Distribution innovations in documentary film
Fri 17 April 2026
17:00
Free
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Documentary films are a powerful, accessible, compelling means of conveying complex stories – whether they are journalistic investigations that enable the public to follow along on reporters’ journeys, expressionistic personal stories that reflect communities’ experiences, or historical documentaries that add context to current events. But in a crowded media environment, with endless competition for attention and mounting competition for funding, how are documentaries breaking through to reach and engage the public?
This panel will explore the latest experiments in marketing and distribution and discuss how organisations can use the convening power of in-person documentary screenings to create regular community touch points and lasting connections.
Moderated by Lauren Pabst.
Supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
Modified more than a month ago
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Sahar Driver
Sahar Driver is co-founder and co-executive director of Color Congress. She is a veteran documentary impact strategist, field builder, and researcher. Her career has focused on social and cultural transformation through nonfiction storytelling. She has led impact campaigns and strategy for over two-dozen documentaries, independently and with Active Voice. She has designed and led impact trainings and grantmaking programs to support impact producers and filmmakers of color with Firelight Media. She worked with Doc Society to update the second edition of their Impact Field Guide and wrote the 2019 Impact Hi5 case studies. Today she is on the Doc Society Inc US Board of Directors, the Picture Motion Advisory Board, and was a 2022 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow and a 2021 Rockwood/JustFilms Fellow. In 2020 she authored the Ford Foundation commissioned report entitled Beyond Inclusion: The Critical Role of People of Color in the U.S. Documentary Ecosystem. She is also the author of the Color Congress report Elev8DOCS: A Documentary Marketing Initiative (spring 2026 release).
Erika Howard
Erika Howard is Director of Impact Strategy and External Relations at FRONTLINE, where she leads the direction for impact and public programs for the documentary series. She joined FRONTLINE from POV/American Documentary, where she served as the Senior Director of Station Marketing and Audience Engagement, and created engagement campaigns and partnerships for such titles as Dark Money, Bill Nye: Science Guy, Whose Streets, and Minding the Gap. She previously served as the Marketing Manager for Women Make Movies, and has presented on panels at the Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, the Athena Film Festival, NYU, PBS conferences and other festivals around impact, audience engagement, and multicultural audience growth.
Yongjin Kim
Yongjin Kim is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. Previously the head of the investigative unit at KBS, South Korea’s largest public broadcaster, he co-founded the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ)-Newstapa in 2013, serving as editor-in-chief and CEO of the country's first nonprofit investigative newsroom for over a decade. Currently, he serves as the Editor for Domestic and Cross-border Collaborations at KCIJ. Under his leadership, both KBS and KCIJ-Newstapa received numerous national and international journalism awards. He also led Newstapa’s participation in several major cross-border investigations with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama Papers project. He is the only South Korean journalist to hold membership in the ICIJ. His debut documentary, Media Mafia: A Tale of Two Newspapers, took a bold look at the troubled legacy of South Korea’s two most powerful media conglomerates. Search and Seizure: The Rise of Insurrection is his second documentary feature, chronicling a turbulent period when press freedom and democracy were pushed to the brink. Kim also teaches investigative journalism at Semyung University's Graduate School of Journalism and is the author of several bestselling books on media and democratic accountability.
Lauren Pabst
Lauren Pabst is a Senior Program Officer in the Journalism and Media Program at the MacArthur Foundation. She works on grantmaking in support of Nonfiction Multimedia Storytelling and Professional Nonprofit Reporting. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2012, Lauren worked as Project Manager and Researcher for the Rada Film Group on the 13-year longitudinal documentary American Promise about race, parenting, and education, which received a Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on the PBS series POV in 2014. Previously, Lauren worked with Black Public Media and Public Policy Productions. Lauren graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Arts in English from Boston University. From 2013-2015, Lauren served on the board of Latinos Progresando, the largest Latino-led, low-cost, family based legal immigration services provider in Illinois. She is a member of the steering committee of Nuestro Futuro, an initiative of the Chicago Community Trust. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Media Impact Funders.
Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.