Emily Verellen has been the Director of Programs and Communications at The Fledgling Fund since 2008. Emily provides strategic communications, expanded outreach and audience engagement support for the Creative Media Initiative. Emily is the co-founder of The Binti Pamoja Center, a women’s rights and reproductive health center in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2006, she received a grant from The Fledgling Fund to publish a book about The Binti Pamoja Center, LightBox, which features photographs, stories and autobiographies from the teenage members of the Center. All of the funds earned through the sales of LightBox support The Binti Pamoja Center Scholarship Fund.
Emily graduated from American University with a BA in International Development, Anthropology and Communications, and from the London School of Economics with an MA in International Development and Population Studies.
Reserve your seat today for access to Emily and other influential funders from the Tribeca Film Institute, the Sundance Documentary Fund, and more!
Doc U
is the International Documentary Association's series of educational
seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various
topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
On Monday, September 19, 2011, The Cinefamily hosted Doc U: Writing for the Non-Fiction Screen, a panel filled to the brim with talented and established writers from the world of documentary programming. Moderated by writer/producer and IDA Board Executive Member Sara Hutchison, the panel was comprised of award-winning writers Steven Reich, Sharon Wood, P.G. Morgan, and Freida Lee Mock, all of whom were eager to share their projects and guidance to an audience of around 80 documentary filmmakers and writers.
The three panelists each took their turns answering questions from Ms. Hutchison and the audience.
Freida Lee Mock on the importance of a good treatment:
Steven Reich gets bored easily. That's why he tries to hook his potential audience from the get-go.
Sharon Wood gave a lot of advice about narration:
P.G. Morgan encourages us to find our voice before writing.
For more details on Doc U: Writing for the Non-Fiction Screen, read the detailed recap of the event. If you like what you see, buy tickets for the next Doc U: Focus on Funding - Getting Grants for Your Documentary.
Doc U
is the International Documentary Association's series of educational
seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various
topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
As Associate Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program, Rahdi Taylor finds, cultivates and finances documentary films worldwide for the Sundance Documentary Fund, totaling up to $1.5million dollars annually. Prior to Sundance, Taylor was Director of Marketing and Communications for California Newsreel, where she headed distribution campaigns for new releases and was responsible for strategic marketing and branding initiatives. She has served as Director of Production Assistance (Development) at Women Make Movies, where she supported 20 documentaries annually moving from script to screen and administered a Fiscal Sponsorship Program. An award-winning filmmaker herself, she holds a Master of Fine Art and was Adjunct Faculty at New College of California.
Seem like someone you want to hang out with? You can have lunch with Rahdi at Doc U: Focus on Funding - Getting Grants for your Documentary. Reserve your seat today for access to Rahdi and other influential funders from Tribeca Film Institute, the Fledgling Fund, and more!
Doc U
is the International Documentary Association's series of educational
seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various
topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
On Saturday, October 15, the International Documentary Association presents Doc U: Focus on Funding: Getting Grants for Your Documentary, a day-long program from 9:30am to 5pm at The Standard in Downtown LA. With networking opportunities, a rare opportunity to meet and have lunch with the funders from Tribeca Film Institute and Sundance Institute (and more!), and a chance to learn about the art of getting a grant, how could you even consider missing this great public program?
Confirmed panelists for the morning session, moderated by non-profit and fundraising consultant Morrie Warshawski, include:
Tamir Muhammad, Director of Feature Programming, Tribeca Film Institute
Rahdi Taylor, Associate Director, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute
John Lightfoot, Program Officer, California Council for the Humanities
Emily Verellen, Director of Programs and Communications, The Fledgling Fund
Buy a ticket that includes lunch, and you can choose a table to dine with one of our morning panelists! Look for more information on our funders in future News items from IDA.
Another incentive for those of you on the fence: IDA Individual Members get 20% original ticket prices. IDA Individual Members must sign in in order to purchase discounted tickets. IDA Associate Members and Non-Members: Please purchase admissions from the Eventbrite page.
Seating is limited, so buy your tickets now to be guaranteed admission.
If you aren’t a member already, join IDA now for discounted admission prices and more!
Doc U
is the International Documentary Association's series of educational
seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various
topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
The PaleyDocFest2011 may already be underway, but don’t feel like it’s too late to dive in headfirst and start catching up on some of the best documentary films of 2011. This year, The Paley Center for Media in New York City is featuring 10 documentary features and several in-person appearances, panels and workshops in the company of many leading names in documentary film.
One such exciting event is The Doc Filmmaker Taking On Power, a surely inspiring panel presented by the International Documentary Association. Scheduled for Thursday, October 20 at 6:30pm ET, this panel will feature Josh Fox, director of IDA Pare Lorentz Award finalist and Academy Award-nominated Gasland, and Joe Berlinger, director of the acclaimed Crude. Along with influential lawyer Karen Shatzkin and moderator Joe Neumaier (film critic, New York Daily News), the panelists will discuss how the independent documentary filmmaker often confronts powerful entities – including corporate and governmental – that make production difficult and troublesome. This panel is a must for any emerging filmmaker who desires to make a socially conscious film.
Alongside this fantastic panel, PaleyDocFest2011 is screening 2011 DocuWeeks alums Miss Representation and Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey on the evenings of October 14 and October 17, respectively. Miss Representation, an interrogation of the skewed image of women in the media, will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. At Monday’s screening of Being Elmo, we can promise that director/producer Constance Marks and a colorful cast of characters (wink!) will be in attendance after the film.
The best part about this whole event is that IDA Members receive the special Paley Center member discount on all events and screenings! IDA Members can enter the code "groups" to receive special discounted ticket price when purchasing online. It’s a good time to be a supporter of documentary!
