Film Independent picks six projects for Documentary Lab programme

Film Independent has named the six projects and seven filmmakers selected for its annual Documentary Lab programme, designed to give creative feedback to filmmakers in post-production on feature length documentaries. 

Director Alina Simone and producer Kirstine Barfod join the programme with their film Black Snow, about a homemaker turned journalist in Siberia who becomes the target of a government disinformation campaign. 

Chris Coats will participate with Flamingo Camp, about the queer and trans community at the off-grid squatter town known as Slab City and the effect on the community when one of its members is brutally murdered. 

From director-producer-cinematographer Sisa Bueno comes For Venida, For Kalief, about a poetry-writing New York mother whose work echoes a movement for criminal justice reform. 

Gabriela Diaz Arp’s Matininóis the story of a multi-generational family of Puerto Rican women who transform their experience of violence into a science fiction film. 

Amanda Erickson’s She Cried That Day investigates the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women through the lens of one woman haunted by her sister’s unsolved murder.

You Have the Floor, from Adina Luo, focuses on a Model United Nations team at a top-ranked US high school. 

During the lab, filmmakers will work with mentors including Chris Shellen, Ivete Lucas, Bo Mehrad and Amy Foote. Guest speakers at the lab will include Isabel Castro, Keetin Mayakara and Diane Quon. 

Daniel Cardone, manager of nonfiction programmes for Film Independent (the non-profit that also produces the annaul Spirit Awards), commented: “Documentary filmmakers remain at the forefront of innovative cinema, telling real stories with urgency and accessibility. Our selections for the 2023 Film Independent Documentary Lab emphatically demonstrate this, tackling important cultural issues and events with compassion and limitless creativity.”