Cinematographer and director Zac Manuel captures reality without the barriers of bulky equipment.
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In its work with superstar athletes, Gotham Chopra’s full-service documentary studio maneuvers through tricky questions of access and creative control: Seven projects in production. Dozens more in development. And in the summer of 2024, three high-profile series about game-changing athletes: In the Arena: Serena Williams on ESPN+, Simone Biles Rising on Netflix, and Welcome to the J-Rod Show on FS1. Religion of Sports (RoS) is on a roll, having achieved a scale and consistency quite remarkable for a documentary production company.
In the weeks since the National Endowment for the Arts announced major changes to its application criteria, many nonprofits across the country have been anxiously awaiting clarity regarding what this might mean for their prospective Fiscal Year 2026 grants. In particular, in recent weeks nonprofit managers and filmmakers are scrutinizing how the NEA applies two recent Executive Orders aimed at shutting down DEI and LGBTQ+ programs.
The lineup of the 2025 Sundance World Documentary section was more expansive in its geopolitical interest than last year’s. This year the dissenting subtext assumed functional pointedness, with each work making a broader statement against hostile governments. The theaters went packed and audiences cheered as the snow-clad Park City lent an otherworldly, almost mythical safe space to the independent makers and their works. Although there is speculation of the festival moving out of state in 2027, it is difficult to imagine a setting more suited to Sundance than Utah. The inconveniences, like the high altitude and the extreme dry weather, somehow added to the charm and made me feel, albeit perversely, like I had earned the right to be an attendee.
The outcome of the Platform Films meeting was the formation of the Miners’ Campaign Tapes Project, with 13 groups (including Platform; Trade Films in Gateshead and Newcastle; Chapter Community Video Workshop in Cardiff; Amber Films in Newcastle; Birmingham Film and Video Workshop; Open Eye Film and Video Workshop in Liverpool; Active Image in Rothertham and Sheffield; Films at Work in London; and the London Media Research Group) committed to producing footage interviewing miners and their supporters and documenting strike and fundraising activities. The material was then sent for editing down, mainly by Chris Reeves of Platform and Chris Ruston of London Video Arts, into what was originally planned to be 10 shorts and one feature-length work. The final project would consist of six short tapes.
APA members Debra McClutchy and Eugen Bräunig are eager to discuss the comprehensive new guidelines they’ve co-authored, “Working with Archival Producers.” From breaking down their roles during various stages of production to ideal onboarding scenarios, the document is, first and foremost, a means to advocate for a tangible job description and reasonable workloads. Despite the desire to establish concrete parameters for this work, there is also ample room for adjustment. In our conversation below, McClutchy and Bräunig discuss how they came to co-author this new guideline, how it complements the APA’s previous document on GenAI best practices, and member feedback.
Oleksiy Radynski is one of the most fascinating figures in contemporary Ukrainian cinema. Since his early shorts, Radynski has worked in observational documentary and archival footage. In films like his feature-length debut Infinity According to Florian (2022), he explores culture, historical memory, and community, particularly within Kyiv’s urban landscapes. The full-scale invasion shifted Radynski’s focus more decisively towards found footage, as he became increasingly engaged in the recovery of previously forgotten Ukrainian cinema. Ahead of its world premiere, Documentary spoke with Radynski about Special Operation’s challenging production, the semiotics of surveillance cameras, and the depiction of imperialism through landscapes.
Dear Readers, I am back at IDA from a semester dedicated to research as a Documentary Film Fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. A year prior, I applied for the fellowship because it became clear to me that the challenges facing documentary filmmakers all over the world, including in the U.S., were increasing instead of decreasing, even though there are more distribution streams than ever before. I wanted to think through the question of why. And if we understood the why, what could be done to make the world a better place to make and to circulate
I ended my last Notes , back in August of last year, by writing that these are treacherous times for documentary film and all truth-seeking art. It is getting harder to make work and let people see it. Policy decisions, business practices, and other aspects of our field’s infrastructure prevent brilliant, vital films from reaching the audiences that want them. More and more people are looking for remedies. During her fellowship at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy last fall, Abby Sun investigated some of these structural challenges and explored potential
Largely composed of artful, meditative shots that relish in quotidian minutiae—meal prep, bathtime, daily prayer—Sam Abbas’s Europe’s New Faces is a striking and emphatically humanizing portrait of African migrants residing in a specific Paris squat. Though the film’s 159-minute runtime seems somewhat daunting on its face, the filmmaker’s eye for exquisite detail quickly quiets the viewer’s roving mind. Below, our conversation covers his initial encounter with Parisian squats, how he acquired access to shoot an emergency C-section, and the process of enlisting The Beast and Nocturama director Bertrand Bonello for the score.