The documentary field runs on relationships, goodwill, and the willingness of filmmakers to absorb risk that others will not. For most of us, that calculus has a cost: debt accumulated, lawsuits threatened, contracts negotiated from positions of no power, grievances swallowed because the alternative was worse. These are not isolated experiences. Tales of exploitation, bad faith, and outright abuse circulate quietly through the documentary world—between friends, off the record, never quite loud enough to change anything.
Stories We Do Not Tell is built from accounts submitted by documentary filmmakers. At this session, we’ll collectively read the experiences out loud, organized in categories of harm that reveal the systemic patterns behind individual experiences. A panel of legal and industry experts will respond to what they hear. The goal is not catharsis alone. It is to ensure that no one in this room—filmmaker or gatekeeper—can walk away without knowing the truth of what is happening in our field.
Co-presented by the Coalition of Documentary Workers and the DPA Labor Committee
The documentary field runs on relationships, goodwill, and the willingness of filmmakers to absorb risk that others will not. For most of us, that calculus has a cost: debt accumulated, lawsuits threatened, contracts negotiated from positions of no power, grievances swallowed because the alternative was worse. These are not isolated experiences. Tales of exploitation, bad faith, and outright abuse circulate quietly through the documentary world—between friends, off the record, never quite loud enough to change anything.
Stories We Do Not Tell is built from accounts submitted by documentary filmmakers. At this session, we’ll collectively read the experiences out loud, organized in categories of harm that reveal the systemic patterns behind individual experiences. A panel of legal and industry experts will respond to what they hear. The goal is not catharsis alone. It is to ensure that no one in this room—filmmaker or gatekeeper—can walk away without knowing the truth of what is happening in our field.
Co-presented by the Coalition of Documentary Workers and the DPA Labor Committee
