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American Documentary, Inc.

Brooklyn, New York

Grants

2022 (3 years)
$1,500,000

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. It curates and broadcasts the PBS series POV, co-curates the documentary series America ReFramed on WORLD channel, and commissions and presents short documentaries on PBS.org and in partnerships with other platforms and organizations through its latest creation, POV Shorts. AmDoc also operates POV Engage, which creates opportunities for students, community organizations, and the general public to engage with the films it presents via POV. This award provides general operating support for AmDoc. The intended outcome is the production and distribution of more just and inclusive narratives on a range of social issues and communities that enable Americans to see and understand the perspectives and lived experiences of others.

2021 (1 year)
$700,000

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. It curates and broadcasts the PBS series POV, co-curates the documentary series America ReFramed on WORLD channel, and commissions and presents short documentaries on PBS.org and in partnership with other platforms and organizations. American Documentary also operates POV Engage, which creates opportunities for students, community organizations, and the general public to engage with the films it presents via POV. This award provides general operating support for AmDoc, and the intended outcomes of this grant are that through AmDoc’s programming, a range of documentaries on critical social issues reach wide and diverse audiences across the United States.

2018 ( 2 months)
$12,600

American Documentary, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding, developing, and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. It presents the PBS flagship documentary series, POV, and is also co-curator of the America ReFramed documentary series, seen on the WORLD Channel. This award supports travel expenses, stipends and honoraria for a community engagement tour around the POV documentary Whose Streets?, which follows the ordinary people who became activists in the movement after the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri. These activities are aimed at helping local nonprofit organizations in up to ten U.S. cities use the film as a springboard for civic education around the issues the documentary explores.

2018 ( 2 months)
$3,000

American Documentary, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding, developing, and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. It presents the PBS flagship documentary series, POV and also is a co-curator of the America ReFramed documentary series, seen on the WORLD Channel. This award supports travel and accommodation expenses for American Documentary staff to attend the 2018 International Documentary Association Getting Real conference September 25-27 in Los Angeles, and to attend a daylong convening of MacArthur Foundation Nonfiction Multimedia Storytelling grantees on September 24, resulting a more representative group of attendees at both events.

2018 (3 years)
$2,550,000

American Documentary is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding, developing, and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. It presents the PBS flagship documentary series, POV, and since 2016, it has collaborated with journalism organizations on short and interactive digital documentary projects through its Embedded Media Makers project. The documentaries it co-produces, supports, and presents enable viewers to explore the personal stories intertwined with social issues, often challenging dominant narratives by showing the experiences and perspectives of people from marginalized groups. This grant provides American Documentary with stability from which to continue its current work, as well as experiment with new storytelling formats to reach U.S. audiences with compelling nonfiction content via a variety of media platforms, free of charge.

2017 (1 year 6 months)
$180,000

American Documentary/POV (POV) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding, developing and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries, told from historically underrepresented perspectives. These documentaries reach diverse audiences via public television, digital streaming, community screenings, and social media. MacArthur funds support POV Digital to acquire and co-produce independently produced interactive digital nonfiction projects to distribute via POV’s website; to incubate new interactive projects by diverse makers through a series of POV Digital Labs; and to collaborate with journalism organizations to allow independent producers to create original multimedia work for news platforms. Intended outcomes are a series of thought-provoking documentaries and interactive projects, distributed widely to U.S. audiences, which will deepen public understanding of contemporary issues.

2015 (3 years)
$2,250,000

American Documentary is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding, developing, and presenting feature-length, short, and interactive documentaries on public television, in community settings, and online. These documentaries enable viewers to explore the personal stories connected to complex contemporary social issues. One of the most established organizations curating, supporting, and showcasing independent documentaries free of charge to U.S. audiences, American Documentary has continually adapted to respond to the changing media ecosystem. Its documentaries reach diverse audiences across a series of platforms and initiatives.

2014 (2 years)
$300,000

American Documentary, Inc., is a nonprofit organization that, for 27 years, has produced and presented the series POV (Point of View), the longest-running public television showcase for independently produced documentary films in the U.S. American Documentary/POV is building its capacity to help documentary filmmakers produce interactive, web-based documentaries, in collaboration with news organizations that are increasingly utilizing online video and interactive websites as part of their reporting. American Documentary/POV is a leader in experimenting with documentary video online, developing public television’s first program website in 1994, and its first interactive online storytelling project "POV’s Borders" in 2002. Since 2012, it has held a series of POV Hackathon Labs, weekend-long events that seed collaborations between filmmakers and technologists on nonfiction interactive digital prototypes - more than half of which to date have been successfully developed into full projects. American Documentary/POV will work with creative technologists, hybrid filmmaker-developers and leading journalistic outlets to develop, produce, and present a series of nonfiction interactive online projects. It will begin by expanding a current partnership with the New York Times.

2013 (2 years)
$1,300,000

American Documentary, Inc. produces P.O.V., the award-winning, primetime, documentary film showcase on public television. P.O.V. presents intelligent, nuanced, and entertaining films on contemporary domestic and international social issues. Beyond broadcast, P.O.V. coordinates hundreds of public screenings and facilitates new media reinventions of its films to engage an even broader audience with the stories and issues presented in the films. This grant supports the production of P.O.V., and also a new documentary series, America Reframed, a collaboration of American Documentary and The World Channel.

2012 (1 year)
$1,000,000

American Documentary, Inc. produces and broadcasts P.O.V. (Point of View), the longest-running documentary film series on television. Carried by PBS, P.O.V. presents high-quality, in-depth documentary programming on domestic and international current affairs and social issues. P.O.V. program staff provide editorial guidance and community engagement support to filmmakers, allowing them to take advantage of the latest technology to ensure that their stories reach the widest possible audience. This grant will be used to increase American Documentary’s cash reserve, allowing it to respond to film funding opportunities on a timely basis; and to complete infrastructure upgrades on its new offices.

2010 (3 years)
$1,500,000

In support of P.O.V., a documentary series on public television (over three years).

2007 (3 years)
$1,500,000

In support of P.O.V. (Point of View), a documentary series on public television (over three years).

2004 (3 years)
$1,500,000

In support of "P.O.V." (Point of View), a documentary series for public television (over three years).

2004 (1 year)
$100,000

In support of Active Voice, which designs and implements community outreach campaigns for documentary films.

2001 (2 years 11 months)
$1,500,000

To support the public television series "POV" (over three years).

2001 (3 years)
$1,000,000

To support Active Voice, an outreach service for broadcast documentaries focused on issues of race, immigration, and economic dislocation (over three years).

2000 (1 year)
$30,000

To support strategic planning.

1999 (2 years)
$1,000,000

To support the public television series "POV" (over two years).

1998 (1 year)
$40,000

To manage a program of television documentaries and outreach activities on the subject of race.

1997 (3 years)
$1,000,000

To support the public television series "POV" (over two years).

1996 (1 year)
$500,000

To support the public television series "POV."

1994 (1 year)
$1,100,000

To support the public television series "POV" (over two years).

1991 (1 year)
$1,650,000

In support of general operations and the minority film fund in connection with the series "POV.."

1988 (2 years 1 month)
$1,200,000

To support the public television series "POV."

1987 (1 year 1 month)
$200,000

To support television series "The American Documentary."