Double Exposure Panel: Fundraising For Your Documentary During COVID-19

Presenter: Sara Zia Ebrahimi, Working Films Development Manager 

Official Description: How can independent documentary media makers continue to fundraise for our films during this pandemic? How do we continue to ask for money in a time where there feels like such an intense need for resources from so many? While no one has an exact answer, in this interactive workshop participants will learn how to adapt best practices in fundraising (both from individuals and foundations . .  . 

Key Takeaways:

The one key takeway Ebrahimi wanted to impart is to shift your mindset to not see yourself as “begging”. Begging is asking for something for nothing in return. You, as documentary filmmakers are creating an incredibly important service to others by sharing important stories, offering alternative ways to learn, bringing attention to issues, developing emerging talent (with the crew you hire) etc.  Lead with that mindset (even though the culture we live in under capitalism doesn’t value our work). Make sure you have a clear sense of what you are providing to the world before you start fundraising. Your fear of not making the project has to be greater than your fear of asking for money. Always remember – documentary filmmaking is bigger than you – think about what is unique about the form of documentary to move hearts and minds. It seems obvious to you, but you need to communicate it to others. Cultural work is often the first step to greater social change. Many, many currents create a wave.

Other takeaways include:

The same principles of fundraising still apply in this era. You just may have to ask more people over a larger span of time, for possibly less money. But the number one reason people give is because someone asked them. So how do you get to the moment where you can ask? Because if you don’t ask, people won’t give. People can decide for themselves whether they are able to. Look for creative ways to stay connected with your fans/potential supporters.

She often hears “I don’t know the kind of wealthy people who can donate”. She pushes back that while it may be theoretically easier to get a wealthier person to write a large check, lower and middle income people donate a proportionally larger percentage of their income. So it’s probably more feasible to go more grassroots and get more smaller donations. Try to break out of the feeling of being in an insular community where “we are always passing $20 back and forth between each other”. Figure out who is beyond your immediate filmmaker friend circle – your doctor and dentist etc. Think more extensively about who you (and your entire production team) has ever met. She is asked for money all the time, her dentist is not.

In Gmail, any person you’ve exchanged at least two emails with is stored. Go online to find the simple process to export this list, which will help you see your much broader base. However, the number one mistake she sees is people starting off by asking for money. But fundraising should fundamentally be about relationships, not asking for money. It’s not transactional, it’s relational.

When going for grants, the reality of the philanthropic world is that it’s not just about the strength of your proposal. It helps to have a relationship with the program officer. Relating to them human to human is very important, separating out the human from the institution and not seeing them as just as a gatekeeper. Don’t overextend yourself on social media so that your efforts are mediocre on multiple platforms. Figure out the best one for your audience and focus on it.

Roles to take on to build relationships:

Cheerleader – are you encouraging other people and their projects with the same enthusiasm as you would want from them?

Connector – Are you helping build a web of resources among different people?

Curator – Can you be seen as a “go-to” for the topic as a documentary? Or a thought leader in that kind of filmmaking (for instance if you work with youth filmmakers a lot).

Double Exposure Panel: Filmmakers in Focus: Exposed

Moderator: Patricia Aufderheide, American University Professor

Filmmakers:

  • David France, Welcome to Chechnya

  • Hao Wu, 76 Days

  • Erika Cohn, Belly of the Beast (will be available on ITVS in November)

Official Description:

All investigative cinema, along with traditional investigative journalism, seeks to expose something that is otherwise hidden from view. Three remarkable films making a splash on this year’s festival circuit and featured in Double Exposure, take the questions of exposure to new heights. For Hao Wu, “exposure” is literally an issue of life or death. His remarkable 76 Days is set in the earliest days of the coronavirus crisis, charting how a Wuhan hospital confronted the new, deadly virus in the city where it originated.

In David France’s Welcome to Chechnya, about a group of activists risking their lives to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ persecution in the repressive and closed Russian republic of Chechnya, France must come up with a strategy to keep the identities of his subjects hidden, so as not to expose them to grave risk. He employs radical digital manipulation to guard their identities without losing their humanity, creating substituted digital faces.

In Belly of the Beast, Erika Cohn exposes a previously little-known story about enforced—and illegal—sterilization of female inmates in California’s correctional facilities.

Key Takeaways: 

Erika Cohn – Worked as both a documentarian and legal advocate. Had lots of conversations about possible consequences for participants once film got out. The threat of retaliation is very real, so wanted to respect and honor their participants’ wishes. 10 years of silence and secrecy were involved in making this film.

