There may be more shared values between documentarians and journalists than their ethics practices have so far suggested.

Documentarians’ collective work over the last decade, asserting national ethics standards around participant care and including long-suppressed voices, has laid the foundation for crucial next steps for a resilient, contextualized ethical framework for documentary. Journalistic ethics standards, particularly around journalistic autonomy, have sometimes challenged documentarians’ choices in implementing care-centric practices, as breaking a commitment to journalistic autonomy.

But a new CMSI report, “Balancing Ethics of Care, Inclusion and Journalistic Autonomy,” reveals ample evidence of journalists’ valuing care, and shows how journalists implement caring practices. Kimberly Anastásio—an assistant professor at Fordham University–and I looked at 23 codes of ethics from both professional organizations and trusted media institutions. We found an abundance of concern for care offered to sources, members of the public, and even fellow journalists. These examples can spur a more public conversation between journalists and documentarians about how to apply ethical values they share in different contexts, and particularly to hold power to account.

Documentarians have only now begun to build expectations for ethical practice into a field that has lacked a professional body with an ethics code. While journalists have many ethics codes, professional bodies and institutions with elaborate standards and practices, they have often been interpreted with rules that seem to limit the opportunities to offer appropriate care. As we show, discussion of the importance of context in implementing the values informing ethics codes within context has been left to specialized organizations such as the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, to subdisciplines of journalistic practice, and to guidance responding to the moment.

Key takeaways from the report include:

• Ethics of care and inclusion have become a core concern in many documentary projects, including for funders of documentary.
• Documentarians have often hidden their care practices from distributors and media outlets to avoid running afoul of formal standards & practices.
• Journalistic autonomy is a bedrock ethical principle for journalists, so they can show that their work is free of outside influence, pressure or manipulation.
• But ethics of care also inform journalism, and care values are central to some journalistic documentary practices.
• Both for journalists and documentarians, these issues come to the fore in projects where the media makers and the participants establish longer-term relationships, or where participants face known risks.
• Journalists and documentarians have both grappled with this problem in ways that can help each other.
• We can see the care journalists have offered toward sources/participants in three areas:
  • Journalistic codes of ethics, both professional and corporate.
  • Targeted guidance for trauma-informed and respectful journalism.
  • Journalistic subdisciplines’ practices.

Documentarians and journalists can both build upon both their organizations’ standards and those of the other to make their own guidelines more resilient. PBS Standards & Practices, the only media outlet that publicly shares its standards, has taken the lead in sharing guidance on
contextualizing values in different circumstances. The annual conference and festival Double Exposure has pioneered cross-professional ethics discussions. For documentarians and journalists to share their experiences and expectations across their professional practices, and clarify expectations for different contexts where they grapple with power inequities is a great place to start.

The report, which builds upon my previous work with, among others, Documentary Accountability Working Group (funded by the MacArthur Foundation), was partially completed while I was at the Shorenstein Center’s Documentary in the Public Interest Initiative at Harvard University. Both Kimberly Anastácio and I would like to thank Matthew Levitas and Kenzie Larson, graduate students at American University, and Peter Pich at Harvard. And as always we are grateful for the leadership of Caty Borum and the support of Varsha Ramani at CMSI.

Read Report

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The “Upstream, Downriver – Maximizing Impact: A Media Ecosystem Case Study” report draws from Professor Maggie Burnette Stogner’s academic media research and multi-decade experience creating social and environmental documentary films. A case study summary of the five-year, multi-tiered “Upstream, Downriver Media Project” offers insights on how to maximize impact by implementing a media ecosystem framework.

Read the Report

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At the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI), we love bringing together thinkers and doers to make comedy together. And it’s even better when the comedy and play can help us deal with tough topics—or translate complicated ones. So, what better topic to tackle than getting Americans to maybe get on the same page about how to build a future that feels just and civil and positive, right? 

With this in mind, CMSI linked up with the Frameworks Institute, a nonprofit think-tank that studies mindsets (widely shared and subconscious patterns of thinking) and tests ways of storytelling and communicating that can move people towards action, for the ‘IMPROV/E RIGGED SYSTEMS WITH COMEDY’ workshop. The purpose of this intimate gathering in NYC was to explore how improv comedy can be used as a tool to infuse powerful, game-changing, research with artistic vision. The workshop was composed of representatives from CMSI and Frameworks as well as top-notch improvisers and a hands-on audience of artists, comedians, and activists. Here, we learned not only the importance of understanding mindsets, but also the serious power of spontaneous, judgement-free, brainstorming and play.

What is a ‘mindset”?

If we think about “mindsets” as the mental frameworks and mental models we use to make sense of the world around us—and to guide how we feel and act—then we can see why understanding specific mindsets is so important, particularly when it comes to how our democracy functions. Importantly, mindsets can consciously and subconsciously influence our behavior and impact the way we view the world around us.  

Certain mindsets may be familiar to you, even if the terminology is not. For example, one common, dominant mindset in the United States is that of individualism, which assumes that the outcomes of a person’s life are almost entirely due to their character, grit and hard work. The individualism mindset makes sense of things without taking into account that what surrounds us shapes us, including systemic issues, familial economics, or social environments. 

What does it mean to say (and think) “the system is rigged”? 

As explained by Ishita Srivastava, Frameworks’ Vice President of Cultural Strategy, one mindset dominating the way Americans are thinking right now right now is that the “system is rigged” (and by “system,” we mean all of them, including all  the big ones: political system, healthcare system, economic system, education system etc.). And they’ve found that without some guidance, this mindset leads people to feel fatalistic and helpless, and some versions of it can also lead to xenophobia and racism. So, what are we to do about this? It boils down to a few key points:

1. Acknowledge that the systems are indeed rigged.
2. Talk about unrigging the system in ways that center collective power.
3. Focus on HOW the systems are rigged rather than WHO is rigging them.
4. Offer solutions, and ensure that they match the scale and gravity of the problems.

Where does improv comedy come in?  

Led by our Creative Director of Comedy Initiatives, Bethany Hall, and improv icon, Shannon O’Neill, after thoroughly unpacking the research, some of our nations best improvisers (Holly Walker, Shane Neilsen, and Milly Tamarez) used improv comedy to generate new and original ideas to breakdown the problems and spotlight solutions, within the “system is rigged” mindset and narrative, all the while creating a playful creative space. Some spontaneous scenes included:

• Halloween Book Rebellion: in this scene children used the concept of collective rebellion when a neighbor decided to hand out books in lieu of candy on Halloween.
• The Boss’ Nephew: A highly qualified, disgruntled employee expresses their dismay when their boss’ nephew receives a promotion rather than them, modeling one way that the system is rigged. 
• Oscar Thank You’s: In this acceptance speech, the Oscar winner thanks only themselves, insisting that their success was due exclusively to their ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. 

