While we are all vulnerable in our own ways, working with people reaching the end of their lives, and sharing their stories after their passing is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly. When people find themselves living in institutions, what can we do to ensure their individual agency to make our films, while respecting the boundaries and limitations that such spaces may impose?

Let’s talk with two filmmakers about their experiences in this field through the lens ofThe Ground Beneath Our Feet by Yrsa Roca Fannberg in discussion with award-winning filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda and moderated by Marta Andreu.

DAE members can find the recording in our Media Library (logged in area).

About The Ground Beneath Our Feet:
In Grund, Iceland’s nearly 100-year-old and thus oldest nursing home, elderly people muse about the weather. In the traditional institution in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, the residents go about their daily lives. Some leisurely sip their coffee, while others do crafts or learn Spanish. Still others simply vegetate. But laughing, singing, and even dancing people can also be seen. Director Yrsa Roca Fannberg, who worked as a care assistant in the home herself, captures these moments on camera.

DAE members can access the content in our Media Library (logged in area).

How can we use AI to help us sort through hours of footage, label archives, generate images and sound that we are in charge of?
In this hands-on workshop, the focus was on the introduction to different creative AI tools (text, image, video, audio) and to be invited to use them as co-creation tools that help you foster the creation process but also re-consider what’s truthful and what’s fake.

The group looked into manual and automated annotation software (image, audio and video), so they could train their own model in open-source AI tools like Hugging Face.

How can AI streamline the behind-the-scenes work of filmmaking from fundraising to release? We dived into development, financing, budgeting, distribution and marketing and what AI tools might be helpful and what AI tools are not.

We discussed when not to use AI, like for instance in culturally sensitive translations, legal contracts, specific types of research or nuanced editorial decisions.

How can AI serve as a tool for democratizing film production making it more accessible to those without access to traditional funding or industry networks? What kinds of tools do we, as documentary makers, wish existed?

In this session, we explored the surprising accessibility of AI tool creation and imagine new systems built around our values, needs, and communities.

Together, we brainstormed and begun prototyping tools by the documentary community, for the documentary community.

Do you want to learn more about the Non-Fiction Core Application and how you can improve your grant writing skills for North American and philanthropic funds?

DAE members Koval Bhatia and Mina Keshavarz are two filmmakers and producers navigating the complex seas of financing creative, author driven works.

Both have secured some of the most prestigious grants, funds, fellowships and residencies in the world thanks to their precise writing and packaging skills.

They shared their skills, know how and insider tips with DAE members, exclusively!

Our dear Los Angeles-based partners from the IDA joined us for a members-only session on the ins and outs of the Non-Fiction Core Application, used by dosens of organisations across the field.

This session covered all your questions on the newly-launched V.3. application, including new provisions for AI and digital transformation.

You can learn more about specific terminology that might not be familiar to you, and get the perspective of funders working in the field.

We all struggle with some of the more mundane parts of documentary filmmaking: I am a creative person! Let me make my art! Or sometimes we make the mistake to think we are all making films for the same reasons. And oftentimes, by making our films, we create obligations that need to be fulfilled to creative, financing, distribution and other partners.

After all, filmmaking is a team sport!

There is a not-so-secret place where all intransparency can be resolved: via contracts! But many of us have a hard time to read them, fear legal jargon, don’t know what is negotiable, or trust the best interest or expertise of the contract writer. Not to be missed for the jargon-timid!

Your film is (almost) done and ready to be shared with the world! Now comes possibly the most nerve-wracking of all contracts; making a deal with a sales agent.

But no need for panic; get informed with Tijana Djukic, who will explain the role of the sales agent in the audiovisual ecosystem and how that is reflected in their contracts.

This Off the Record seminar with Tijana is available in our media library! 

We invited two producers to discuss their experiences co-producing documentaries and having healthy and transparent producer-to-producer relations.

The session covered what they wished they’d known starting out, what standard terms between two companies can be, and how to keep ownership of your projects.

This Off the Record seminar with Kesmat El Sayed (Seera Films) and Bramwel Iro (LBx Africa) is available in our media library! 

Two inspiring DAE members Maksym Nakonechnyi and Selin Murat will help you learn to love reading your contracts!

This is a special talk designed for directors and producers! This isn’t a legal advice session, but strategies to get motivated to read and understand contracts.

This Off the Record seminar is available in our media library!