Press Release
March 29 2022
American Documentary Among First Funders for Mental Health Initiative, DocuMentality
Overview
New York, N.Y. — March 31, 2022 — American Documentary, the nonprofit behind award-winning nonfiction series ‘POV’ and ‘America ReFramed,’ is proud to announce its support of DocuMentality – a field-facing, filmmaker-centered initiative that seeks to foreground and normalize a conversation about mental health and well-being in the documentary industry. American Documentary is DocuMentality's first US-based funder, alongside BFI Doc Society Fund in the UK.
Founded by UK-based mental health specialists, Film In Mind and the peer network, The D-Word, DocuMentality will provide best practice guidance and information for filmmakers to become more resilient resources for themselves, their teams and their protagonists.
“By funding DocuMentality, we are recognizing that artists and protagonists are best positioned to determine their mental health needs and support interventions as they navigate both deeply personal and political nonfiction storytelling,” said Asad Muhammad, vice president for impact and engagement strategy at American Documentary. Prior to DocuMentality, the organization supported artists directly through its pilot emergency and mental health funds. Last year, Muhammad shared lessons learned from these efforts in Documentary Magazine.
“It feels really important to us to have the toolkit we put together be community-led, not just by a few people behind closed doors coming up with what we think the industry needs. We want to engage filmmakers in that conversation,” said Rebecca Day, the documentary producer and therapist who heads Film In Mind. Since 2018, Day has spoken widely about mental health in the documentary field at festivals such as IDFA, Getting Real Documentary Conference and Sheffield DocFest.
“Documentary filmmakers often seek human-centered stories that intersect with issues of trauma, injustice, and abuse. Those are hugely important stories to tell,” added Malikkah Rollins, a producer, festival organizer, trained mental health professional and D-Word ambassador. “As a filmmaker, producer, or a person on the crew, you’re interacting with people who are suffering, or may have suffered for decades and generations. There’s no way that some of that trauma does not seep into you.”
Rollins, who worked with American Documentary to support artists for its Otherly Instagram series, is spearheading the US side of the work alongside The D-Word co-hosts Doug Block, Peter Gerard, Erica Ginsberg, and Marjan Safinia. Both Block and Safinia have premiered their films on American Documentary’s flagship series POV; Safinia co-directed POV’s first multi-part program And She Could Be Next (2020) and Block directed 51 Birch Street (2005) and served as co-producer on award-winning AIDS documentary Silverlake Life: The View From Here (1993).
DocuMentality is currently engaged in research, hosting 16 focus groups in the US and UK during March and April, and will then conduct a series of anonymous online surveys aiming to release its best practice guidance and toolkit in 2023. It plans to create a free online platform for people to access support and risk assessments for any mental health challenges related to their projects. Practitioners in the documentary field are encouraged to visit the DocuMentality website for more information and to apply to participate in focus groups.
About
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. The series is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied, American Promise and Minding The Gap and innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras and Nanfu Wang. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. All POV programs are broadcast nationally on PBS, POV.org and the PBS Video app.
POV goes “beyond the broadcast” to bring powerful nonfiction storytelling to viewers wherever they are. Free educational resources accompany every film and a community network of thousands of partners nationwide work with POV to spark dialogue around today’s most pressing issues. POV continues to explore the future of documentary through innovative productions with partners such as The New York Times and The National Film Board of Canada and on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram.
POV films and projects have won 45 Emmy Awards, 26 George Foster Peabody Awards, 15 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.
About American Documentary, Inc.
American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia company 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, Sage Foundation, Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Abby Pucker, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee 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.