SUMMER KICKS OFF WITH A NEW SPACE AND A BUSY SCHEDULE OF WORKSHOPS, CAMPS, RESIDENCY, AND SCREENINGS 

10TH ANNUAL COMMUNITY STORIES FESTIVAL SEEKING SUBMISSIONS

Docs In Progress is now accepting submissions for our 10th annual Community Stories Festival which will take place in November. If you have a finished or work-in-progress documentary about people, places, or history of Maryland, Washington DC, or Northern Virginia, please submit via Film Freeway by August 31. While we have a submission fee to discourage random submissions of fiction films and films that don't meet our geographic requirement, the fee will be waived if you use the Waiver Code CS19.

AFI DOCS FORUM FOCUSES ON LOCALISM

This year's AFI DOCS Festival took place in June. Once again, Docs In Progress was proud to be a Community Partner, organizing our annual Peer Pitch as a lead-in sidebar event to the festival, ensuring that our Fellows got a chance to experience Washington DC's largest all-documentary film festival, and co-sponsoring a Forum session on budgeting with ITVS' Michael Ehrenzweig.

While there were plenty of amazing films at this year's festival and one of the strongest Filmmaker Forums in years, we were most excited to be a part of Localism Works. This full day convening, organized by the festival in collaboration with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was designed to support and strengthen local filmmaking communities.

Aside sister film communities from Iowa, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, we were proud to help bring together more than 30 filmmakers and film organization representatives from across the Washington DC/Baltimore Metro area. (The photo at left includes two of them -- Malkia Lydia and Amy Oden -- who were part of a follow-up public panel). The day focused on discussing unique strengths, challenges, and opportunities of our community, and plans are already in the works for follow up sessions.  

NEWS FROM OUR COMMUNITY

THANK YOU TO OUR SUMMER CAMP TEAM
We want to give a special shout out to Celia Herdic and Mackenzie Myers who have worked with us this summer through our internship program, to Dana Rivera who volunteered several days with our youth summer camp, and to teaching artists Khiné Bonner, Malik Carter, and Olia Onyshko who have lead our youth and 55+ summer camps. We look forward to sharing the work which came out of these camps at our Community Stories Festival later this year.

BOARD TRANSITIONS

Four new members have joined the Docs In Progress Board of Directors. 

Erin Essenmacher is the Chief Programming Officer of the National Association of Corporate Directors. This follows a career of more than 20 years as a writer, producer, and director on documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, the History Channel Court TV, corporate clients, and independent projects. Her work with Docs In Progress is focused on policy and governance.

Dr. Mark Friedman has a background in organizational development, providing training and technical assistance to nonprofit and government agencies. He has spent his career helping people with disabilities gain a voice, and he also teaches disability studies and research design at CUNY and Rosalind-Franklin University of Medicine and Science. He is a member of Docs In Progress' Finance Committee.

Jeanne Ryan Wolfson is the owner of Intent Communication, a consulting practice that provides communication strategy, audience development and strategic solutions for businesses and nonprofits. She has over 40 years experience as a communication strategist and practitioner in the Washington DC region, most recently at Freddie Mac, one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. Her work with Docs In Progress is focused on communications strategy.

Sam Hampton co-founded Docs In Progress as a nonprofit with Adele Schmidt and Erica Ginsberg and has continued to be involved with the organization as a teaching artist and technology advisor. His work with Hampton Consulting and Film includes consulting with nonprofits and producing documentaries for the educational markety. He has been elected as the organization's Secretary and serves on its Technology Committee.

Our 2019 Executive Board are Barbara Valentino (President), Bonnie Rich (Treasurer), and Sam Hampton (Secretary). At large board members are Erin Essenmacher, Mark Friedman, GT Keplinger, and Jeanne Wolfson. Jay Elvove and Laura Possessky have remained as ex officio members this year, as the organization has transitioned to its new space. We say farewell to former Vice President and Secretary Doug Yuan and At-Large members Dan Manatt and the late Susan Winchell.

IN MEMORIAM

We were shocked and heartbroken to hear the news of the passing of 2016 Fellow Yisrael "Izzy" Welcher in June. He had workshopped his film Kol Hanashim (Voices of Women) through the Fellowship cohort, and the project was also fiscally sponsored by Docs In Progress.  His friends are organizing two life celebrations. For those in New York, the event will take place at All Souls Church (1157 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan) on Sunday, August 4 from 3-5 pm. For those in Washington DC, the event will take place at Rock Creek Park Picnic Area 13 on Sunday, August 18 from 10 am - 1 pm. Memories may also be shared here. 

We are also sad to hear that Gabriel Miller passed away unexpectedly in July. Gabriel was an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer based in Seattle, Washington. Miller had dedicated the past nine years to filming and co-directing with Elisa Levine the observational documentary Sweetheart Deal, a Peer Pitch West alum.