What kinds of creative ideas can come from comedy play? 

After settling into the space through comedy, we focused on developing new, comedy forward, and producible projects.  During this exercise, we worked with our audience, primarily composed of comedians and folks working in the social justice space, to generate their own ideas on how to grapple with this mindset and bring productive narratives about unrigging systems into their own work. By the end of the workshop, dozens of ideas had been shared. Some were great, some were weird, and all were welcome. Here are some of our favorites:

• Systemic Themepark (themepark): An enormous Rube Goldberg-esque park that requires individuals to work together to make their way from one end of the park to the other (alt: collective action escape room).
• How Does it Run (docu-series): This show takes you behind the scenes of some of our nation’s greatest systems and explains exactly how they are run. Focused on the systems and not the folks behind them, ‘How Does it Run’ demystifies everything from professional baseball teams to being elected for congress. 
• Guess How (boardgame): A cheeky spinoff of the acclaimed game ‘Guess Who’, ‘Guess How’ models different folks living in America and players get to guess how systems have worked to keep them down. 
• Eww…Hot (comedy podcast): This comedy forward podcast showcases healthy debate between folks with opposing viewpoints. There are rules, there are opinions and there is a referee. 
• We the People (public art mural): The public is invited to paint longstaying portraits of individuals they love alongside one another, creating a visible chorus of love in shared spaces. 

Ultimately, it was an uplifting and inspirational day, and a fantastic reminder that change is possible when great minds come together prepared to “yes, and…”

PRESENTING PARTNERS
Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI) based at American University’s School of Communication, is an award-winning creative innovation lab and research center that focuses on media for equity and social justice. Our work bridges boundaries between scholars, media producers, social justice organizations, and communication practitioners. GoodLaugh, a CMSI initiative, is a comedy production engine and knowledge lab that brings together the most talented minds in humor, social justice, entertainment, and philanthropy to collaborate and create comedic content and insightful research to help repair the world and build a more just, equitable future.

The Frameworks Institute: The FrameWorks Institute is a nonprofit think tank that helps organizations and storytellers committed to social change to communicate in ways that shift narratives and build public demand for progressive change. We study cultural mindsets—how people understand social issues and develop and test strategies to shift thinking and build support for action. For 25 years, FrameWorks has helped change the conversation on issues like child and adolescent development, climate change, health equity, public education, and structural racism. FrameWorks staff—a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, narrative and cultural strategists, and communications professionals—has pioneered Strategic Frame Analysis®, a one-of-a-kind approach to communications that combines insights from social science, social movements, and social change communications. International, national, state and local partners, and content creators use our insights and guidance to secure more equitable, inclusive and sustainable policies.
Hope to see you there!

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At the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI), we believe comedy and creativity are powerful tools for making sense of complex issues. This year, we produced two climate-focused initiatives that combined laughter, learning, and fresh perspectives to inspire everyone involved.

Climate Comedy Cohort

Last year’s Climate Comedy Cohort, co-produced with Generation180, shared a series of original videos that brought humor and hope to everyday climate conversations. Videos like Dropping Tailpipes, Test Driving EVs, and more, used comedy to spark dialogue and make climate action feel approachable and empowering.

These sketches remind us that understanding climate change doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Humor can help people connect to these issues in ways that feel relatable and energizing. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram (@cmsimpact) to keep up with the fun! 

CMSI IMPROV/E Workshop

In September 2025, CMSI partnered with Inside the Greenhouse, based out of the University of Colorado, to put on a CMSI IMPROV/E Workshop. Working with students and the public, attendees were encouraged to learn to engage with climate communication using improv techniques. 

Waleed Abdalati discussing his work with glaciers.

Participants  collaborated with leading climate experts to explore and understand complex topics in new ways, including:

• The reintroduction of great wolves in Colorado with Joanna E. Lambert
• Melt lakes on Greenland’s ice sheet with Waleed Abdalati
• Heatways and how they can spark everyday conversations with Max Boycoff

Led by CMSI’s Creative Director of Comedy Initiatives, Bethany Hall, and with guidance from Beth Osnes (Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies) and Max Boycoff  (Professor of Environmental Studies) at University of Colorado’s Inside the Greenhouse, students learned how to use improvisation as a tool for public engagement and deeper understanding of the environmental challenges and solutions we face today. The interactive and playful workshop encouraged participants to approach challenging topics from new angles and to imagine fresh ways to connect with their communities. Participants walked away feeling more connected and inspired to think about climate communication in new ways.

Initiatives like these reflect the heart of CMSI’s mission. Through comedy, storytelling, and collaboration, we aim to show people what’s possible when creativity meets pressing social issues. By opening up new ways of thinking and communicating, we can inspire more meaningful conversations and collective action.

A special thanks to our partners at Generation180 and Inside the Greenhouse!

—

ABOUT OUR PARTNERS

Generation180 is a national nonprofit working to accelerate the transition to clean energy through storytelling, culture, and community action. From nationwide campaigns and original research to ambassador training and climate comedy, they’re changing the narrative from doom and gloom to “we’ve got this.” By inspiring and equipping individuals, they’re helping build a future powered by wind, water, and sun.

Inside the Greenhouse is a creative climate communication initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder. Led by Max Boykoff, Rebecca Safran, Beth Osnes, and Phaedra Pezzullo, the project uses video, theatre, dance, and writing to make climate change meaningful and accessible to wider audiences. Through events and classes, they engage students, scientists, and the public to explore innovative ways of connecting climate issues to everyday life.

Max Boykoff is a Professor in the Environmental Studies department at the University of Colorado Boulder, and co-director of Inside the Greenhouse. He is also a Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Max has ongoing research interests in science and environmental communications, science-policy interactions, political economy, business, and the environment. He has experience working in several country contexts, and is a co-author and editor of seven books and edited volumes, along with many articles, reports, and book chapters. Max also leads the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO.

