POINTS NORTH FORUM
In 2009, the Points North Forum was established as a space where filmmakers and industry leaders gather for honest and intimate conversations about the art, business, and future of independent documentary. Seventeen years later, the field is going through a period of generational change. The documentary community and the documentary form is more vibrant, diverse, and global than ever before. At the same time, the infrastructure that enabled this expansion has been eroded by market consolidation and political disruption. In this year’s Forum program, we focus our attention on what is most essential and most powerful about independent documentary as a creative practice, and explore how we can each play a role in building a more durable future for the next generation of nonfiction storytellers.
Presenting Partner
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
Masterclass: Anatomy of a Pitch
9:30am–10:45am (French Room, Camden Opera House)
Independent filmmakers know that pitching a project is an integral part of the filmmaking process, even if they aren’t quite comfortable with it. How do you translate a strong concept on paper into an idea that will land in the meeting or presentation? This session will go deep into the pitching process, from preparation to action. Our expert panel of documentary executives and independent filmmakers will unpack the selling point in the best pitches they have received or presented. After learning from case studies, attendees will have the opportunity to workshop their own elevator pitches and receive real-time feedback.
- Erika Cohn
- Carolyn Hepburn, ESPN Films
- Tara Nadolny, ESPN Films
- Erik Shirai, SUMO: Spirit Weighs Nothing
- Amanda Spain, EverWonder Studio
- Moderator: Daniel Chalfen, Naked Edge Films
Memory Work: Activating Black Archives
11:00am–12:30pm (Tucker Room, Camden Opera House)
Both Once Upon a Time in Harlem and Windows of Time excavate archival materials from Black America, transmitting previously unseen images from the past into the present moment. At a time when the current US administration is seeking to remove or revise materials about Black history across federal websites, museums, and historic sites, these works affirm personal histories as a vital site of memory, resistance, and creativity. Join the filmmakers and memory workers behind these luminary films for a conversation about cinematic archaeology, collaborative archival practices, and visions for the future of preservation.
- David Greaves, Once Upon a Time in Harlem
- Liani Greaves, Once Upon a Time in Harlem
- Hubert Taylor, Windows of Time
- Zakiya Collier, Windows of Time
- Moderator: Jackie Glover, Harvard Black Film Project
Field Briefing: Public Interest Media at Risk
11:30am–12:45pm (French Room, Camden Opera House)
According to a new report commissioned by the Ford Foundation, federal funding cuts of 2025 eliminated approximately $45 million of direct investment in public interest documentary. In this session, the report’s author Maggie Bowman will present its findings and open a wide-ranging conversation about what comes next. Which parts of the old system are worth protecting or restoring? And which need to be reimagined? What would it take to fund and build new durable infrastructure rather than stopgap solutions?
- Maggie Bowman
- Beadie Finzi, Doc Society
- Paulina Suarez, Ford Foundation
Directors Commentary: Real Political Intimacies
1:30pm–3:00pm (Tucker Room, Camden Opera House)
This panel convenes a group of directors who lead with intimacy, bringing audiences into a cinema that feels like an ode to softness in an era of sharp edges. Advik Beni’s sensorial film follows a daughter as she anticipates the incoming grief of losing her dying mother, revealing a deeper grief for her country; Nicole Costa traces the life of an immigrant sex worker across decades and dimensions of joy, struggle, and trans sisterhood; Grace Harper-Brighouse tells a story about what it means to love someone you cannot save as she follows her father and his OxyContin addiction over thirty years; and Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić focus their gaze on the relationship of a mother and daughter at the center of a global land rights struggle. Rather than reducing the humanity of their participants to fit within broader, often oversimplified narratives, the directors behind these films illuminate political realities through the details of lived experience.
- Advik Beni, mother, you have not died yet. but you will. and when you do, you will finally be alive again.
- Nicole Costa, No Money No Honey
- Grace Harper Brighouse, Dependence
- Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, To Hold a Mountain
- Moderator: Gugi Gumilang, CIFF Features Programming Associate
Public Media Metamorphosis
1:45pm–3:00pm (French Room, Camden Opera House)
Public media has had to reflect deeply on how to keep up with the changing times and meet multi-generational audiences where they are. In this conversation, Erika Dilday of American Documentary, Chris Hastings of WXXI, Razi Jafri of NPR Studios, and Raney Aronson-Rath of FRONTLINE will share how their organizations are experimenting in distribution—most significantly, expanding their footprint in the digital space. Together, they present how filmmakers can continue engaging public media as a distribution platform, even as the traditional broadcast model has been disrupted.
- Raney Aronson-Rath, FRONTLINE
- Erika Dilday, American Documentary
- Chris Hastings, WXXI
- Razi Jafri, NPR Studios
- Moderator: Emily Abi-Kheirs, GBH
Pleased to Announce, Episode 4: A Live Documentary Performance
4:00pm – 5:00pm (French Room, Camden Opera House)
Directed and performed by Keith Wilson
How does the transformative power of documentary film become diminished by the absurd notion that it can somehow be won or lost? Pleased to Announce is a humorous, provocative, and formally inventive live cinema performance examining the financial, emotional, and social costs of documentary film awards campaigns—and the outsized role awards culture now plays in shaping documentary ambition, strategy, and self-worth. Fresh from acclaimed performances of episodes one, two, and three at CPH:DOX, Cannes, and DC/DOX, respectively, festival alum Keith Wilson (I Didn’t See You There, Moore for Sale) brings his newest experiment in documentary theater to CIFF.
A Conversation with Alessandra Sanguinetti, The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer
4:15pm–5:30pm (Tucker Room, Camden Opera House)
In 1999, photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti met two young cousins, Guillermina and Belinda, in the rural Argentine Pampas, not far from her family’s farm. In the two and a half decades that followed, she photographed their coming-of-age journeys with intensity and imagination, creating two photobooks in the process. While she worked, she used a digital camcorder as a secondary tool, amassing over one hundred hours of footage. “My photos were my interpretation. Video allowed their experience to be unfiltered, giving them control and making them the stars of their own lives,” she says. In this artist conversation, Sanguinetti sits down with Carlos A. Gutiérrez, co-founding executive director of Cinema Tropical, to discuss the extensive filmic and photographic work that led to her debut feature documentary.
- Alessandra Sanguinetti, The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer
- Moderator: Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Cinema Tropical
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
The Future of Film in New England: Regional Strategy Session
12:30pm–2:00pm (French Room, Camden Opera House)
New England is home to extraordinary filmmakers, organizations, festivals, and cultural institutions—but what would it take to build a more robust regional media ecosystem surrounding us? This session invites filmmakers, industry representatives, and regional partners for a participatory strategy session exploring what filmmakers need to make and sustain ambitious work in the region. Together, we’ll look at collective organizing opportunities around funding, production infrastructure, and emerging policy and grassroots advocacy strategies to identify where working together could help move the field forward. Come ready to share what’s working, what’s missing, and what we might build together!
This session is presented in partnership with Future Film Coalition, Maine Film Association, and Cultural Alliance of Maine.
This event is invite-only. If you haven’t received an invitation and would like to attend, please contact [email protected].