KUDOS TO COMMUNITY MEMBERS

Love Gilda (Peer Pitch West alum) has received two national Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Special. Congratulations to director Lisa D'Apolito and her team.

Work-in-Progress alum Memphis and Peer Pitch alum Million Dollar Block have been selected for  the IFP Spotlight on Documentaries at Independent Film Week.

Queen of the Capital (Fiscal Sponsoree and Work-in-Progress Screening alum) was featured on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show and in the Washington Post ahead of its premiere at the Newseum. Listen to the story.

Benjamin Steger reports that Stage Four: A Love Story (Work-in-Progress Screening alum and former fiscal sponsoree) is now available for free on Vimeo. The award-winning documentary (Best International Feature Length Documentary, DOCfeed Film Festival and Best Feature Length Documentary, University Film and Video Association) is an intimate and rich portrait of a mother and her family as she faces terminal illness.

The Invalid Corps: A Forgotten History of Disabled Veterans from 2015 Fellow Day Al-Mohamed will be part of the lineup at Superfest, the longest running disability film festival in the world. For more than 30 years, the Bay-area film festival has celebrated cutting-edge cinema that portrays disability through a diverse, complex, unabashed and engaging lens. It will screen on Saturday Oct. 12, 2019 at 12:00 noon at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.

Stephanie Lucas (Fiscal Sponsoree and Work-in-Progress screening alum) has been awarded a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to support animation and sound design for Unfinished Work.

Heather Taylor (2014 Fellow and Consultation alum) will be commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the first Women's National Air Derby with a screening of her film Breaking Through The Clouds in Hong Kong to employees of Cathay Airlines. 

After a limited theatrical run, Scary Stories (Peer Pitch Midwest alum) was released on all major VOD in May, DVD in July, and made the cover of Midwest Tapes’ July catalogue. Director Cody Meirick reports it was also reviewed by the Hollywood Reporter.

When It Breaks (Peer Pitch Midwest alum) recently premiered in Colorado. It heads next to the Maiden Alley Cinema in Paducah, Kentucky. Learn more about the film and upcoming screenings at whenitbreaks.com

John Wolfstone (Peer Pitch West alum) is crowdfunding for Love School about the revolutionary work of the Tamera Peace Research Village. The Kickstarter is running through August 12. 

WHAT ARE THEY UP TO NOW?
Here's some news from alums on their latest projects:

Amy Oden (2014 Fellow) will speak at a Rutgers-organized conference in Cuba this fall, and teach Intermediate Documentary at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She is also presenting Guerrilla Documentary in the Digital Age workshop at the Creative Alliance on August 24. She continues to work on her independent feature, Calasag (Peer Pitch alum), and produce for Maryland Public Television.

Aviva Kempner (Work-in-Progress screening alum) has shared that her latest film The Spy Behind Home Plate is continuing its nationwide theatrical run. The feature documentary tells the real story of Morris “Moe” Berg, the enigmatic and brilliant Jewish baseball player turned spy. Learn about upcoming screenings.

Bonnie Rich (2015 Fellow) dished humor and Jewish tradition to her 20-something daughters in the documentary Life is Rich (Fiscal Sponsoree and Work-in-Progress Screening alum). Her once reluctant daughters are now asking for more, so they created a podcast, Life is Rich Dishing Tradition. Listen as Bonnie and her daughters talk about parenting, adulting, spirituality, and matchmaking.

Catherine Wyler (Workshop Alum) is Executive Producer of a new HBO film The Cold Blue has used footage that her father, the late director William Wyler, captured in 1943 over Germany. The new film mixes the footage with contemporary interviews with the few surviving veterans of the WWII air war and will air on HBO in June.

Conrad Weaver (Roundtable Alum) recently won an Impact Award at the New Jersey Recovery Film Festival for his latest film Heroin's Grip - stories from the front lines of the opioid crisis, has received the Impact Award at the 2019 New Jersey Recovery Film Festival. The film continues to be screened around the country and will be released nationally on Amazon Video in September. 

Dandan Liu (Workshop alum) recently had her documentary short Monburan Micki acquired by Seed&Spark  It's a portrait on Japan's most up-and-coming female boxer as she prepares for the title match in Tokyo and navigates the contradictions between her identity as a strong female boxer and the traditional Japanese definition of what a woman should be like.

Jeffrey Kramer (Work-in-Progress screening and Roundtable alum) just completed a a short documentary entitled: Ami's Dream. Narrated by actress Mayim Bialik, the film tells the story of the founder of one of the largest foundations in the world that treats children with heart defects. 

Piper Hendricks (class alum) and her organization p.h. balanced films recently headed to the African Women in Media conference in Nairobi, Kenya where they facilitated workshops and joined panel discussions on film, advocacy, and storytelling. 

Alums: Don't be left out! Send your news via our new online form. The Fall Newsletter will be published in October. Deadline to submit updates for consideration is September 15.

All programs are at our space in downtown Silver Spring unless otherwise noted.

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