I just had the opportunity to write an article for Release Print Magazine the magazine of San Francisco’s fabulous media arts non-profit Film Arts Foundation. Film Arts, according to its website, is

a non-profit leader in the media arts field, providing comprehensive training, equipment, information, consultations, and exhibition opportunities to independent filmmakers. Now in its thirtieth year, Film Arts has close to 3,000 members working in film, video, and multimedia, and is the largest regional organization of independent producers in the country.

The article is about new ways and organizations that facilitate outreach for social documentaries. Through my research, I’ve realized just how many fabulous organizations are doing amazing work to engage ommunities and find new audiences for documentaries. Among those that I focused on were: Working Films the North Carolina-based organization run by Judith Helfand (director of A HEALTHY BABY GIRL and BLUE VINYL) and Robert West; Just Vision, an organization built around the award-winning documentary ENCOUNTER POINT; and Arts Engine > the non-profit umbrella organization that also houses Big Mouth Productions and MediaRights.org home to the inspiring Media That Matters film festival. In addition to all these fine organizations, there is the Center for Social Media, which provides invaluable resources and advice to documentarians, and the newly formed organization and blog, RenewMedia. It will take folks months to thoroughly explore all of the informative content on these websites, so I’ll leave you to that, but keep in mind that the National Conference from Media Reform is coming up in January! I hope to see you all there!