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 whose impact comes from the filmmakers evident patience, commitment to the subject and time spent following the development of the story. In this session on research, development and financing, directors Jay and Kelly are joined by filmmaker and executive producer Stephen Maing, to explore how projects like this are brought to life from the earliest stages: building a compelling concept and pitch, 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.

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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).

Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker, cinematographer and editor based in New York City. His most recent film UNION captures the historic efforts by workers to unionize the first Amazon fulfillment center. Co-directed with Brett Story, it won a Special Jury Award for The Art of Change at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Maing’s feature documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT which he directed, filmed and edited is an immersive cinéma vérité account of a group of minority whistleblower NYPD officers. It won a 2018 Sundance Special Jury Award, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, directed, filmed and edited over five years, and THE SURRENDER, have screened internationally and were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively. His film DIRTY GOLD, featured in Netflix’s Dirty Money series, intimately observers US involvement in the illicit mining and trading of gold and was filmed on location in Peru’s Amazon rain forest & Miami, Florida. Maing’s films seek to expand the aesthetic form and limits of longitudinal nonfiction filmmaking. They are highly observational visual investigations of societal phenomenon, complex power structures and the fascinating individuals who challenge them.