Beth Osnes is a Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado. She is also a co-director of Inside the Greenhouse. She recently toured an original musical, Shine, to cities in the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Initiative to facilitate local youth voices in resilience planning. She is currently developing a method towards vocal empowerment for young women that she is researching in Guatemala, Tanzania, and the USA. Her book Theatre for Women’s Participation in Sustainable Development includes her work specific to gender equity in Panama, Guatemala, India, Nicaragua, and the Navajo Nation. She is featured in the award-winning documentary Mother: Caring for 7 Billion.

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Bethany Hall Finds Power in the Mess: Comedy, Motherhood, and the Stories We Keep Quiet

Through her one-woman show and work at CMSI, Hall turns personal experience into honest, comedic storytelling.

Bethany Hall has been a comedian for nearly 20 years, but her latest project might be her most personal one yet. As the Creative Director of Comedy Initiatives at the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI), Hall spends a significant amount of time thinking about how comedy can address serious issues in a way that resonates with people. So when it came time to tell her own story, she turned to the tool she knows best.

Her one-woman show, About Those Miscarriages I Had and Other Messes I’ve Made, dives into the complicated and often taboo realities of miscarriage, motherhood, and identity. It is messy, funny, raw, and incredibly human.

“I only think in comedy,” she said. “So if I have a story I want to tell, it’s going to be comedic. Comedy is my love language. So as an artist, I think that’s just how I process, through jokes and through comedy.” 

That instinct to lead with humor is also deeply connected to her work at CMSI, where she helps support comedians who use their voices to challenge norms and spark change. This kind of work helped her realize that vulnerability and storytelling are not separate from advocacy. They are often where it begins.

“We often say at CMSI, joy is not the absence of pain. I think comedy is an extraordinary tool to normalize things that should be normalized. If I’m willing to shout and scream and sing and dance about miscarriages and the struggle of parenthood on stage, that empowers other people to talk openly and honestly about their own experiences.”

Rather than quieting the hard parts of life, Hall believes comedy gives them room to breathe. “There’s this narrative that we shouldn’t talk about it, or that if we do, it has to be subdued and quiet. And that something hilarious can’t be happening while something tragic is happening. That just isn’t true.”

In that way, comedy is not an escape from grief or discomfort, but a way to move through it. “I think when an audience watches somebody speak or dissect their truth, it makes folks feel less lonely. Validated. It gives people permission to reveal who they are.”

That spirit of connection was central to the show’s development. Hall created it in collaboration with other moms in her Montclair, New Jersey, neighborhood. Director Maureen Towey helped shape the story during late-night rehearsals. Composer Anne Eisendreth contributed original music that adds emotional weight to key moments. One song, “The To-Do List,” blends a rapid-fire list of everyday obligations with the constant pressure to look good and stay calm while managing it all.

“There are elements of the show that get really dark and really raw and honest, and it did feel like the only way to appropriately acknowledge those moments was with music, where you can convey so much pain and humor.”

Themes of pressure and perfection surface throughout the show, especially around the expectations placed on women. The message echoes the now iconic speech from Barbie, where America Ferrera’s character outlines the impossible double standards women face every day.

Hall’s show creates that same kind of recognition, especially for women who have carried grief, pressure, and guilt in silence. “I am so happy to be a woman. I’m so grateful to be a mother. But holy man, it is rough sometimes. And I still wouldn’t trade it.”

These conversations feel especially urgent right now, as reproductive rights remain a cultural and political flashpoint. Hall hopes the show permits others to speak more openly about experiences they may have been taught to keep hidden. “For a lot of us, the miscarriage is so gut-wrenching and devastating. And then if you layer public shame on top of that, it is intolerable.”

To make the show more widely accessible, Hall is currently working on distributing a recorded version for at-home viewing. “We really feel like this is a very personal show that we would like for people and women in particular to be able to experience in the comfort of their own home.”

The show does not offer easy answers. It is not designed to. But it does offer something to laugh at, something to feel with, and something to hold onto. And sometimes, that is exactly what is needed.

“Comedy gives people permission to be messy,” she said, “and to embrace who they are.”

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Filippo Trevisan on Storytelling, Technology, and Power

A look at Story Tech: Power, Storytelling, and Social Change Advocacy, his new book with Michael Vaughan and Ariadne Vromen.

In a recent conversation about his new book, Story Tech: Power, Storytelling, and Social Change Advocacy (University of Michigan Press, 2025), Filippo Trevisan made it clear that storytelling isn’t just a messaging tool; it’s a strategic choice that can either replicate or redistribute power.

Trevisan, Associate Dean and Associate Professor at American University’s School of Communication, has spent years studying how people use digital tools to influence public discourse and policymaking. Story Tech, co-authored with Michael Vaughan (London School of Economics) and Ariadne Vromen (University of Glasgow), draws on extensive fieldwork in the United States and Australia to explore how storytelling functions inside today’s advocacy organizations and what happens when personal stories are treated as currency rather than conversation.

“Organizations generally want to do the right thing,” Trevisan explained. “But the problem is that they’re very often still working with a mindset and an understanding of communication that belongs to the broadcast age.” While social media has become a default channel for distribution, the interactive potential of digital storytelling remains underused. This tension between intention and practice was a core finding in the research behind Story Tech. Although many nonprofits are inspired by values of empowerment and equity in their storytelling work, building the digital infrastructure needed to support them effectively has proved more difficult. In interviews, staff often struggled to answer basic storytellers’ questions, like whether their story could remain anonymous or be taken down later. “Sometimes the staff would scramble and go to their supervisor and realize that there was no policy,” Trevisan said. “That was quite surprising.”

The book also uncovered a less visible trend: organizations increasingly use stories to shape internal decisions, not just public messaging. Some story banks were created specifically to inform policy teams or government relations departments. This creates a meaningful listening process, but contributors were rarely informed about these additional uses. “A lot of organizations didn’t update their contributors about what happened to their stories,” Trevisan said. “That kind of transactional approach creates risk, because people – quite rightly – expect feedback. They want to know what happened.”

As the conversation shifted to the current climate, Trevisan noted just how much had changed since the book’s initial research phase; politically, culturally, and technologically. Yes, despite those shifts, one thing has remained clear: crowdsourced and participatory storytelling are here to stay. “Organizations have really started to put their own money into it,” he said, reflecting on how U.S. progressive organizations in particular have begun investing in digital storytelling infrastructure, meaning not only story collection platforms but also the “hidden” technology needed to handle large story archives effectively such as databases and, increasingly, AI tools. “Before, whenever there was a storytelling crowdsourcing project like this, it was a one-off project. Organizations would do it as an ad hoc thing, then forget about it and maybe not look at those stories again.”

