Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies is now accepting applications for the Otherwise Histories, Otherwise Futures DocX development lab – a week-long convening of documentary artists, scholars and nontraditional/independent researchers.

Through our own production incubator program, Level Ground is proud to partner with DocX in the creation and facilitation of their development lab. As part of our participation, we will select 1 or 2 DocX lab participants for Level Ground’s own Documentary Development Fellowship which will run after the lab (from May to October 2024). If you’re interested in developing a documentary project with Level Ground, we encourage you to apply for the DocX development lab.

Level Ground’s 6-month Documentary Development Fellowship will guide fellows through a robust incubation and development process aimed at preparing teams and their documentary projects for mainstream distribution and circulation. Through general meetings with guest speakers, mentors, and ongoing 1:1 creative support, the program will work with fellows to develop their projects for a live pitch event where they will have the opportunity to recruit funders, executive producers, and other collaborators to get their project made.

The development process will include funding and support to create a detailed budget, design a pitch deck, produce a 3-5 minute visual teaser, and write a pitch script. Based on project scope and needs, we will pair every team with a mentor and a production company who will meet with them throughout the fellowship to further support the development of their work.

To be clear, Level Ground’s funding and support for all film projects in 2024 will be exclusively reserved for teams and projects selected out of the DocX development lab. We encourage any and all documentary artists, scholars and nontraditional/independent researchers interested in working with Level Ground to apply for the Otherwise Histories, Otherwise Futures development lab.

Applications are open until November 27, 2023.

MORE ABOUT THE LEVEL GROUND DOCUMENTARY DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP

CONCEPT: Equipping makers to move their “intellectual” or “academic” or “gallery” or “community-based” work into the commercial documentary market for mainstream circulation. 

WHY: The kind of work that matters most — that has the capacity to change how we think, act, and relate to one another too often gets “trapped” inside silos of academic and/or art institutions. Meanwhile, the commercial film/tv market is largely inaccessible to diverse filmmakers and content that is nuanced and thought-provoking. 

HOW: 

• Collaboration between makers who don’t typically work together 

• Matchmaking with makers, funders, and industry decision makers 

• Sustained development of people, teams, and projects

• Translating work/ideas/access between silos for a broad audience

CASE STUDY: Level Ground’s Sundance-award winning feature, Framing Agnes, began with funding from a Mellon Foundation to support the collaboration between an artist and scholar at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago. That seed money created the time and foundation for cross-disciplinary experimentation and in-depth archival research, which resulted in a proof-of-concept short film, as well as an academic book contract with Duke University Press (Commissioned by Lauren Berlant, edited by Ken Wissoker). Since its premiere at Sundance, the film has won 10+ awards, screened at 100+ festivals, and has been invited for presentations at schools internationally, most recently in Berlin, and Bern, Switzerland.