2023 Working Films’ Wilmington Screening Series

Refuge film poster

From our home base in Wilmington, North Carolina, Working Films collaborates with organizers and activists around the country to leverage powerful documentaries as tools for change. We often screen the film projects we work with in the Port City, but this year we’re committed to bringing even more of these narrative shifting films to Wilmington audiences in collaboration with local organizers and nonprofits working for social justice. In the coming weeks we have four screenings lined up, and more to be announced soon. Find the full details for these screenings…

Meet the 2023 Rural Cinema Cohort!

We are pleased to announce the five locations and community leaders selected for Rural Cinema 2023: Kansas Rural Center and Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation), Environmental Justice Community Action Network (Sampson County NC), 7 Directions of Service (Pleasant Grove, NC), Safe, Affordable, Good Energy (SAGE TN) (Cookeville, TN), and Iowa CCI (Scott County, Iowa). Rural Cinema is a training institute and community engagement program aimed at supporting community leaders located in rural areas and small towns across the United States to utilize documentary films to advance their…

Facing Race Conference: 2022 Race Flicks Line Up!

2022 Race Flicks at Facing Race Conference in Phoenix

Race Forward and Working Films are thrilled to announce the 2022 Race Flicks film track of Facing Race: A National Conference being held as a hybrid event, online and in-person in Phoenix, Arizona, from November 17-19, 2022. Race Flicks lifts up critical issues of racial justice through film. This year’s program maintains a focus on accountable filmmaking that truly respects and reflects the people and places featured, and holds great potential to build power among those represented in the stories at hand. The selected films were chosen in large part…

ANNOUNCING THE 2022 IMPACT KICKSTART AWARDEES

Now in its fifth year, Working Films’ Impact Kickstart program has helped underrepresented filmmakers create strategic goals for impact and specific plans to engage future partners, funders, and audiences in meaningful ways. This year, we will be providing in-kind partnership and strategy development support in addition to $60,000 of impact campaign funding to each recipient.  In reflection about the Impact Kickstart program, Gerry Leonard, Director of Filmmaker Services says, “As Working Films and its programs continue to grow and evolve, we remain rooted in prioritizing and increasing support for underrepresented…

The 2022 Rural Cinema Cohort

Rural Cinema is a program that trains environmental justice organizers to use film screenings to bring people together and solve challenges facing their communities. The program provides grassroots groups and organizations with film screening equipment by EPIC Outdoor Cinema (projectors, screens, speakers), solar batteries to run the equipment, and funding to host a film series that can inform and inspire people to get involved in their efforts. Recognizing the importance of documentary storytelling to prompt civic dialogue and action during a time when rural areas across the country are increasingly…

The 2021 Rural Cinema Cohort

Rural Cinema is a training institute and community engagement program resourcing leaders from rural areas and small towns across the United States to use films in their work for environmental justice and protection. The program supports participants in holding screening events that engage their communities and advance their goals over the course of one year. Rural Cinema creates spaces for residents to come together (in-person or virtually), discuss issues affecting their communities, learn and be inspired by the visual content and one another’s experiences, and generate solutions that address their…

Accepting proposals: operations and management consultant

Do you have experience with organizations working at the intersection of art and social justice? Expertise in managing a staff of 5-20 people? And a passion for systems and processes? Working Films is looking for an operations and management consultant to join us for 6 months to update protocols for operational systems and processes in the context of rapid growth and amidst the pandemic. More details can be found here. Please help us find a visionary person to work with by sharing this post with your networks! Use the arrows…

The 2020 Rural Cinema Cohort

Rural Cinema is a training institute and community engagement program aimed at supporting rural leaders across the United States in using films as a resource in their work. The program supports participants in holding live community events that engage their communities and advance their goals over the course of one year. This year’s program has a special focus on serving individuals and organizations working for environmental justice and protection in areas directly impacted by polluting industries or transitioning from being economically fueled by natural resource extraction to adopting other more…

Announcing the 2019 Docs in Action Film Fund Recipients

Working Films launched the Docs In Action Film Fund in 2018 to support the production of short documentaries that address critical issues of social and environmental justice. This year’s call for proposals sought nonfiction films that tell a fuller story of immigration. We looked for films that reveal the harms perpetuated by immigration enforcement practices that extend beyond the crisis at the border, as well as films that expand popular understanding of immigrants and their varied experiences. We are excited to announce that we have awarded a total of $60,000…

2019 Cucalorus Works-in-Progress Lab 

We are excited to announce the 2019 Cucalorus Works in Progress Lab, a week long residency that supports the audience engagement and distribution strategies of social issue documentaries being made by Black filmmakers. This year’s featured films include:  Black Barbie: A Documentary, directed by Lagueria Davis charts the rise of the most iconic girl toy brand of all time through the eyes of the filmmaker’s aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell who spent 45 years working at Mattel.  Commuted, directed by Nailah Jefferson tells the story of Danielle Metz, after being sentenced…