Mitra Arthur's Posts

The Center for Media and Social Impact is proud to announce the Community Voice Project has now joined CMSI as a featured program. 

The Community Voice Project (CVP) is a community storytelling initiative led by American University Filmmaker-in-Residence Nina Shapiro-Perl that connects members of American University’s student population with communities in the Washington Metropolitan area to produce short documentary films and digital stories. The CVP partners with a local community organization to focus on a topic and tell the stories most important to that community.Read more...

The importance of risk, storytelling and truth took center stage at the inaugural Investigative Film Festival: Double Exposure in Washington D.C. on October 1 and 2, 2015. In addition to screenings of acclaimed films, the festival featured a two-day symposium that convened filmmakers, journalists, funders, students and commissioning editors to exchange ideas, resources and best practices.

A particularly important issue for documentary filmmakers, investigative journalists and non-profit organizations alike is funding from the philanthropic community – major foundations, family foundations and other support organizations. CMSI Co-Director Caty Borum Chattoo led a conversation with panelists representing the Sundance Documentary Film Program, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Reva and David Logan Foundation as they discussed their funding strategies and insights for potential applicants.

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 At the inaugural Investigative Film Festival: Double Exposure, reading the CMSI report Dangerous Docs, about lowering risks in telling truth to power, was instrumental in planning the symposium and film festival, associate producer Sky Sitney said. And it gave Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press an opportunity to expand its services.

In a session showcasing the report, the executive director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Bruce Brown, embraced the report’s conclusion that barriers between journalists and filmmakers should be lowered.Read more...