Challenges:

  •  Access

  • Having to imagine, and reimagine, how audiences would perceive the prison environment, as prisons are outside of many people’s experience - when seen in the media it is typically overly-dramatized. So they recreated prison environments using a dilapidated former prison, advised by formerly incarcerated to recreate an authentic look and feel.

  • Adequately protecting the identity of interview subjects who wanted to be anonymous. They found that since everyone in the film was already living with constant fear of retaliation for any form of speaking up they could actually advise on how to have these conversations.

Hao Wu – Based in New York, and was originally thinking of a film comparing how New York and Wuhan were dealing with corona virus. He considered smuggling himself into China but was not able to. He contacted filmmakers already working in Wuhan and collaborated with his anonymous co-directors virtually. The political situation became increasingly difficult, and his co-directors had to temporarily drop out. He edited on his own, then reconnected with them to show the rough-cut. One was willing to go public, the other chose to remain anonymous since he was afraid to put his livelihood at risk.

While many forms of internet conversations are easily seen by Chinese authorities, the AI is not good enough to understand video (yet).

In the beginning he thought of it as an investigative piece, but it evolved to a more humanistic look of medical workers and patients trying to survive. This decision allowed him to tell a story not already told, and to walk the fine line between not being seen as too pro or anti-Chinese in these very political and challenging times.

David France – Feels other media has been far too meek in the genocidal campaign against LGBTQ in Chechnya, if they report about it at all. Many have had to flee for their lives and hide in shelters and safe houses. So his team hired security consultants to create security protocols ensuring maximum protection for the subjects.

Challenges –

  • Not attracting attention with a large crew. Used much smaller gear, and left cameras behind.

  • Protecting his subjects’ identities when interviewing them in safe houses. They always made sure everyone in the house was aware they were filming so they stay out of the frame if they didn’t want to be seen.

  • In the end, had 23 interviewees whose identity needed to be hidden. Recruited 23 U.S. activists who served as “face doubles”. New AI technology allows their faces to be superimposed on the interview subjects in a way that maintains all their facial expressions and nuances of their voice. Found that the technology successfully met the highest standards – the subjects’ own mothers did not recognize who it originally was.

  • Fear of authorities seizing their interviews. Before they even left the shelter, cards were immediately dumped onto encrypted drives. The cards were not just deleted, but overwriten so nothing could be recovered.

  • Fear of footage being stolen by well-funded state security organization. The key was making sure no footage or data ever touched the internet. They edited in a windowless “air gapped” studio – nothing in the studio was internet connected – a “steel dome” of privacy.

  • Made sure funders did not reference the film in any of their media.

  • They received much support from many involved in seeing the film through to completion. They also found it was much more a story about love and caring for one’s fellow human beings than they had originally thought. But after the project was finished, group therapy was still needed to help deal with the secondary trauma of doing justice to these gut-wrenching stories.

Double Exposure Panel: Accountability in Action

Moderator: Patricia Aufderheide, American University Professor

Presenters:

Official Description:

Documentary filmmakers have the power to shape narratives that impact the lives of the people and communities they portray. This workshop will focus on navigating that power using ethical values to drive the process. This workshop is presented in partnership with Working Films.

Key Takeaways: 

Currently working on creating a draft framework for ethical and accountable filmmaking that will be shared for feedback. The desire is to help filmmakers better navigate questions on the meaning of true consent and accountability to those they make films about. Journalist already work with these kinds of guidelines. Most filmmakers think deeply about ethical questions, but don’t yet have such a framework to fall back on.

Recommendations in the framework include:

  • Acknowledge your power (to shape and interpret stories – in a way that challenges instead of reinforcing stereotypes). Make efforts to understand the biases you carry.

  • Respect the dignity and agency of people in your film. Recognize the power dynamics that exist in your lives and the work, especially if you are a white filmmaker working in a marginalized community.

  • Treat your audience with dignity and respect (not just your protagonists). Respect their intelligence, and the fact they have their own stories and expertise. Are you including images that are traumatizing, or reinforcing of stereotypes?

Natalie Bullock Brown spoke about how seeing Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied in college changed her life and inspired her to tell non-fiction stories.

 Additional Resources:

Blogging for the Double Exposure Festival

I have regularly blogged from the Double Exposure (DX) Film Festival for the D-Word for the past several years, but this was my first experience blogging from a virtual festival. DX continued to deliver really thought-provoking panels and films, introducing filmmakers who truly inspired with their passion and commitment.

The platform used (pathable.com) did not work very well for viewing the panels. They wisely had a backup plan (a Zoom link people could click on as an alternative). After a few hours the panels seemed to revert to Zoom exclusively, which worked well. As always, I’ll dribble out posts over the next few weeks as time permits.