Find out more on PaleyDocFest2011 here.
Thanks to a generous grant from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Doc U is taking to the road with educational and informative talks in Chicago, New York, and D.C.
We conducted a survey of topics to determine what we should cover on our road trip. We saw overwhelming support for Can Your Doc Change the World?, a panel that will cover how to leverage partnerships and outreach to make sure that your documentary has the greatest possible impact.
These cities were selected due to a high number of IDA Members in these areas, some of whom probably felt a little left out from all the fun we were having in Los Angeles. Don't worry, East Coasters—we're coming your way soon!
This is the second year in a row that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is funding the Doc U program to go on the road, and we're excited to reach audiences beyond Southern California for the first time in over a year. Stay tuned for dates, locations and panelists.
Doc U
is the International Documentary Association's series of educational
seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various
topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
Special support also provided by:
A few years ago, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) added a competitive category for documentary feature film to their annual awards ceremony, which takes place this year on January 21, 2012, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. In the years since its inception, the PGA has been very proud of the selections in the documentary feature category, which have included Man On Wire, Sicko, and Waiting for Superman
In order to make certain that the PGA has a robust field of nominees in the documentary category, they need you to submit! This year, the deadline for submissions is October 7, 2011. Those documentary film producers who are interested in submitting a documentary film for awards consideration should visit the PGA’s secure awards website to learn more and begin the submission process.
Please note the PGA’s requirements for this year:
- The PGA will consider only documentary feature films no less than forty (40) minutes in length;
- The PGA’s rules also require that to be eligible, all documentary films must be in the English-language;
- Foreign productions in the English language qualify, if the production has a U.S. distributor; and
- The entity in charge of designating the producing credits must have an established place of business in the U.S.
Please share this information with you colleagues who would like to submit a documentary film for awards consideration, and we wish you only the best of luck!
Doc U: Focus on Funding
Getting Grants for Your Documentary
Saturday, October 15, 2011
9:30am - 10:00am - Registration and Networking
Continental breakfast, coffee and tea
10:00am - 12:30pm - Morning Session: Meet the Funders
moderated by Morrie Warshawski
12:45pm - 2:00pm - Lunch with the Funders
2:15pm - 5:00pm - Afternoon Session: The Art of Getting Grants with Morrie Warskawski
The Standard, Downtown LA
550 S. Flower St. at 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Louder Than A Bomb is the story of four Chicago-based high school poetry teams who are preparing for the world’s largest slam poetry contest for youth. Exploring the ways writing shapes their world, and vice versa, this film is both hopeful and heartbreaking. While the subjects these kids tackle are often deeply personal, what they put into their poems—and what they get out of them—is universal.
IDA spoke with filmmaker Greg Jacobs, and he had this to say about winning the HUMANITAS Prize:
Winning the documentary Humanitas Prize for Louder Than A Bomb is a tremendous honor. It's also a validation that we may just have succeeded at doing what we set out to do from the start: make a film that's both entertaining and uplifting, without sacrificing one for the other.Louder Than A Bomb will be airing on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network in January 2012.
That also happens to be exactly what the kids we followed strive to do—tell their stories as precisely, as honestly, and as entertainingly as possible, while still making a powerful connection with the audience. The last thing we wanted was to tell a crappy story about kids who are amazing storytellers. So we are profoundly grateful to Nate, Nova, Adam, and The Steinmenauts for inspiring us to tell our story in a way that did justice to theirs.
To join the conversation and find out about screenings of the film in your area, head over to their Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter.
Learn more about the HUMANITAS Prize and the winners.
Always start at the beginning. Remember the importance of first reactions. Read or listen to poetry. Work out your voice. Simplify.
Sound like good advice to live your life by? All these tidbits of guidance could of course apply to everyday life, but at IDA’s most recent Doc U panel, these pearls of wisdom were meant to also apply to writing for documentary. And that was just the beginning of the advice!
Moderated by writer/producer and IDA Board Executive Member Sara Hutchison, the Writing for the Nonfiction Screen panel was comprised of award-winning writers Steven Reich, Sharon Wood, P.G. Morgan, and Freida Lee Mock, all of whom were eager to share their projects and guidance to an audience of around 80 documentary filmmakers and writers.
Each filmmaker had a chance to focus on their experiences and their most successful projects. Sharon Wood, writer/producer of The Celluloid Closet, focused extensively on the importance of treatments and outlines when attempting to get initial funding and interest for a project. After showing clips of the film Paragraph 175, Wood informed the audience how she set rules for narration and text before beginning the writing process.
Writer/producer P.G. Morgan spoke of his shared writing duties with Chris Paine when they were fleshing out the story of Revenge of the Electric Car, and how they literally locked themselves in a room for hours with cell phones turned off in order to find their four main narrative strands. Academy Award®-winning writer/director and producer Freida Lee Mock shared that while working on Wrestling with Angeles: Playwright Tony Kushner, she made sense of her story through the act of writing. She also encouraged aspiring writers to think about not just the dramatic arc for the film, but also for each scene.
In one of the more intruiging moments of the night, IDA Board Member Steven Reich (Avalance: The White Death) allowed his work to speak for itself by showing a three-minute clip of unedited, unorganized footage, followed immediately by a three-minute clip that had been totally rewritten. The difference was indeed startling, and proved the importance of research and a focused voice.
All in the all, audience members and panelists alike agreed it was a successful and inspiring evening—at least, that's what we heard over wine and hors d'oeuvres on the Cinefamily's Spanish patio!
Stay tuned for video clips from the event and upcoming Doc U events in your area.
Doc U is the International Documentary Association's series of educational seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.
Special support provided by: