Fernanda Rossi worked with filmmakers Carmen Oquendo-Villar, José Correa-Vigier and Felipe Tewes to turn their three rough cuts into one feature documentary, The Needle.

Fernanda Rossi dissects the making of the documentary Every Day is a Holiday by Theresa Loong. Read about the filmmaker's smart moves, memorable moments and what she vows to never do again.

Viewing trailers may not render a single rule that applies to other projects or filmmakers. Yet there are some common principles that help the filmmaker think strategically about his or her choices. Here are my tips.

On Monday, a documentary about an American basketball player in Iran ended a 50-day campaign that generated $100,000 in donations at the buzzer on Kickstarter after major media hits with CNN, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The Iran Job's Till Schauder tells Adam Schartoff how his team managed the campaign.

The holiday season is no holiday for documentary producers looking to raise funds, but some documentarians say it's as good a time as any.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Tod Lending, director of The Principal Story, about how he hit the jackpot by getting money from the Wallace Foundation to make a series of nonfiction films. I asked him if there were other goldmines for filmmakersout there, and he directed me to Alyce Myatt, the head of […]

Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup. I continue here my exploration into foundations funding documentaries with a discussion with The Principal Story‘s Tod Lending, a director who pretty much won the doc filmmakers’ sweepstakes with a giant grant from Chicago’s Wallace Foundation. Doc […]

Everyone has less these days. Money is disappearing. Doc distributors like ThinkFilm, Warner Independent Pictures and Paramount Vantage are vanishing. And the recession continues to roll on. In this climate, where does a doc filmmaker turn for financing? In the past, one of the best go-to resources was the diverse realm of foundations. The big […]

Oh, the woe of the documentary filmmaker. Nothing strikes a filmmaker to the core more than that singularly sad, stress-inducing word: funding. My POV minders recently directed me to filmmaker Patrick O’Brien, who has sought out a creative way to get financing. O’Brien has joined forces with Skinny Corp, a progressive, community-based company that backs […]