Let’s Chop It Up: Black Doc Filmmaking in Today’s Political Climate

LET'S CHOP IT UP: BLACK DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING IN TODAY'S POLITICAL CLIMATE

As an extension of BADWest’s 2025 gathering, Black History Now, we’re narrowing the focus. This BADWest workshop brings Black documentary filmmakers together for a candid, community-centered conversation about creating truth-driven work in a rapidly shifting political landscape. As policies tighten, public discourse intensifies, and cultural narratives become battlegrounds, Black documentarians are feeling the impact—creatively, emotionally, and financially.

Moderated by Sonya Childress, founding Co-Executive Director of Color Congress and veteran film strategist, this gathering opens space to unpack how the current climate is shaping the stories filmmakers choose to tell, the risks they navigate, and the pressure of representing communities whose realities are often politicized. The discussion also turns inward, acknowledging the mental and emotional strain of working under heightened scrutiny while still striving to produce meaningful, resonant films.

With public arts funding shrinking and grant opportunities becoming increasingly scarce, participants will explore how these challenges affect their ability to secure resources, sustain long-term projects, and remain artistically independent. Together, filmmakers will share strategies, frustrations, and possibilities for moving forward with resilience and collective support.

This is a space for honesty, connection, and creative problem‑solving. Let’s chop it up and confront the moment—together.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

6:30 - 8:30 pm PST

Emerson College Los Angeles Center

5960 West Sunset Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90028

Free underground parking (first come-first serve)

Plenty of street parking available on the side streets

Please bring your ID for entry to the building.

Members RSVP directly to [email protected].

RSVP by March 4, 2025.

Sonya Childress is a founding Co-Executive Director of Color Congress, an ecosystem-builder that resources, supports, and connects organizations led by people of color that serve nonfiction filmmakers, leaders, and audiences of color across the US and territories, with Sahar Driver. A veteran film strategist, she spent two decades devising impact campaigns and distribution strategies at Active Voice, California Newsreel and Firelight Media, where she piloted a fellowship for impact producers of color. As a Senior Fellow with the Perspective Fund, she examined issues of ethics, equity and accountability in the documentary field. She is a founding member of the Documentary Accountability Working Group, a board member of the Center for Cultural Power, a working group member for ‘The Lens Reflected’ study, a 2015 Rockwood JustFilms Fellow, a recipient of the 2022 Leading Light Award from Doc NYC, and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

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Host or Publisher Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers West