As the weather on the balmy North Carolina coast hits 85º here today (hello climate change!), I am packing for London and then on to five intense days at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Starting 4 November, this international festival “celebrates the art and business of documentary filmmaking” and includes industry sessions, a marketplace, pitching opportunities, discussion panels and in-depth filmmaker master classes, as well as a wealth of inspirational documentary films from across the globe.

On Thursday, 5 November join me and other panel members at The Chapel for “Working Your Film”, 12:45pm. Masterminded by my brilliant C4 BRITDOC colleague Jess Search, we’ll be joined by savvy filmmaker David Bond and web guru/creative director of Pixeco James Franklin.

While the focus of the panel is on effective impact, the successes we’ll share are really about creating new pathways to reach audiences and turning them into impassioned viewers – so when the lights come up they are ready to act.

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Although we wrapped up the Content +Intent Documentary Institute just under a month ago, I wanted to take a moment to share some photos from the event in the hopes of giving you a glimpse into the inner workings of the residency and, if you are a filmmaker, peak your interest in participating in future Working Films’ residencies and workshops. The 5 days that we share with filmmakers at MASS MoCA each year is re-energizing for me because I get a chance to interact with both the folks making these powerful films and with people who put them to good use. It’s an intense time of hard work and discussion, but as you’ll see from the pictures below it’s lots of fun as well.

Everyone fueled up with an array of breakfast choices at our home away from home in North Adams, The Porches.

Every filmmaker had an hour of the residency dedicated solely to the discussion of her (or his) outreach plan. Here, filmmaker Luisa Dantas and Robert West, Working Films' ED, discuss her project Land of Opportunity.

Filmmakers got to see Working Films' model in action at this community event built around the film The Hunger Season. Filmmaker Beadie Fenzi and Judith Helfand, Working Films Co-founder, discussed how the film could be used to make change with representatives from the local food bank in North Adams.

At The Hunger Season event audience members got to sample the corn meal that is depicted in the film and is sent to Swaziland as Food Aid.

Several funders of creative media and outreach campaigns were generous enough to spend time answering our residents' questions.

All of the filmmakers at the residency, including Marcia Jarmel pictured here, spent time working on their individual outreach plans with input from Working Films staff, like Deputy Director Molly Murphy.

In the midst of all of this work residents got a chance to check out the art at MASS MoCA.

Thanks so much to participating filmmaker Ashley Yorkfor these photos!

We are excited to announce the 8 film projects selected to be part of the 2009 Content + Intent Documentary Institute, Working Films’ Residency at MASS MoCA. We reviewed a number of extraordinary projects and faced a difficult decision narrowing it down to the 8 films that will be part of the residency, which takes place March 11-15^th in North Adams, MA.

Of the many amazing entries we selected those projects that we believe have the greatest potential to benefit from a collaborative workshop focused on creating intentional and strategic audience engagement; factors under consideration included submitted film footage, the written application and the diversity of subjects and timeliness of the issues. The following are the films selected and the members of the filmmaking team that will be representing each project:

The Campaign,  Christie Herring
Cape Wind,  Robbie Gemmel
In the Balance,  Ashley York and Susana Ruiz
Land of Opportunity,  Luisa Dantas
Made in India,  Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha
New Muslim Cool,  Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Speaking in Tongues,  Marcia Jarmel
Split Estate,  Debra Anderson

We will announce more information on the program and Projections Film Forum shortly.

As we begin taking applications for the 2009 Content + Intent Documentary Institute, Working Films’ Residency at MASS MoCA we wanted to give you a sense of what the experience was like for other filmmakers. In March of 2008 Sean Flynn joined 10 other documentarians for our 5 day workshop in the beautiful Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. The following are reflections on the residency that Sean so graciously agreed to share with us. If Sean’s experience sparks your interest in the Institute click here for more info and download the application.

“There are a handful of experiences I look back to as turning points in my career as a filmmaker. The five days I spent at the Content + Intent Documentary Institute at Mass MoCA was certainly one of them. Like so many other documentary filmmakers, I was originally drawn to this art form through a combination of my passion for storytelling, my love for capturing beautiful images, and most importantly, my desire to do something with meaningful social impact. But also, like so many other documentary filmmakers, the process of actually making a film, promoting it and simply getting it seen had become so all-consuming that I began to lose sight of that last critical part of the equation. Social impact!

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