We're pleased as punch to announce the release of the latest edition of Doc Society's Safe + Secure resource, now called Your Safer Film Guide. Made possible by the input of a legion of filmmakers, impact producers, lawyers and digital activists and edited by our comrade Alison Byrne Fields at Aggregate. 

 

The intention behind the name change to Your Safer Film Guide was both to align it with the latest version of the  Impact Field Guide  and to convey a couple of ideas. The first is easy to explain: we wanted to emphasize its refocused utility as a practical tool in the field. The second, more nuanced message, is this; we aren't suggesting filmmakers should stop taking risks to hold truth to power; we just want you to be as safe and as smart as you can be. Your work is too important.

 

Be safer, make good trouble. 

 

DDoc Society friend Igor Myakotin made good use of Safe + Secure as co-producer of Welcome to Chechnya and as producer of Queendom, so we asked him to weigh in on Your Safer Film Guide. Here's what he had to say:

 

I was relatively new to filmmaking when I began working with David France on Welcome to Chechnya, but having been born and raised in Russia, I knew to expect the worst from the Russian government. We needed to do everything we could to protect everyone involved in the production—from the crew on the ground and the participating human rights defenders to the film itself. Jess Search saved us by sharing an early draft of Doc Society’s Safe + Secure checklists, which laid the foundation for the security protocols we developed for our production.

 

I carried those lessons with me when I went on to produce Queendom, filming in a Russia that had become even more hostile to freedom of expression and human rights, particularly for LGBTQIA+ people.

 

I’m glad that other filmmakers will benefit from the work of Doc Society and everyone who contributed to the update to Your Safer Film Guide. I’m also grateful to have been invited to provide feedback during the revision process, drawing on my own experiences to help make the updated resources as practical and useful as possible for filmmakers working in challenging environments.

 

Our hope is that Your Safer Film Guide reflects documentary filmmakers' changing needs and thinking, as well as the diversity of the documentary filmmaking community, including ideas and case studies from a range of geographic, legal, and political contexts. To that end, we could do with your help. Please tell us about resources that you've used to keep your production safer - that you would like to share with the community. We're all ears.

 

With love and rockets, 

 

Team Doc Society 

 

PS. Igor Myakotin has chosen an absolute banger to accompany the rest of the newsletter this month. All My Love (ft. Robyn) by Louie Vega - thanks pal!

Six films. One question we keep coming back to: Who owns our future? The Big Tech Playlist is here, part of our Big Tech Narrative Initiative. Three features and three shorts that take a hard look at the handful of corporations reshaping our societies now and for the future. Six filmmakers, six vantage points, one shared commitment to look directly at power and invite citizen-driven change.  

 

A dedicated playlist website is coming soon where groups, institutions, and organizations will be able to book screenings, download discussion guides, and discover ways to put these films to work for raising awareness and inviting action. In the meantime, see the full film list and read more here and reach out to btni@docsociety.org to get involved.

 

Our friends at The Citizens have launched a brand new Film Club, and we’re proud to partner with them for season one. The Citizens Film Club brings people together around documentaries that take Big Tech, democracy, and political power seriously. In cinemas. In community spaces. In pubs. Online. Every screening will include a live conversation with filmmakers, journalists, activists, and the experts doing the work, asking not just what’s happening but what we’re going to do about it. 

 

First up: Ghost in the Machine, dir. Valerie Veatch, from the Big Tech Playlist. A critical look at the hierarchies baked into AI’s foundations, traced back to early eugenicists and shaped by the tech elite today. This screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. Wednesday 18 November, 6 to 9:30 PM GMT at Rich Mix, London.. Grab a ticket here! If you would rather join from home, you can rent Ghost in the Machine for just a few quid through Kinema (you’ll need to create a free account), then join the livestreamed panel discussion and audience Q&A, completely free.

 

Make sure you sign up to The Citizens Film Club here to catch everything that comes next. 👻

We are inviting applications from UK-based documentary producers who are actively working on their first feature to participate in the third edition of the RISE Producer Programme. Taking place across 2027 this 6-month development initiative is aimed at breaking down socio-economic barriers of access and sustainability for emerging feature documentary producers. The RISE Producer programme is designed to support documentary producers with applied learning during an active first feature production. 

