American Documentary, UFO and Bird Street Productions Announce Second Year of ‘Shorts In-Session’: A Recurring Work-in-Progress Initiative to Support Short-Form Documentary Filmmakers
Overview
New York, N.Y. —September 3, 2025 — American Documentary, UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Org), and Bird Street Productions announced today the projects participating in the second iteration of the work-in-progress initiative, “Shorts In-Session,” which will present short documentaries in-production and post-production to a panel of industry experts at the 2025 Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) on Friday, September 12, 2025. The intra-organization coalition’s working committee responsible for planning and facilitating the “Shorts In-Session” initiative are Sean Weiner, Arno Mokros and Martha Gregory (Co-Directors) for UFO; Bird Street Productions; and Opal H. Bennett (Senior Producer, POV Shorts) for American Documentary.
“We are proud to be able to participate for our second year in a row on a shorts initiative with our friends at UFO. New this year, we were able to join forces with the brilliant folks at Bird Street Productions,” said Opal H. Bennett, POV Senior Producer and POV Shorts Executive Producer, for American Documentary. “This is an important and valued collaboration and we’re happy to continue our commitment to amplifying short form non-fiction film projects and offering an opportunity for impactful feedback and connections. This session will provide filmmakers the opportunity to hear from both industry experts and peers working in the field, and will platform their standout projects. Camden International Film Festival is the perfect place to encounter some of the best creative visions and to celebrate the present, and future, of short documentary film and we're so glad to continue this partnership with the festival.”
“We’re thrilled to join forces once again with American Documentary to offer this opportunity for filmmakers working on new documentary shorts. Editing can often be a solitary point in the creative process, and we’re proud of this model we’ve developed that brings filmmakers out of their work silos and into community with one another and supportive industry leaders,” said Arno Mokros, Co-Founder and Co-Director, UFO.
“We’re excited to welcome audiences at this year’s CIFF to this open session offering a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions and considerations involved in the editing process.”
The Shorts In-Session Participating Filmmakers
Rebecca Blandón
Rebecca Blandón is an award-winning Nicaraguan-American journalist and documentary filmmaker from The Bronx. Her films honor the colorful stories of communities hidden in plain sight. When she’s not filming her own independent shorts, Rebecca contributes to investigative and character-driven news projects, previously for PBS Frontline and The Boston Globe. Her films have been supported by the Jacob Burns Film Center, the Bronx Documentary Center, and Rooftop Films. Her work has appeared in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and has screened at film festivals like Big Sky, DOC NYC, and HBO’s Latino Film Festival. Rebecca holds a B.A. in Neuroscience from Brown University and an M.A. in Journalism from NYU.
Bianca Giaever
Bianca Giaever is an independent radio journalist and filmmaker. Her stories have appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. She is the creator and host of “Constellation Prize,” a podcast distributed by The Believer magazine, and a former producer on The New York Times’ audio team. In 2013, her college short film the Scared is scared was named “Web Video of the Year” by USA Today. She is the winner of a Daytime Emmy and a Webby award, and a 2025 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Ora DeKornfeld
Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and on CNN, Netflix, and National Geographic. She directed and edited USA V SCOTT (Tribeca 2020), and her Emmy-nominated New York Times Op-Doc This Is What a Post-Roe Abortion Looks Like. Ora has received honors from POYi, The Webby Awards, and SXSW. She directed episodes of Explained (Netflix) and was cinematographer and editor for Mija (Sundance 2022, Disney+). Most recently, she was on the editing team for Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller.
Maia Wikler
Maia Wikler is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Ecology at the University of Victoria, and she is also a writer and filmmaker. A recipient of the Lorene Kennedy Environmental Scholarship, her research focuses on memory as a tool of resistance in the face of corporate abuse, specifically deforestation and the climate crisis. Her reporting appears in Teen Vogue, VICE, Vogue, Atmos, High Country News, and Canada’s National Observer, among many others. In 2020, she was selected as a National Geographic Explorer to document cross-border salmon stories and the threats to wild salmon from mining in Northern British Columbia. Maia’s directorial debut, the short documentary Walking Two Worlds, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2022. Maia was recently selected for the 2024 Woodstock Filmmakers Residency to work on her forthcoming documentary, Wild, Wild East. Maia seeks to connect diverse audiences on climate justice and corporate abuse through dynamic mediums of academia, film, writing, and community organizing.
About
About UFO
Guided by a culture of care, UFO gives time, space, and money to filmmakers at under-resourced career stages. Through filmmaker support programs that emphasize in-person, inclusive community-building, UFO creates opportunities for filmmakers from wide-ranging, intersectional backgrounds to develop and produce uncompromising, boundary-pushing films. In coalition with partner organizations, UFO helps build a more equitable, sustainable, and interdependent film ecosystem.
Launched by co-directors Martha Gregory, Arno Mokros, and Sean Weiner in 2023, UFO has sought to strategically fill gaps in the filmmaker support landscape. UFO’s core programs include a Short Film Lab hosted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) that serves underrepresented early-career filmmakers and a Family Filmmaker Residency hosted at the Silver Sun Foundation in the idyllic Catskills, that provides time, space, money –and most crucially, childcare– for artist parents to focus on the development or post-production of a feature film project. UFO continually develops new partnership-driven programs in New York State and beyond.
About Bird Street Productions
Bird Street Productions is an independent film company dedicated to producing thought-provoking documentary shorts and features. With a commitment to storytelling that challenges perspectives and amplifies diverse voices, they bring compelling narratives to the screen. Their mission is to craft films that not only entertain but also provoke thought and inspire change. They believe in the power of storytelling to illuminate unseen truths, challenge societal norms, and give voice to the underrepresented. Through their work, they strive to contribute to a more informed and empathetic world.
About American Documentary, Inc.
American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Acton Family Giving, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.