2023 Works-in-Progress Lab Recipients

2023_Works-In-Progress Lab Filmmakers

The Cucalorus Works-in-Progress (WiP) Lab supports social justice documentaries with a focus on Black storytelling. Co-designed and coordinated by Working Films, participating artists will receive feedback on their work-in-progress and explore audience engagement strategies through workshops, consultations, and community screenings during a residency at Cucalorus’ campus from September 24th through October 1st, 2023. Now in its 15th year, the Works-in-Progress Lab was launched in 2008 through a partnership between Working Films and Cucalorus. The following documentary films were selected for the Cucalorus 2023 Works-in-Progress Lab: 2023 Works-in-Progress Lab Filmmakers Unfiltered by Chelsi Bullard…

Beyond Walls Breaks Down Barriers

Beyond Walls breaks down barriers in its most recent screening event at the Mayday Space in New York City This summer, Working Films is launching our organizing initiative Beyond Walls. In partnership with the Center for Political Education, Critical Resistance, MPD150 and Survived + Punished, this project helps us reimagine better alternatives to policing and prisons through the power of storytelling. Beyond Walls features documentary films that help define and amplify what abolition of the prison industrial complex* looks like. As part of our initiative, we are touring these films…

Announcing Impact Kickstart 2023

For a documentary film to make a difference, a solid strategy for audience engagement and strong partnerships are key. Filmmakers often lack time to do this work themselves or the expertise and the funds to pay for it. Emerging filmmakers, creators of color, and underrepresented artists can face the biggest hurdles, despite the potential of their projects. Working Films’ response to this challenge is the Impact Kickstart, a program offering in-kind partnership and strategy development to underrepresented documentary directors with feature films in progress that hold great promise to catalyze…

Working Films and National Labor Leaders Announce Short Film Fund to Support Worker-Led Organizing

WORKING FILMS AND NATIONAL LABOR LEADERS ANNOUNCE SHORT FILM FUND TO SUPPORT WORKER-LED ORGANIZING

Working Films, in collaboration with Amazon Labor Union, North Carolina AFL-CIO, Starbucks Workers United, Union of Southern Service Workers, and United Farm Workers, are issuing a call for short films that will amplify workers seeking to have their voices heard. Since 2018, through a program called Docs in Action, Working Films has funded, curated, and distributed short films that illuminate and offer solutions to critical issues facing the nation. In 2023, the fund will focus on the growing wave of worker-led organizing throughout the United States. “With this momentous rise…

Meet the Newest Members of Our Board!

Working Films Board Members: Adamu Chan, Ann Bennett, and Courtney Symone Staton

We are happy to announce three new Board members have joined our team at Working Films! Our Board of Directors reflect the diversity of our field– they’re community leaders, storytellers, filmmakers, and visionaries who bring expertise and deep passion for the work we do. “On behalf of the Working Films Board, we are honored and thrilled to welcome the newest Board members to our growing organization,” said Board Co-Chairs Felix Endara and Kim Pevia. “Ann, Courtney, and Adamu each bring an array of talent, energy, and passion that will support…

2023 Call for Media to Advance Workers’ Rights

Working Films and our partners at Amazon Labor Union,NC State AFL-CIO, Starbucks Workers United, Union of Southern Service Workers, and United Farm Workers are looking for short films that will uplift the surge of workers refusing to remain silent and grow the current wave of worker-led organizing. Together, through the Docs in Action program, we will fund and curate films to support these efforts and resource workers who are fed up and ready to take action. At a moment when workers are being called ‘essential’ but treated as disposable, and…

2023 Working Films’ Wilmington Screening Series

Refuge film poster

From our home base in Wilmington, North Carolina, Working Films leverages powerful documentaries as tools for change. This year we’re committed to bringing even more narrative shifting films to Wilmington audiences in collaboration with local groups and nonprofits. In the coming weeks we have four screenings lined up: 2023 Wilmington Screening Series: REFUGE Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm UNCW – Bear Hall #106 The leader of a white nationalist hate group finds healing from the people he once despised: a Muslim heart doctor and a town…

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…

Stories Beyond Borders/Cuentos Sin Fronteras Film Screening + Discussion (English/Spanish Event)

Cuentos Sin Fronteras es una colección de documentales que muestran una imagen más completa de los ataques a las familias y comunidades inmigrantes. Más allá de generar empatía, estos cinco cortometrajes presentan historias reales de resiliencia y fortaleza, al tiempo que ilustran algunas de las formas en que las personas pueden brindar su tiempo, energía y recursos para apoyar la organización liderada por comunidades de inmigrantes. ¡Únase a nosotros para esta proyección y conversacion para obtener más información y descubrir qué puede hacer para participar en la lucha por los…

Announcing Rural Cinema 2023

Across the US we are seeing stronger and more frequent climate-fueled disasters, exposure to environmental racism, and threats to our democracy – all compounded by the breakdown of civil discourse and community relationships – face to face dialogue, whether in-person or virtual, is critical for civic engagement. We also know that changemakers in rural areas and small towns are consistently under-resourced and must exercise everything in their toolbox, and film screenings are a powerful tool for organizers to gather their community and move them to action. Hosting these events is…