 

This year we’re proud to partner with Screen Scotland + Scottish Documentary Institute to offer a dedicated place for a Scotland-based producer and with Northern Ireland Screen to offer a dedicated place for a Northern Ireland-based producer.

 

Applications are open November 2nd to 23rd. Find out more here!

We’re pleased to announce the second round of applications for BFI Doc Society Development and RAD (Research & Development) funds open again on 9th November. Each fund is intended to kickstart and elevate projects on their journey towards a feature-length documentary production. 

 

The development fund requires a producer to be attached and supports independent non-fiction films by UK filmmakers, focusing on ambitious, director-led storytelling intended for theatrical release. We support both emerging and established directors who bring fresh perspectives and creative vision. 

 

The RAD fund is for the very early stage experiments, explorations and sharpening of curiosity into form. Only first or second time feature doc directors can apply, either as a single applicant or alongside their producer. We’re excited to hear from talent across the UK in need of that vital funding and trust to push forward the form of non-fiction storytelling.

 

Round 2 Applications will be open from November 9th - December 21st, closing at   1PM GMT. Find out more, including full guidelines, about Development here and RAD here.

The Global Impact Producers Alliance is back at IDFA this year with Impact Producing: What Comes Next?, an interactive session for impact producers to reflect on our collective wins, take stock of where we are now, and map out the future of the field. Facilitated by Nicole van Schaik alongside GIPA members Khadidja Benouataf and Ryan K., the session runs on practitioner provocations and small-group conversations, naming the resources and infrastructure we need to keep documentaries driving tangible social change. All welcome!! Grab your spot here. 

 

Here is also some recommended reading!

Hello You still

 

Two BFI Doc Society Fund supported immersive projects coming up: both pushing  forward documentary VR, and interactive forms of storytelling. 

 

Hello You at IDFA DocLab. Hello You, dir. May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy, created by Anagram, prod. Maïto Jobbé Duval, is having its world premiere at IDFA DocLab, 12-22 November, in competition for Immersive Non-Fiction. A chapter of the BFI Doc Society Fund-supported project Amorphous, Playing With Reality. The installation, featuring actress Sara Solemani, stretches the split-second act of self-recognition into something you can watch unfold, exploring altered perception, phantom limbs, and the feeling of being a stranger in your own body. If you’re heading to Amsterdam, this one’s worth queuing for. More info and tickets.

 

Small Revolutions at the Southbank Centre. Small Revolutions, dir. Darren Emerson, prod. East City Films, is part of the recently announced Southbank Centre’s 2027 programme. A multi-person immersive VR documentary telling the story of the last 50 years of UK skateboarding history, its relationship with authority, and its cultural legacy. Supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund, awarding National Lottery funding. More info

 

Awardees from the recently launched BFI Doc Society Expanded Screen Fund for immersive non-fiction will be announced later this year.

Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon still

 

BFI Doc Society Fund supported Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon will be screening in the film programme, whilst emergent projects Being North Korean and The Contract of the Century will be pitching at IDFA Forum seeking further collaborators and support. Proudly supported by the Climate Story Fund, To Hold a Mountain will also be screening at the festival.

80 Angry Journalists still

 

Three incredible Doc Society supported films are at DOC NYC 2026, in person 11-19 November in New York and online across the US through 29 November.

 

80 Angry Journalists will have its US premiere. Big congrats to filmmakers András Földes, Anna Kis, and Lorand Balazs Imre. When Hungary’s largest independent news site collapses in 2020, eighty journalists resign together. Filming from inside his own newsroom, war correspondent András Földes documents not only an act of resistance, but the slow unraveling of a community under systemic pressure.

 

To Hold a Mountain hits DOC NYC’s Short List. Dir. and prod. Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, prod. Quentin Laurent and Rok Biček. Screening Thursday 12 November, 1:15 PM EST at Village East by Angelika, with a Q&A following.

 

Steal This Story, Please! joins the Winner’s Circle. Dir. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, prod. Carl Deal, Tia Lessin, Karen Ranucci, Diana Cohn, and Caren Spruch. Screening Wednesday 11 November, 4:30 PM EST at IFC Center, with a Q&A featuring Tia, Carl, and Amy Goodman.

We, The Hated, dir. Rich Felgate, is in UK cinemas now, with a nationwide Q&A tour running through November. How far will ordinary people go to stop oil drilling, and how far will the authorities go to stop them? Director Rich Felgate will be in conversation at select screenings alongside contributors Mark Coleman and Phoebe Plummer, with special guests including climate scientists Bill McGuire and Tim Lenton. Supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund, awarding National Lottery funding. Full tour dates and tickets.