That mindset has now changed. In part, Trevisan suggested, because conservative organizations have long understood how emotionally resonant storytelling can be and have used it strategically to shape public narratives. “Progressives are aware of this gap,” he said. “They’ve been trying to catch up and they’ve made some strides.”

Even with progress, areas for improvement remain, particularly around trust and privacy. Many people who considered sharing their story ultimately opted out due to a lack of clarity about what would happen to their information. “One of the top concerns was certainly privacy, information security, and how personal stories are going to be handled,” Trevisan said. While many groups had internal protocols in place, they weren’t always communicated clearly to contributors. “I’m not so sure they were doing a good enough job of explaining that,” he added, “which potentially affected the range of stories they were getting.”

The research revealed that nearly a third of organizations didn’t include any privacy or usage information on their websites, which proved to be a major deterrent for some would-be storytellers, especially those from multiply marginalized backgrounds. “That was an automatic turnoff for some people,” Trevisan said. “But a few organizations were a lot more transparent. That’s the only way to put people at ease.”

To address these gaps, Story Tech introduces the idea of building “digital safe spaces for story sharing,” flexible environments where contributors are treated not just as sources, but as collaborators. That means clear consent processes, consistent follow-up, and digital story practices that reflect the dignity and agency of the people involved.

At its core, Story Tech is a call for advocacy organizations to reimagine storytelling as something more than a branding exercise. As Trevisan put it, “It’s about moving beyond transaction. It’s about creating relationships, ones that are reciprocal, that are transparent, and that actually value the person who is sharing.” The book spotlights several advocacy organizations that have done that, which serve as examples of how to integrate digital technologies and story banks into narrative advocacy in ways that are both strategic and, at the same time, also empowering for individuals and communities.

Story Tech: Power, Storytelling, and Social Change Advocacy is available for purchase here, and in a move that reflects the book’s message of inclusion and accessibility, it’s also offered as a free open-access download. That decision, made possible by the generosity of the publisher, underscores a core theme of the book: that democratizing storytelling starts with who gets access in the first place.

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Funding comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ($969,000 grant), which aims to transform health in our lifetime, and Open Society Foundations ($200,000 grant to the Yes, And…Laughter Lab), which focuses on strengthening civil society and democracy. Both foundations see CMSI’s humor programs as integral to their narrative change work, given the focus on lifting up and collaborating with traditionally marginalized communities through comedy, including LGBTQ+, people of color, women, and the disability community.

CMSI’s executive director, SOC’s Provost Associate Professor Caty Borum, serves as principal investigator and lead director of its programs; CMSI operations director, Varsha Ramani, directs all business and grant operations; and CMSI creative director of comedy initiatives, Bethany Hall, acts as creative architect and producer for comedy programs at the center, including serving as co-executive producer for GoodLaugh at CMSI.  Since 2018, in collaboration with civil society and arts organizations, CMSI has co-created, launched, and co-directs several multi-faceted national comedy and human rights programs, designed from Borum’s peer-reviewed research about comedy’s utility in public engagement with social and civic issues. They include:

• Yes, And…Laughter Lab (YALL), co-founded and co-directed in 2018 in partnership with cultural strategy group Moore+Associates and co-founder Mik Moore, with launch support from Comedy Central, is a competitive incubation lab and fellowship that lifts up diverse comedy writers and performers creating new comedy about topics that matter, designed to introduce and integrate them into the entertainment industry, social justice organizations, philanthropy, and social justice activism. YALL serves diverse comedians and operates with an unprecedented partnership alliance network with more 40 entertainment industry and social justice groups, alongside prominent comedians. In 2024, YALL won an Anthem Award (Bronze) for Purpose & Mission-Driven Work, recognized as an outstanding community organization in the “Education, Art & Culture” category, selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Webby Awards.

• YALLFest, expanded from the Yes, And…Laughter Lab, is the first and only comedy festival that celebrates the power of humor to change the world. The three-day eventl launched in April 2024 in New York City, highlighted by The New York Times. Plans are underway for the 2025 festival. YALLFest and YALL are managed on a daily basis by Clare Kenny, YALL Program Director.

• The Climate Comedy Cohort, co-created and co-directed by CMSI and clean energy nonprofit Generation180, brings together diverse comedians from around the country to flip the script on the way we think about climate change, by working together with leading climate scientists to help shape their new comedy work. The ultimate aim: to leverage humor as a strategy to change the climate narrative from doom and gloom to “we’ve got this!”—and shift how people see their role in clean energy. In 2024, the Climate Comedy Cohort won an Anthem Award (Gold) for Purpose & Mission-Driven Work, in the “Sustainability, Environment & Climate” category, selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Webby Awards.

• Comedy Saves Democracy: In this hour-long comedy show and interactive audience engagement program hosted at the Kennedy Center (October 2023), comedy is at work to cut through ideological divides and create space for civic dialogue. Is the solution to America’s polarization problem… jokes? A cast of prominent comedians from around the country shared their funny stories about America to teach us about finding human connections through humor.

• The Great American Punchline Comedy Tour (summer 2024) brought people together to play, laugh, and register to vote in a nonpartisan live comedy show and interactive experience. In this five-city tour, comedians from all corners of the United States shared funny stories about American life and reminded us of our messy and hilarious shared humanity. (This experience is in post-production as a feature-length documentary that spotlights the role of comedy in promoting civic connection in the United States.)

CMSI has also collaborated with premier human rights organizations to co-create new comedy in collaboration with professional comedians, including the Domestic Workers Alliance and Paid Leave Network, IllumiNative, Color of Change, E Pluribus Unum, Caring Across Generations, Hip Hop Caucus, and others.

Past and present funders of CMSI’s comedy programs include the Doris Duke Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Carmack Collection, Argosy Foundation, McNulty Foundation, Comedy Central, Pop Culture Collaborative, Luminate, Gates Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy, and Surdna Foundation.

