7PM Welcome Remarks

The sixth edition of Getting Real will celebrate a decade of what is now the largest peer-to-peer gathering of its kind in North America.

April 15

10:30AM Playing with Reality: Staging Documentary

In this panel moderated by film critic and programmer Ela Bittencourt, we will hear from accomplished filmmakers who have recently used staging techniques in their work.

2:15PM Risky Business: Accessing Difficult Places

In this session, these panelists will reveal the vagaries of balancing behind-the-scenes access with institutional compromise, potential harm to protagonists, and proximity to the story.

2PM Workshop: Artificial Intelligence 101

This session will share insights, strategies and a starting framework to empower filmmakers to critically engage with media generation tools in ways that align with their values and shape future applications of AI technologies in film.

3:45 PM Open Breakout Session: From Concept to Catalyst (with A-Doc and BGDM)

This event will be a distinctive opportunity for both A-Doc and BGDM members and non-members alike to delve into the work of identity-based affinity groups and to contribute to the ongoing transformation of the documentary field.

3:45PM Open Breakout Session: Standards for Generative AI (with the Archival Producers Alliance)

This session will bring together the co-founders of APA with three expert respondents who will talk through a draft of the guidelines, and along with the attendees of the session, offer feedback on how best to word and implement these standards.

3:45PM The Hot Seat

For this session, we turn the tables. These intrepid gatekeepers have pledged to give honest answers to your questions, especially the most challenging ones.

4PM Stronger Together: Collectives and Mobilizing Around the World

In this session, we’ll hear from members of different collectives that were formed in order to move member projects, careers, and companies forward in strategic and coordinated ways.

5:30PM Keynote: Jemma Desai

In her keynote address, Jemma Desai will question the role of integrity in the documentary field.

9:45AM Keynote: Jesse Wente

In his keynote, Jesse Wente will address the decades of community organizing that led to the creation of the Indigenous Screen Office, on the crucial role the ISO plays for Indigenous creators in Canada and around the world, and on narrative sovereignty as the cornerstone of all his work.

9AM Morning Presentations: New Industry Initiatives

Morning Presentations: Contract Guidelines for Independent Documentary Producers, the Independence Project, and the Film Event Accessibility Scorecard

Surviving the Aftermath: Protecting Creative Expression

How have creators worked to resist restrictions on speaking out?  How have people and organizations fought to ensure that voices are not silenced? How has censorship, whether from governments to commercial corporations, affected the work of documentarians and those who get their films out to audiences?

April 16

10AM Delegation: Is There Independence Out There? (BFI Doc Society)

Access in the documentary field is often framed in technical terms, instead of in creative, conceptual, and spiritual ways. In this virtual discussion on the spirit of independence, filmmakers will elaborate on what voice, audience, and success mean to them as disabled filmmakers, and how reframing "access" beyond accessibility can create and sustain space for radical new voices in the documentary industry.

10AM Workshop: An Experiential Conversation About How We Gather

This experiential conversation will think about how the screening space can function beyond hierarchical spectacle and display towards a more meaningful space of embodied connection and gathering.

12PM Fireside Chat: Charles Burnett

In this Fireside Chat, IDA’s Executive Director Dominic Asmall Willsdon will draw Burnett into a wide-ranging conversation about his work, which includes a new documentary in production.

3:45PM VIRTUAL: Funders Only Breakout Session: Core App Revisions for Funders (with IDA and Sundance Institute)

The session will focus on strategies to improve physical accessibility, redirect financial resources toward equity initiatives and ensure the inclusion of disabled media makers in programmatic opportunities. Participants will share successful interventions and engage in candid discussions that emphasize collaborative problem-solving. Available only through Zoom: a link will be emailed separately. This event will not be recorded and can only be experienced live.

3:45PM What Makes a Story?

In this conversation, these cross-disciplinary speakers will dig deep into what truly can guide documentary storytelling.

5:30PM Keynote: Kirsten Johnson

Kirsten Johnson's keynote will urge us to think through what it really means for each of us to film from the specificity of our own bodies.

9AM Fireside Chat: Keri Putnam and Barbara Twist

In this Fireside Chat, Keri Putnam (a Walter Shorenstein Fellow and former CEO of the Sundance Institute) and Barbara Twist (ED of Film Festival Alliance) will discuss their collaboration on and preliminary results from the first-ever large-scale survey of the scale, demographics, and interests of the U.S. audience of independent scripted and documentary film.

Delegation: What’s Up With Fellowships? (BAVC Media)

For organizations with their own filmmaker support programs, this is an opportunity to learn from many collective decades of experience and perhaps find new ways to generate lasting impact.

Disaster Preparation: Building Your Support System

Panelists will discuss what they have learned from their past experiences, how they plan to do things differently for their next projects, and the knowledge and tools they hope will help prepare other creators, both emerging and more established.

We Don't Need to Reinvent the Wheel: Connecting to Audiences

In this panel, we will hear from on-the-ground examples of entities building a public for documentaries and finding innovative ways to get audiences invested in our films.

Workshop: Brands 101

In this workshop, independent film’s branded content guru Brian Newman will talk frankly about navigating the delicate balance between commerce and art and will help a few selected participants to think of creative ways of collaborating with brands for their projects.

Worth Our Weight in Gold: Identifying Value in your Production

We will discuss what it means to put all of this in place in a way that aligns with our values—because the act of telling the stories of real people is invaluable.

April 17

10AM Keynote: Jean-Marie Teno

In this keynote session, IDFA's artistic director Orwa Nyrabia will interview Jean-Marie Teno about his craft and the issues of representation within societies that are still struggling to decolonize themselves.

11:15AM Game Show: What's the Deal?

In What's the Deal, an experimental panel format crossed with a game show, filmmaker-host Chase Whiteside will dive into these questions with experienced producers who are willing to share their secrets and successes—but only after their fellow panelists and the audience first take their best guesses at what the real deals were.

4:45PM Closing Remarks

We will toast to each other, share what we have gained, let go of what we must, and make plans for the future.

9AM Morning Presentations: New Reports

Morning Presentations: Media Makers with Disabilities Report, People of Color Documentary Ecosystem Report

April 18

unseen (English version)

An aspiring social worker, Pedro faces restrictions as a blind, undocumented immigrant to get his college degree. But when attaining his dreams leads to new challenges, what will Pedro do? Using experimental cinematography, unseen reimagines film accessibility through an audio-centric experience.

unseen (Spanish version)

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Getting Real is a biennial conference designed for and by documentary practitioners and focused on the business and art of nonfiction storytelling. The sixth edition of Getting Real will celebrate a decade of what is now the largest peer-to-peer gathering of its kind in North America.

Here's what's coming up soon. Can't make it? No sweat. Many live streams will be available for on-demand viewing as well.