We’re excited to share that the timely Steal This Story, Please!  is now available digitally through on-demand platforms in the U.S. and Canada (Apple TV). At a moment when the free press is squarely in the crosshairs in the U.S., we’re grateful that the film can be more widely seen. Proudly supported by the Threshold Fund.

Don’t miss Seeds streaming for free in the US on PBS, on the PBS website, the PBS App, or your local PBS TV station. The team is still on the road too, with the Seeds HBCU Tour and Rooted, their urban and rural farm screening series. Want them to bring the film to your school, workplace, or community? Say the word here.

Nature Ain’t A Luxury, (dir. Louis J. Butler a.k.a. Louis VI, prod. Tanya Ramsurrun), a Climate Story Fund grantee, made its world premiere this October at the Wildscreen Festival. With a focus on reconnecting people to nature through sound, the film asks the question: who gets to feel that nature belongs to them? The answer comes in the form of a radiant short that investigates why so many people in the UK, particularly young people from black and brown communities, still feel excluded from nature. Keep an eye on their website, for information on their upcoming screenings in partnership with The Wildlife Trusts.

Queer Now is more than convenings; it's a strategic intervention: against rising anti-gender movements, we're moving the story away from "survival" and towards collective power, narrative sovereignty and unapologetic joy. 

 

What does “impact” actually look like? More than a murky industry buzzword, we hope. In this month’s Queer Now, Michelle Plascencia of Impacta Cine defines impact through the joy, tears, and solidarity felt in a room full of people. It’s the intentional, deliberate plan to influence real-world issues through the power of a story. And it’s an invitation for all of us to do it together 💚

 

Check out the Queer Now reel on Instagram featuring the wonderful Michelle Plascencia Esparza!! And if you need a dash of queer storytelling magic, dive into our LGBTQIA+ film playlist.

El Sur se Proyecta (México, Colombia, Ecuador)

 

“Cinema circulates better when it moves horizontally between organizations and venues, respecting each territory’s own rhythm.”

 

The Climate Storytelling Collaboratives program set out to test what becomes possible when storytellers, movement and advocacy organisations, and community distributors work in structured partnership. El Sur se Proyecta brought together three organisations, Ambulante, Mullu and Nodo Sur, in a model built on shared work across every component. 

 

After months of intense collaboration and more than forty joint weekly working sessions, the El Sur se Proyecta team invites us to explore a curated catalogue of 33 films and podcasts from 11 countries across Latin America and Africa, licensed for exhibition in Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador and paired with screening guides and mediation tools. 

 

On the ground, the collaboration activated a network of 43 venues (7 in Ecuador, 15 in Colombia, and 21 in Mexico) and, through them, audiences who are often left out of climate conversations: Wayuu communities in La Guajira, Kichwa Cañari communities in the Ecuadorian highlands, Nahua and Maseual communities in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, and Afrodescendent communities along the Oaxacan coast. 

 

Two replicable guides were created for the venues, a territorial communication and advocacy guide and an adaptable exhibition guide, so that this work can keep growing in the hands of others. The catalogue is also built to keep circulating: it can be updated and adopted by other community exhibition networks.

 

“We learned lessons about return circulation, non-extractive evaluation, and reciprocity that we’re eager to share”. Watch the team’s video case study to see the full recap of the process, and discover how this pilot can become a model for collaboration across the Global South.

 

If you want to learn more, host and exhibition or contribute to the catalogue reach out to elsurtomalapantalla@gmail.com

Fresh on the Impact Field Guide this month, a brief guide for anyone building a campaign. Written for The Commons Social Change Library by Northern Ireland campaigner Katrina Cooper, who organises nurses and health care assistants to build collective power, it makes the case for documenting campaigns in real time. As Cooper puts it, it’s how we capture “the most valuable learning, how power actually moved.”

 

Friends, explore the guide, dig into the other resources we’ve gathered, and suggest a resource (your own included) that we should add to the site.