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The Yes, And… Laughter Lab (YALL) — a competitive comedy and social justice incubation lab for diverse comedy writers and performers – today announced its 2024 YALL Fellows and the annual IT’S FALL, YALL! comedy show in Los Angeles. The 13 fellows were competitively chosen by YALL’s Selection and Leadership Committees, which include industry all-stars like Alex Bach (I Think You Should Leave), Alice Mathias (Portlandia), Aparna Nancherla (BoJack Horseman), Brittany Scott Smith (A Black Lady Sketch Show), Chris Gethard (The Chris Gethard Show), Jeffrey P. Jones (Peabody Awards), Jenny Yang (Busy Tonight), Ryan Cunningham (Search Party), and leaders from top social justice organizations, including Pillars Fund, Caring Across Generations, The League, and others. YALL’s entertainment industry partners include Comedy Central, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, NBC Universal, and others.

Following a three-day training weekend in November, the 2024 YALL Fellows will perform and pitch original comedy ideas at YALLFest on April 2-5, 2025 at Asylum NYC. YALLfest is the first and only comedy festival that celebrates the power of humor to change the world. Showcasing a diverse community of YALL creators, YALLfest spotlights the best comedy writers and performers who take on social justice issues while making us laugh. The 2024 inaugural YALLfest was featured in The New York Times as one of April’s best offerings in New York City and platformed performances from over 100 top comedians including Dylan Adler, Kelly Bachman, Chris Gethard, Dina Hashem, Jaye McBride, Kenice Mobley, Alise Morales, Muslim Girls DTF, Good Medicine Comedy, Ali Sultan, Milly Tamarez, Usama Siddiquee, among others.

YALL’s new season of comedy programming kicks off with a public show, IT’S FALL YALL!, which will feature performances from Aparna Nancherla, Chike Robinson, Leah Bonnema, Lynn Maleh, Nthenya Ndunda, and Biniam Bizuneh as host, on Monday, November 18 at 7:30pm. Tickets are now on sale at dynastytypewriter.com.

Co-founded in 2019, and co-directed by the non-profit creative innovation lab and research center Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI) at American University (Caty Borum) and cultural agency Moore+Associates (Mik Moore), the Yes, And…Laughter Lab is designed to introduce diverse comedians to the entertainment industry, social justice organizations, philanthropists and activists who can help bring their work into the entertainment marketplace. The program has trained and continues to work with over 200 artists, a majority of which are people of color and women. The Yes, And…Laughter Lab is supported by Comedy Central, Doris Duke Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Pop Culture Collaborative. 

2024 Yes, And… Laughter Lab Fellows: 

Alison Zeidman

Alison Zeidman is an Emmy-nominated and WGA Award-winning comedy writer who got her start doing stand-up in Philadelphia and NYC. She’s written for Archer, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (Supervising Writer) and Adam Ruins Everything (Head Writer & Co-Executive Producer), and her humor writing and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Reductress and The Daily Beast. Alison was also one of the hosts/producers of the long-running NYC thematic stand-up show Dark Spots at Union Hall, which was a frequent critic’s pick in the New York Times and Time Out New York. Alison will pitch her solo comedy show, Ready to Die? at YALLfest 2025.

Andre D Thompson

Andre D Thompson was born and raised in New York City where he began stand-up at 18 and studied at UCB Theatre. In 2020, Andre made his network television debut on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. In 2021 Andre was selected for New Faces JFL Comedy Festival and began writing on late night comedy shows. Andre will pitch his stand-up comedy special Southside at YALLfest 2025.

Batoul Mourad

Batoul is an Arab-American screenwriter from New York City and a graduate of NYU where she studied history education. She was supposed to be a history teacher, but decided to disappoint her parents instead by turning her heritage into a joke — literally, she wrote a sitcom about it. Batoul has been a fellow in the Moonshot Pilot Accelerator, the Sesame Writer’s Workshop, and the WeScreenplay Diverse Voice Lab where she’s grew her network, honed her craft, and finessed the art of pitching. Batoul is particularly interested in exploring the intersection between history and comedy and loves more than anything finding the funny in the seemingly not so funny. Batoul will pitch her scripted series Ajnabiyeh at YALLfest 2025.

Carlos Greaves

Carlos Greaves is an electrical engineer turned comedy writer—a career move that haunts his parents to this day. When he’s not busy defending his life choices, he teaches online classes at The Second City, is a features contributor at The Onion, and writes the humor newsletter, Shades of Greaves. His writing has been featured in The New Yorker, NPR, and McSweeney’s, and he’s written for Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson’s annual Peacock special, Back That Year Up. His debut book, Spoilers: Essays That Might Ruin Your Favorite Hollywood Movies, was highlighted in Vulture’s “Best Comedy Books of 2023.” Carlos will pitch his scripted series Fuerza at YALLfest 2025.

Cecelia Ticktin

Cecelia Ticktin is a writer, actor and producer. Her incredibly twisty path has taken her from a career in injury rehabilitation, to touring the country as the standby for the role of Elphaba in the musical WICKED, to writing funny scripts about all of the things that make her sad. After winning a 2023 Screenwriting Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Cecelia wrote, produced, and acted in the web series HUSTLING (now streaming on YouTube). Currently, she is the Producer of the 2025 National Conference for Women. It is Cecelia’s deepest hope to leave this world just a little bit more knowledgeable about the experience of living with chronic pain and disability via comedy that feels relatable to all. Cecelia will pitch her scripted series Chronic at YALLfest 2025.

Chanel Ali

Chanel Ali is a standup comedian who blossomed on the Philadelphia circuit. Her command stage presence and storyteller style make her a quick crowd favorite. She boasts two Comedy Central specials, an album, and she can drink way more than you. Chanel will pitch her stand-up comedy special Break Up With Your Dad at YALLfest 2025.

Eric Lockley

Eric Lockley is a Harlem-based, Baltimore born, award-winning actor, writer and producer. Centering joy and possibility in his work, Lockley’s projects range from his kooky talk show “Percy’s Theater This n Dat” to his AfroFuturist walking-tour “We The People (Not the Bots).” Lockley co-created and starred in the digital series “BLACKER” and won numerous awards for his inspirational short, “The Jump.” A staple in the NYC theater and comedy scenes, Eric’s work has been presented at The Apollo, The Public Theater, The People’s Improv Theater and more. Eric will pitch his film Charlie Blackman’s Day in Harlem at YALLfest 2025.

Greg Roque

Greg Roque is a Los Angeles comic who navigates the physical and philosophical inaccessibilities of the world. Armed with nothing but his wheelchair and his self-deprecation, Greg Roque challenges the conventions of contemporary society through his unique deconstructions of pop culture, politics, sex, and disability. He’s been featured on Comedy Central, Amazon Prime, and The Los Angeles Times. Greg will pitch his scripted series He Won’t Rise Again at YALLfest 2025.

