming YouTube channel three years ago. The platform became the main distribution sector of public broadcast television channels with 113 million viewing in the UK in 2024.
“We see a huge desire for de facto programming on YouTube,” says Kalfayan. “We’re reaching a new, young, young audience that didn’t grow when we watched TV.”
Kalfayan encouraged filmmakers to give shots to YouTube.
“Our results were huge,” he said. “And I don’t think (YouTube) is going anywhere.”