So much to celebrate this month, folks! Our filmmakers have been showing up and being seen across award season and we couldn’t be more chuffed for them all! Big big love to everyone and congratulations! 💚

 

🎉 BIFA 2026 Nominations

The BIFA 2026 nominations are in! Big congrats to the following BFI Doc Society Fund  supported films: All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea, Something Familiar and We,The Hated on the Best Feature Documentary shortlist. Ed Sayers (Super Nature) and Rachel Taparjan (Something Familiar) nominated for Best Debut Director, Feature Documentary. And Something Familiar also nominated for the BIFA Raindance Maverick Award, bringing it to three nominations in total! Nice work, team!  The ceremony takes place on Sunday 6 December at the Roundhouse in Camden. 

 

🎉 European Film Awards

Big congrats to the teams behind To Hold a Mountain, dir. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić, prod. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić, Rok Bicek and Queer Edward II, dir. Theo Rollason, prod. Sebastien Rabas and Ben Fowlie, as both are shortlisted for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards! A wonderful moment for both award-winning titles. Nominees will be announced on 14 November. We have our fingers crossed.  

 

🎉 BFI & Chanel Filmmaker Awards 2026

A massive well done to Rachel Taparjan (Something Familiar) and Rich Felgate (We, The Hated) on being selected among the four BFI & Chanel Filmmaker Awards 2026 winners. Read more about the support and recognition at the link above.

 

🎉 Cinema Eye Honors

The first Cinema Eye Honors nominees have been announced, with lots of love for Democracy Now! Unforgettable Honorees: Amy Goodman, Steal This Story, Please! Audience Choice Prize Longlist: Steal This Story, Please!, dir. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. The full nominations list will be announced on 12 November.

 

🎉 IDA Awards shortlist

The IDA Awards shortlist is in, and we’re sending congrats to Nuestra Tierra and To Hold a Mountain for being on the nominee shortlist for Best Feature Documentary. Nominees will be announced on 17 November. 

 

🎉 Wildscreen Panda Awards 2026

Massive congrats to the team behind Nature Ain’t a Luxury, dir. Louis VI, prod. Tanya-Noushka Ramsurrun, Emily Goldblatt, and Jamie Clark, which premiered at Wildscreen Festival in Bath last week and picked up the Digital First Award.

There are some brilliant opportunities circulating across the field at the moment. Dive in and explore what might be a fit for your projects.

 

IFFR Rotterdam Pro Lab 2027 

UK-based producers, the British Council is offering two of you a place on the IFFR Rotterdam Pro Lab, 29 January to 3 February 2027. A five-day training workshop in Rotterdam, with six nights’ accommodation, CineMart accreditation, and a Travel Grant to support costs. Open to emerging producers with at least two short films and/or a first or second feature in the works. Deadline Monday 9 November 2026, 11:59 PM GMT. Apply here.

 

Sheffield DocFest 2027 Is Hiring 

Three roles are open at Sheffield DocFest, with applications welcome from people of all backgrounds. Finance and Executive Coordinator, Senior Talks and Sessions Programme Producer, and Senior Audio and Immersive Programme Producer. If you’re passionate about documentary, events, and helping shape an unforgettable festival experience, this is your moment. Full details and how to apply here.

 

Gotham Rotterdam Lab Fellowship 2027 

Our pals at The Gotham have opened applications for their 2027 Rotterdam Lab Fellowship, selecting two US-based producers to join IFFR’s Rotterdam Lab from Friday 29 January to Wednesday 3 February 2027. Open to US citizens or US-based producers with no more than two feature films produced. Gotham Essentials or Insider Membership required, application is free. All the details at thegotham.org.

 

Planet Health Film Fund 

Earthrise and Bupa, with BAFTA Albert as sustainability partner, have launched the Planet Health Film Fund. Five independent documentary filmmakers will each receive £20,000 to make original short docs exploring how our health is connected to the health of our environment. Open to filmmakers worldwide, with an exclusive development programme alongside leading industry partners, culminating in a world premiere at SXSW London 2027 and a global digital release. Applications close 16 November 2026, 6 PM GMT. Dive in and apply here.

 

Earth Raise Impact Film Fund 

Reed Global presents the inaugural Big Give Earth Raise Impact Film Fund, delivered in partnership with Wildscreen Studios. The fund is backing five short films from storytellers who see nature differently, with the aim of making it impossible to ignore. Open to filmmakers worldwide, whatever your style or background. Deadline is 13 November 2026, 11:59 PM GMT. Apply here.