Kate Sisk

Kate Sisk is a professional comedian, amateur drag king, and retired soccer player. Kate tours the country performing stand up and has sets out now with Comedy Central and Cracked. As a performer, Kate has also improvised at the UCB Theater, starred in the short film The Launch, and co-hosted the popular podcast We’re Having Gay Sex. As a writer, Kate has contributed for The Onion, co-written a musical, and participated in the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop. Kate will pitch their scripted series Carry On at YALLfest 2025.

Orli Matlow

Orli Matlow is a comedian and writer who has written for Indefensible with Jena Friedman on SundanceTV/AMC+, and the Addy Award-winning docuseries From Yalta to Malta” She created and hosted the cabaret Send in the Clowns: Comedians Sing Sondheim, which was a New York Times comedy pick. Orli has written for Adult Swim, McSweeney’s, and Reductress, and can be seen on Amazon Prime Sports Talk’s comedy and sports show, Game Breakers. Orli will pitch her podcast War is Stupid: An Anti-War Podcast About War at YALLfest 2025.

Rasheda Crockett

Rasheda Crockett brings her visionary leadership to the forefront, reshaping narratives and fostering inclusivity within the media landscape. Her journey is marked by participation in the esteemed Climate Comedy Cohort (CCC) in 2023, where she contributed her talents to the creation of 30 original videos distributed by Comedy Central. Recognized for her innovative approach, Rasheda also received a W3 award for her groundbreaking series, “The Rasheda Crockett Sketch Comedy Show.” With a passion for storytelling and a dedication to driving meaningful change, Rasheda Crockett continues to be a trailblazer in the entertainment industry, shaping narratives that resonate and inspire audiences worldwide. Rasheda will pitch her animated series No Dumping at YALLfest 2025.

Rima Parikh

Rima Parikh is a standup comic and writer in New York by way of Chicago. In addition to her solo show Death Threat, she co-hosts a show called It Girls at Union Hall. She’s the senior writer at Late Stage Live (@latestagelive), a queer, public access late night show. Her comedy writing has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Onion, Cards Against Humanity, Reductress and more. Rima will pitch her comedy special, Death Threat at YALLfest 2025.

Sam Morrison

Born and raised in Florida, Sam Morrison came up performing in the Brooklyn comedy scene before moving to Los Angeles in 2024. In 2023, he was named a New Face at the Just for Laughs Festival, made his television debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers, performed a set on Comedy Central Featuring, and his solo show Sugar Daddy played Off Broadway for 14 weeks receiving Outer Critics Circle & Off Broadway Alliance nominations. Sam will pitch his film PTOWN at YALLfest 2025.

2024 YALL Finalists: 

The Yes, And… Laughter Lab also named thirty-three comedy creators as finalist runners-up. The 2024 YALL Finalists are Ahsan Ali, Andrea Zile Bish, Bixby Elliot, Brandon Follick, Fifi Dosch, Fouad Dakwar, Gregory Hoffman, Jake Noll, Joan Haley Ford, John David Williams, Justin Carter, Leah Bognanni, Leannet Amalfi, Lisa Jill Anderson, Lynn Maleh, Meka Mo, Natan Badalov, Pamela Schuller, Patricia Dinglasan, Quei Tann, Rachel Borka, Raft, Rokhsane Zadeh, Ryan Leach, Sabeeh Jameel, Sami Schwaeber, Savannah DesOrmeaux, Shareef Taher, Spencer Meade, Stephanie Leke, Stephen Brower, Sylvie Wang, and Willie Macc.

The post Yes, And…Laughter Lab (YALL) Comedy and Social Justice Lab Announces 2024 YALL Fellows and IT’S FALL YALL Los Angeles Comedy Show Featuring Aparna Nancherla, Leah Bonnema, and Others appeared first on Center for Media and Social Impact.

DMZ International Documentary Film Festival

Korean filmmakers are learning about the power of fair use—and also the high cost of not using it, as our report released at the 2024 DMZ International Documentary Film Festival shows.

The study reveals the results of a survey of 185 Korean documentary filmmakers, as well as interviews with 30 of them. Professors Changmin Lee and Emmanuel Moonchil Park collaborated with me on the work, which I was able to do thanks to a Fulbright Senior Research Grant at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Fair Use Comes to Korea.

 I wanted to explore copyright and creativity among Korean documentary filmmakers, because a decade before, fair use had become part of Korean law. I had already seen what a huge difference fair use made to the field in the U.S. When Prof. Peter Jaszi and I studied documentary practice on copyright in 2004, fair use was not even part of most documentarians’ thinking. Errors-and-omissions insurers wouldn’t insure for it, broadcasters wouldn’t accept films with fair use, and lawyers pooh-poohed the idea that it was useful. There wasn’t much litigation to learn from, and people just didn’t know what fair use meant in practice.

Filmmakers decided to work together to find the most common and least controversial ways to employ fair use. Amazingly, within a year of publishing their Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, documentarians found that every insurer in the U.S. would insure for it, and suddenly they could get distribution. Whole new kinds of films could get made—a story we told in Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright.

Can You Export Success?

What happens to fair use in a different setting? My colleagues—both of them also documentary filmmakers—and I set out to map the state of copyright practice among Korean documentarians.

As K-culture (hallyu) burgeons, documentarians are producing both in national and international environments. Copyright has become something they have to pay attention to, although most of them don’t make any money from their copyrights.

Korean copyright law emphasizes the importance of balance—that both copyright protection and limited access to copyrighted works are necessary for Korean culture to flourish. But are documentarians using both sides of the law?

Self-censorship in Documentaries.

What we found surprised and sometimes shocked us. Key takeaways from the report:

• Documentarians universally build third-party, copyrighted materials into their work.
• They are all aware that copyright has to be one of their professional considerations.
• They also say that they know very little about copyright law.
• They do not know about some of the most powerful parts of Korean copyright law for documentarians–especially fair use.
• Among those who do know the legal exceptions exist, very few are actually using them.
• It’s not just their fear and/or lack of knowledge, but also distributors. Filmmakers often face demands for 100% permissioning, to get their films on air, streaming or in theaters.
• There’s very little Korean law about fair use so far, but what there is aligns with U.S. law, which is fair use-friendly.
• As a result of their failure to use the law, filmmakers pay a high price.
  • They pay more than they should.
  • They take longer than they should, waiting for permissions and raising money to pay them.
  • They change their work, faking reality in the process.
  • They decide not even to think about doing some kinds of projects.

