We’re excited that this year’s Documentary Fundamentals series is anchored by the award-winning Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster—a film that exemplifies bold vision and creative ambition. In this session on development and financing, we’ll explore how projects like this are brought to life from the earliest stages: building a compelling concept, securing partners, and navigating the complex ecosystem of funding independent documentaries.

This session is all about developing and financing your next documentary. It will address the eternal question: how to finance your doc? What are the pros and cons of different fundraising options and how does someone get started on this process? Pitching, how to pitch and successfully apply for grants, and routes to markets will be discussed in this can’t-miss session.

Buy a Series Pass

DOCUMENTARY FUNDAMENTALS: A professional development series designed to give the emerging or intermediate documentary filmmaker an inside look at the filmmaking process from pre-production planning to post-production and distribution. Over the past few years, UnionDocs has developed this ongoing program for documentarians that desire a better foundation for navigating the modern landscape of independent filmmaking. This six-part program takes place over the course of one weekend at UnionDocs. Buy a SERIES PASS ($175) or choose to attend individual sessions ($35/each).

Instructors

Emmy award-winning filmmaker, artist, and author Michèle Stephenson draws from her Haitian and Panamanian heritage and experience as a social justice lawyer to transform non-fiction storytelling. She creates emotionally powerful narratives of resistance and healing that emphasize the lived experiences of communities of color across the Americas and the Black diaspora. Through a Black Atlantic perspective, Stephenson reimagines storytelling to provoke thought and inspire action against systemic oppression, weaving together fiction, immersive, experimental, and hybrid forms. In 2023, her films Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project and Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games were Oscar-shortlisted, with Going To Mars winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the prestigious Emmy Award for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Black Girls Play received significant accolades, including the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video and Best Short Doc at Tribeca. Her feature American Promise earned three Emmy nominations and won the Jury Prize at Sundance, while Stateless was nominated for a Canadian Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Stephenson co-directed The Changing Same, a magical realist VR trilogy that premiered at Sundance’s New Frontier XR Program, won the Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative, and was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Interactive Media. In 2024, she received the NYWIFT Nancy Malone Muse Directing Award and is currently in post-production on a feature on the Black Power movement in Canada. She is a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, Creative Capital Artist, and member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker Joe Brewster is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who applies his medical expertise to explore social issues through his cinematic work. He made his directorial debut with The Keeper (1995), drawing on his experience as a prison psychiatrist at the Brooklyn House of Detention, and the film received numerous awards, including Spirit Award nominations. Over the past three decades, Brewster has directed and produced narrative and documentary films, as well as immersive media. His feature documentary American Promise (2014) earned three Emmy nominations and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. His film Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project was Oscar-shortlisted, won the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and received over 30 awards, including two Cinema Eye Awards and the prestigious Emmy for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (2023) won the Cinema Eye Best Short Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video, and was also Oscar-shortlisted. Brewster’s groundbreaking room-scale production The Changing Same premiered at Sundance and won the 2021 Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Experience. His subsequent AR/VR projects include O-Dogg: On Othello, featuring Tariq Trotter, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Brewster has also produced documentary works for PBS, HBO, Amazon, Al Jazeera, Vice, Sundance Channel, Comcast, Disney, and the World Channel. He has received fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, MacArthur Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has won multiple Emmys.

Monika Navarro [she/her] is the director of Firelight Media’s William Greaves Production Fund. In addition, she serves as an EP for In the Making (American Masters) and leads the FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellowship. Previously, she worked as Senior Director of Programs at the Tribeca Film Institute, where she  oversaw documentary, scripted, education, shorts, and interactive programs, and at the Independent Television Service (ITVS), where she managed content and funding initiatives and served as the consulting producer on LAS SANDINISTAS (SXSW 2018), COUNCILWOMAN (America ReFramed), THE FIRST RAINBOW COALITION (Independent Lens) and A WOMAN’S WORK:THE NFL’S CHEERLEADER PROBLEM (Tribeca 2019).

Monika has more than a decade of experience producing for public media, from directing her debut film Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas) which premiered on Independent Lens, to producing for World Channel, American Documentary and the Peabody-award winning PBS series Latino Americans, and most recently, Emmy-nominated Love in the Time of Fentanyl (Independent Lens).

Monika is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, a Board member of Points North Institute, has been a juror for Blackstar and Hot Docs, and has served as a mentor/pitch coach for 4th World, Big Sky, Blackstar, CAAM and the Points North Institute.