We’re excited that this year’s Documentary Fundamentals series centers on the kinetic and timely Emergent City by Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg—a film that skilfully builds tension, energy and forward momentum with the aid of precise editing and a detailed sound design. In this session, participants will be guided through the post production process with directors and hosts Kelly and Jay, joined by sound designer & composer Gisela Fullà-Silvestre and consulting editor Zara Serabian-Arthur. 

This session is about navigating the post-production process on your next documentary. How does a story emerge from a pile of footage and sound? How can the power of music and sound be harnessed to propel the story forward and highlight the themes? How can documentary directors work effectively with editors, sound designers, and other essential post-production talent? Can you really “fix it in post”? What is an online edit and can you do it yourself? How can music underscore emotion or rhythm? 

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

Kelly Anderson is a Sunset Park based documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square (w. Ryan Joseph and Kathryn Barnier). Her 2012 film My Brooklyn, about the hidden forces driving gentrification, was broadcast on PBS’ America ReFramed. Kelly produced and directed Every Mother’s Son (PBS, 2004, w. Tami Gold), about mothers whose children were killed by police, which won the Tribeca Audience Award and aired on POV. She produced and directed Out At Work (HBO, 2000, w. Tami Gold), which premiered at Sundance. Kelly chairs the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College (CUNY).

Jay Arthur Sterrenberg is a New York City based filmmaker, editor and co-founder of the Meerkat Media Collective whose work has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, IDFA, CPH:DOX and broadcast on PBS, HBO, Netflix & Hulu.

Jay’s two decade documentary editing career began with collaborations with DCTV’s Jon Alpert & Matt O’Neil on the HBO documentaries Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery (2008), Wartorn (2010) and Oscar nominated Redemption (2012). He also edited the Oscar shortlisted films Dark Money (dir. Kimberly Reed, 2018) and After Maria (dir. Nadia Hallgren, 2019) and a has had a long collaboration with filmmaking duo Shaul Schwarz & Christina Clusiau – Narco Cultura (Sundance 2013), Emmy-winning Trophy (CNN Films, 2017), Emmy-nominated FLY (Nat Geo, 2024) and the 2020 Netflix doc series Immigration Nation, which won a Peabody Award and Best New Documentary Series at the Independent Spirit Awards.

As a director, his films find cinematic ways to explore process & democracy. A believer in collective filmmaking, he co-directed many independent films with the Meerkat Media Collective including Stages (2010), Consensus: Direct Democracy at Occupy Wall Street (2011) and Brasslands (2013). His solo directorial debut was the observational short film Public Money (POV, 2018) which paved the way for the feature-length collaboration with Kelly Anderson: Emergent City (POV, 2025).

Gisela Fullà-Silvestre is a Barcelona-born, New York–based composer, sound designer, re-recording mixer, and vocalist whose work spans award-winning film, television, and music. Her projects include Academy Award–nominated and major festival premieres (Sundance, Tribeca, Berlinale, SXSW), as well as the Emmy Award–winning ¡Atención! Murdered Next Door, with releases on PBS and Netflix. She also performs as NOIA, an experimental pop project acclaimed by Pitchfork and The New York Times, and is a 2022 NYFA Women’s Fund Fellow.

Zara Serabian-Arthur is a documentary editor and producer, and a co-founder of Meerkat Media, an award-winning production company cooperative based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been featured on Hulu, PBS, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, premiered at Sundance, and screened theatrically. Recent credits include Stolen Youth (Hulu, series editor), Art21: Between Worlds (PBS, editor), and Justice (Sundance, editor). As an editor, Zara is committed to telling complex stories with empathy and care, exploring power, resilience, and the possibility of transformation. Across both her filmmaking and her organizing within cooperative and solidarity economy movements, she works to shift dominant narratives toward mutualism, economic democracy, and more just futures.