As one filmmaker told us, “During brainstorming, if the copyright issue is complicated, I often dismiss the idea itself.”

That’s a sad statement. When filmmakers refuse even to imagine projects because of copyright limitations, they are self-censoring.

We learned, as U.S. documentarians had, that fair use needs to be used to be real. When people either don’t know about it, or don’t know how to use it, copyright remains unbalanced. Creativity and free expression suffer.

A Brighter Future.

Copyright is only one of the many challenges Korean documentary filmmakers face. But it is one that U.S. documentarians previously faced, and answered with a best practices code. One of Korea’s judges, who studied fair use and fair dealing extensively, has suggested that such codes could provide crucial help in interpreting fair use in practice.

In the meantime, my collaborators have translated the U.S. documentarians’ code into Korean, as well as other materials, all available here. Learning how U.S. documentary filmmakers employ the exact same law can provide Korean filmmakers some examples of how fair use is crucial to documentary expression once copyright is everywhere.

Dong-won Kim, godfather of Korean documentary film (Credit: Cine21)

The DMZ International Documentary Film Festival’s panel and roundtable discussion is opening up the conversation. Representatives of Korea’s leading filmmaker groups, including the Korea Independent Video and Filmmakers (started by the godfather of Korean documentary film, Dong-won Kim, who will also participate) and Korean Documentary Network, and the leading independent media organization, MediAct, will be brainstorming together there, among others.

My colleagues and I are honored to see our research showcased at Korea’s leading event for documentary filmmaking. And we hope that it is only the beginning of the journey for Korean filmmakers and documentary studies scholars.

The post Korean Documentarians Discover Fair Use appeared first on Center for Media and Social Impact.

CMSI interviewed Patricia to learn more about the book, her motivations, and the stories readers can’t miss:

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What moved and motivated you to write this book about Kartemquin Films? 

Kartemquin’s history and my own have intertwined over the years, as we always shared a common vision of the role of documentary as both a democratic act and a medium that can inspire people to understand themselves as democratic citizens. Media are the circulatory system of any society. What we know about each other and the world becomes our reality. Great documentaries tell true stories in ways that not only let viewers imagine themselves into the story, but also imagine the issues and challenges of that story as part of their own world, and their own issues and challenges to address with democratic action.

I first met Kartemquin’s cofounder, Gordon Quinn, in 1978 when I was the cultural editor of In These Times, a proudly democratic socialist newspaper that also aspired to enter the circulatory system of the society. It was a time of tremendous social ferment, with anti-war and anti-colonial movements, groups like the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Young Patriots, and many others, and the budding signs of the environmental movement. Like Kartemquin, in the midst of enormous turmoil, In These Times was staunchly anti-sectarian. We were covering the political career of Bernie Sanders when he was still a town council member in Burlington, VT! But even more impressive, Gordon had filmed Bernie when they were both students at the University of Chicago, as Bernie was leading a protest against racist housing policies. (This footage ended up getting used in Bernie’s 2016 presidential campaign.) Gordon Quinn convinced me to focus on documentaries as a form, and to participate in media activist movements, including the filmmakers’ movement that created the Independent Television Service. He’s still telling me what to do. Well, sometimes.

Kartemquin Films has an amazing, improbable history over six decades. It’s produced films as different as Hoop Dreams, Minding the Gap, Vietnam Long Time Coming, Eating Up Easter, Unapologetic, and ’63 Boycott—all of which won major awards. Its films have been seen on PBS, NBC, A&E, Al Jazeera America, and Hulu. It’s been a collective, a production house, a media arts center. Its filmmakers use vastly different approaches. But everything Kartemquin does is under the umbrella of the notion that documentaries serve democracy. It rejected sectarianism in the 1970s, sappy sentimentalism in the 1990s, and cheap sensationalism today.

Instead, its filmmakers commit to a compassionate intimacy in storytelling, where the respect for the participants is as evident as the respect for the viewers. And they commit to the notion that people can understand problems systemically while seeing them through the lens of human experience.

That is a story that is really worth telling. And I’ve been meaning to tell it for—oh, at this point, it’s been decades. I’m grateful that I finally got the time and had the resources (thanks in no small part to my academic job at American University!) to do it. I owe a lot of people a big debt in the process, not least the 40 people who work or have worked at Kartemquin who spent hours of their lives talking to me and the good people at Washington University of St. Louis, where they have roomfuls of Kartemquin archives and took time out from cataloguing it all to hunt up what I asked for.

With Kartemquin’s origin and evolution came essential norms, practices, and ways of “doing” documentary with community engagement at the heart. Share some of Kartemquin’s pathbreaking practices, in your view, and how and where and why we can see them at work in indie doc practice and output today? 

Kartemquin’s engagement strategies have always been built into the process, because of Kartemquin’s vision. They are integral to every project, appropriate to that project’s mission, within the larger vision of documentary for democracy. Kartemquin has indeed been pioneering, but I would say the real work was in integrating the commitment into everything, including design of the products.

For example, its first film, Home for Life, was produced for an old-age home that wanted a positive profile. The filmmakers wanted to follow the lives of the residents without comment, to show how a well-run group home for the aged works–knowing that most viewers would not want to live in one, no matter how well run. The film could not help but raise questions in viewers’ minds about how the real problem of care for those impaired by age-related conditions is and should be addressed in a democracy. Drexel Homes executives faced down howls of complaint from board members, by arguing that it was a leader in the kind of services it provided, and the film’s fair and independent perspective gave that claim credibility among its peers. The film was circulated within the world of providers, social workers, and policy advocates, and resulted in both local improvements in the home it was filmed in, and also changes in the industry. So it fulfilled its objectives. (And it’s still watched!)

The mid-1990s public TV series, The New Americans, couldn’t be more different. The series followed several immigrant families through their journey of arrival and adjustment, starting in their home countries, before they left. Viewers experienced the wrenching sadness of leaving family and friends, the frustration and confusion of an unfamiliar bureaucracy, the befuddlement of culture shock, the pride of achievement and the hard choices.

