Impact Partners to Launch Emerging Documentary Producers Fellowship at DOC NYC 2015

Impact Partners, the leading financier and executive producer of documentary film, will launch a new annual Emerging Documentary Producers Fellowship. The fellowship will be awarded to some of the industry’s most promising new producers at an inaugural ceremony at DOC NYC this fall. The goal of the new fellowship is to foster emerging producing talent by launching a program that consists of a yearlong series of workshops with some of the most prominent luminaries in the field of documentary film.

Dan Cogan, Executive Director and co-founder of Impact Partners said: “Impact Partners has been around for nine years and we’ve made 60 films. We have seen increasingly over the years that there’s a ton of support for directors, but there just isn’t the same level for producers. We felt like a lot of the producers we were working with could have benefitted from this kind of deep-dive in an intimate group over time,” Cogan told Indiewire.

Thom Powers, Artistic Director of DOC NYC, said in a statement, “Documentary producing isn’t something you learn from books. It’s like an occult knowledge acquired through mentors and practice. The most important secrets of massaging finances, personalities, legalities and unexpected situations are only shared in closed rooms. DOC NYC is proud to give a platform to this vital initiative.”

About the Emerging Documentary Producers Fellowship:
The Impact Partners Documentary Producers Fellows will participate in ten development workshops to be held in New York City, guided by eminent producers and industry experts with distinct areas of knowledge. Each session will explore a different aspect of film production facing young producers today. The workshops will cover film finance, festival strategy, marketing and distribution deal making, legal workshops and other critical topics. During each session, documentary luminaries will work closely with each fellow to choose topics and issues with immediate relevancy to their current work, offering hands-on advice, strategies and best practices.

Each fellow will also be awarded $2,500.

For the inaugural 2015 program, five emerging producers will be selected. Nominations will be accepted from directors, producers, editors and other key crew members who have worked directly with the person on a previous or current film. Candidates must be nominated by current or former colleagues and cannot nominate themselves.

How to Apply
Nominations are now being accepted from documentary filmmakers and other key crew members who have worked with an emerging producer. A short nomination form is currently available on the Impact Partners website. If you know someone you would like to nominate, please fill out the form and send it to fellowship@impactpartnersfilm.com.

The deadline for nominations is October 6th, 2015.

Nomination Form: http://www.impactpartnersfilm.com/fellowship/

If you are a producer who is interested in applying, we encourage you to get in touch with filmmakers you have worked with in the past and ask them to nominate you. As nominations come in, candidates will be contacted with a brief application form.

Who is Eligible?
This fellowship is created to support emerging documentary producers. 
We want to hear from the documentary community — who are the young producers who are creative, resilient and eager to grow? Who would benefit from mentorship and becoming a member of a new network of documentary producers? 

Applicants MUST have worked on at least one documentary film in a key crew position such as Producer, Line Producer, Co-Producer or Associate Producer. They may NOT have worked as “Producer” on more than 3 feature-length documentary films. Applicants must be based in New York City, or be willing to travel for all of the workshops.