We're excited to feature three films available for Native American Heritage Month in November. The Mayors of Shiprock and On A Knife Edge come to WORLD Channel's America Reframed Nov. 6 and 7, respectively. In addition, Metal Road soon will be available to purchase for November.

The Mayors of Shiprock focuses on a group of young Navajo leaders who meet to decide how they will help their community. The Northern Diné Youth Committee gives youth opportunities to directly make changes within their community.

On A Knife Edge is set against a background of rising tension and protest. George Dull Knife becomes politically active with the American Indian Movement, confronts the challenges of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation and wrestles with accepting leadership of his storied family from his aging father.

Metal Road explores the dynamics of livelihood, family and the railroads through the lens of a Navajo trackman. Follow three Navajo railroaders from the 9001 Heavy Steel Gang as they leave their homeland to replace aging railroad tracks from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean under extreme weather conditions.

Over the last decade, documentary filmmakers have found themselves, increasingly constrained by demands to clear rights for copyrighted material, according to the Center for Media and Social Impact (CMSI). Creators in other disciplines don't face such demands to the same extent, and documentarians in earlier eras experienced them less often and less intensely.

Copyright concerns fundamentally affect the creative choices media makers believe they can make. As part of its mission to provide educational support to creatives in media that matters, CMSI develops tools to better understand how to employ fair use, the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment, under some circumstances. Filmmakers, journalists, teachers, visual arts professionals, librarians, archivists and more all have collaborated with CMSI to clarify how fair use works with their most common practices. 

A new report explores factors contributing to the economic challenges documentary filmmakers face. The challenges include the evolving technologies, emerging business models, transforming consumer behavior and uncertainty about future legal and regulatory frameworks.

Produced by the National Endowment for the Arts and the International Documentary Association, the report reflects current conversations in the field and provides an overview of key findings and actions that will strengthen the documentary ecosystem. Case studies serve as examples that contribute to building sustainable infrastructure for the documentary community.

Recommendations include:

The report is the result of the Documentary Sustainability Summit held in February at the National Endowment for the Arts offices in Washington, DC in collaboration with the International Documentary Association.