Terms of Engagement: Learning From Coalition Politics Member Only

With U.S. federal arts funding gutted, public media infrastructure under pressure, and media consolidation accelerating, the conditions under which documentary is made, distributed, and seen are now explicitly political questions. Sectors facing parallel pressures in local journalism, music, and the arts broadly have learned that fragmented advocacy loses; coalitions win. In this panel, we will hear from grassroots coalitions who have launched campaigns, won policy victories, and built field-wide political power where there was none to explore what cross-sector coalition-building looks like in practice. They will discuss how they identified leverage points, what has worked, and what it would take for documentary filmmakers to show up—and stay—as a political force.

Moderator: Michael Bracy (Policy in Focus)
Panelists: Brigid O'Shea (Documentary Association of Europe), Maya Chupkov (Common Cause), Jax Deluca (Future Film Coalition)