The series also had a huge outreach campaign for which separate funding was raised, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Kartemquin employed Active Voice, the pioneering strategic communication firm for documentaries, to coordinate it. The group began work on the campaign two years before the series was shown, and it was designed in part through focus groups with representatives of target constituencies for change: providers of immigration services, social workers, and policy advocates. The series interwove the stories of several families, and was thus unworkable for a lot of educational, organizing and motivational work. For those purposes, Kartemquin created out of the raw materials special modules focused on three areas: education (targeting teachers of immigrant students), civic engagement (targeting the immigrants themselves, to encourage their democratic participation), and inter-ethnic dialogue (aimed at people in communities where immigrants go). Module-enabled and problem solving-focused discussions resulted in changes in how service providers and social workers did their work, and gave advocates new tools for engagement.

Finally, Kartemquin works in partnership with other organizations to produce timely work. For instance, by 2016 the Illinois legislature had not passed a budget for two years, with right-wing legislators holding it hostage for anti-labor clauses. The consequences for Illinois residents were terrible and immediate—among the affected were meals-on-wheels services, adult education, at-risk youth programs. But they might be hard to see for anyone not experiencing them. Kartemquin filmmakers worked with In These Times journalists to produce the timely reporting series Stranded by the State, a short-film series that lives on an In These Times website, on YouTube, and was run on Illinois public TV stations. The news series met viewers wherever they were, including on their phones. This was journalistic work that had an immediate purpose, providing Illinois citizens with a vivid understanding of the implications of legislative failure.

Why and how is it essential – TODAY, not as history – to spotlight the powerful role that independent documentary storytelling plays in an open society? 

This is an inflection point in the nation’s history. We have to choose between the promise of democracy (I say “promise” because we are all working to make that promise more real than it actually is today) and the very real threat of authoritarianism. Political leadership that deliberately represented government as “the problem” for decades is now reaping the whirlwind, as authoritarians–as well as the genuinely unhinged–seize the moment. We have never needed more to understand ourselves as active members of a democratic public. Everything is at stake.

Independent documentarians have evolved a sophisticate storytelling craft, and impact and engagement has become both a community and a field of professional practice. Public television provides both funding and a nationwide audience for the strongest documentaries, and that is partly due to filmmaker activism like the Kartemquinites have done. As a recent CMSI report makes clear, documentaries are part of the toolkit for a stronger democracy. And Kartemquin is a shining beacon of that practice.

What is your favorite Kartemquin story in the book, if you can even narrow it down to one? 

Oh, there are so many! A lot of revelatory anecdotes were about the building where Kartemquin was housed for almost 50 years. It was a ramshackle old house where the first floor had been converted into a storefront, which became their screening room. In the 1970s, gang members used to graffiti the building. One day, Judy Hoffman, who is an awe-inspiring filmmaker, a labor activist and a Kartemquin OG, invited them to watch a film that she and others had made, Trick Bag. It’s different members of a white working-class left-wing group talking about how racism is a trick to pit the working poor against each other. Those stories are amazing, by the way. They’re all so young, and so smart, and so perfectly 1970s Chicago working-class. Well, the gang members watched the film, and at the end one of them said, “Hey, that’s how it is!” Gordon remembered how the kid said it, “as if we hadn’t noticed.” And guess what, they didn’t graffiti the house again. I guess that’s also a good example of impact!

What might documentary film aficionados or scholars be surprised to learn when they read your new book? 

I think a lot of people who care about documentary don’t realize how important Kartemquin has been, both in the Midwest, where it’s an anchor institution for independent media, and nationwide. Just to pick one example, Kartemquin was the Midwest center for left-wing filmmakers in the 1970s. Julia Reichert and Jim Klein interviewed the women of Union Maids there, and developed the film with Gordon Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal’s input, and the Pacific Street collective folks, including Marc Weiss originally, worked on Red Squad and later Anarchism in America. Jill Godmilow worked with them for The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago. It’s been an incubator for diverse voices, including Bing Liu, who was in a cohort of Kartemquin’s Diverse Voices in Documentary and made his Oscar-nominated Minding the Gap there.

Kartemquin has innovated in documentary style, and gotten those innovations on national TV. The New Americans was a TV documentary series at a time when that was such a crazy idea that public TV struggled mightily with how to program this novel beast of a program. Now everybody wants doc series. Steve James in Hoop Dreams broke the sound barrier for documentaries, with a powerful model of how to do character-driven documentaries with profound social insight. It was Kartemquin that made his career possible; Hoop Dreams was made over seven long years, during which Kartemquin kept it alive. Nobody, most of all Gordon and Steve, thought a movie like that could go theatrical and make a huge amount of money. But when it did, suddenly the “unfundable” character-driven doc was fundable. Steve has told compelling stories with profound social significance AND audience appeal again and again, and he has become one of the grand old men of American documentary. But Kartemquin was essential to his rise, which he has honored in many ways, including working with and through Kartemquin when he doesn’t have to these days. Steve continues to innovate; he’s making unforgettable TV series, including my favorite of his Kartemquin works, America to Me—a 10-parter on how a high school established to model integration has ended up de-fact segregated on the inside.

Even more remarkably, Kartemquinites have left their mark not only on filmmaking, but on the very structure of the film community. When Kartemquin became a media arts center in the 2000s, it opened up a film-in-progress screening to the film community nationally, with input from all Kartemquin members, including interns. People came from all parts of the country for that privilege. Kartemquin had an important role continuously over the ten years it took filmmakers to push for and make possible ITVS, and has repeatedly mobilized filmmakers nationally when it has needed to be defended. Kartemquinites were active in the effort to create Chicago public access TV. And Kartemquin was crucial in filmmakers’ adoption of the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, which directly was responsible for changing insurance practices for documentary, and thus the chance for filmmakers to employ fair use in broadcast and cablecast documentaries. Most recently, Kartemquin was one of the first endorsers of the Archive Producers Alliance’s forthcoming statement on ethical use of generative AI in documentary.

Kartemquinites don’t just make films that support democracy. They also act in their own daily lives as members of the filmmaking public, building institutional strength, supporting and encouraging ethical practice, and finding community.

Kartemquin has been a hidden national treasure of the documentary film community, and my hope for this book is that it stops being hidden. Because we need more of what Kartemquin does well.

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Get your copy! Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy –30% off! Buy it here, and use source code UCPSAVE30 from U of California Press at checkout ($19 total!)

The post Six decades of Indie Documentary Storytelling Chronicled in <em>Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy</em> appeared first on Center for Media and Social Impact.