Fellowship Engagement

UnionDocs invites four pairs of artists and thinkers to expand radical filmmaking practices and new languages of documentary cinema through a mode of collaborative research that 

This fellowship opens up different moments of convening and invites correspondence between the pairs throughout with the aim to both support inventive forms and methods of nonfiction filmmaking and to study the effects of these conceptual and practical choices. Our hope is it can offer better ways to understand how such work operates in the world and engages with progressive social movements.

Each fellow will receive a significant fee for their participation, which includes an invitation to DocLisboa in Portugal, a retreat at EMPAC at Rensselaer in Troy, New York, and an invitation to El Seminario Del Futuro at FICUNAM. Funding comes with participation requirements and engagement in the project and publication, but is otherwise unrestricted for the artists. Funding for our thinkers is a commission tied to the commissioning and editing of a collection of writing, including an introduction to these texts and a separate key piece of original authorship.

This fellowship is for North American artists and writers and will be conducted in English. 

Applications are accepted through a nomination process.

New Connections & a Shared Research Proposal

We invite a critical thinker, (curator, writer, or editor) and a documentary filmmaker to apply together, proposing a central question to motivate their regular intellectual and creative exchange over the fellowship research year.

UnionDocs will lead a matchmaking process that will pair-up selected writers and filmmakers  who will then be invited to develop a shared research proposal for part two of the application.

This collaboration should root in the artist’s film practice and offer resources for the further development of their projects, aesthetics, and methodologies. Workshopped through a series of in-person gatherings and epistolary exchanges, the proposed focus of research will ultimately be addressed in a final collection of publications to be conceived of and some authored by the writer.

Seeking Documentary Artists

with a celebrated body of work demonstrating significant formal experimentation.

with one or more current works-in-progress that continue or expand their practice.

with enthusiasm to actively engage a critical dialogue on their work alongside the work of others, especially concerning how it operates in the world and how it impacts social movements.

With the availability and openness to commit to a collaborative process.

Seeking Writers, Editors, Scholars, Curators

with established research skills and exemplary published work.

with a significant interest in artful and experimental documentary film, though applicants from disciplines beyond film studies or film criticism are strongly encouraged to apply.

With the availability and openness to commit to a collaborative process.

Past Fellows

Erika Balsom

Eric Baudelaire

Matthew Shen Goodman

James N. Kienitz Wilkins

Nzingha Kendall

Dani & Sheilah ReStack

Dani & Sheilah ReStack

Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

A portrait of Steve Reinke

Steve Reinke

Participation Requirements

All fellows must join three convenings in person; travel and lodging will be provided.

Group Retreat

EMPAC
Troy, USA

June 20-25, 2021

Public Seminar

DocLisboa
Lisbon, Portugal

October 22-25 2021

Final Shareback

Seminario

March 11 - 20, 2022

All fellows must be able to

Engage in an open epistolary exchange at least once each month in a shared open notebook, an online space for documenting the ongoing dialogue and sharing progress around the proposed question.

For the artists, this is meant to express steps in their process (test footage, research material, production notes or sketches, a list of questions or concerns to inspire research).

For writers, this is meant to build towards the final publication (a draft outline, historical examples and references, notes on readings, or critical responses to other works).

Join monthly video conferences with the group of fellows to respond to open notebook entries, share progress and challenges, and offer feedback and critique. Each writer will be asked to lead two of these sessions; they will select relevant material for the group to screen in advance and structure the conversation.

Involvement in the design of a public curriculum to be hosted by UnionDocs that will open the questions, topics and ideas in the fellowship to a base of online student subscribers.

Publication

For the critical writer, the final goal for the fellowship is the completion of a significant published work that addresses the question proposed. Architect of the volume – writer and primary editor but we will have support with… Rachel Valinsky 

Writers are invited to immerse themselves in the creative practice of the artists with whom they are partnered. They will seek to understand the ways the artist’s work has operated in the world, study the theoretical underpinnings and historical precedents, learning how their methods and aesthetic devices pick up on and depart from those that have come before. These works will be published by UnionDocs in a special volume, but also may be distributed by other publications. 

Our target is in the range of 10,000 words (or comparable project) with a publishing deadline at the start of 2021. The form of this final publication is not confined to a single article; we encourage ideas around different possibilities for distribution.

Hear from 2022 Fellow, Sukhdev Sandhu, on his experience during the UNDO Fellowship.

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