2026 KOPKIND/CID FILM SEMINAR AND RETREAT NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS (Deadline: June 1)

Eight filmmakers will be chosen to spend the week of July 19 through July 26 at Treefrog Farm in Guilford, VT, where they will have the opportunity to share their work and support one another. Plan on bringing 30-40 minutes of material (this could be a work-in-progress or something you’ve recently completed) for brainstorming, inspiration, problem solving, and substantial discussion.

Join us for an immersive retreat where you'll recharge your creative energy through our unique approach to "radical relaxation"—featuring exceptional films, outstanding food, and deep conversations about the art, politics, and sheer joy of filmmaking.

The deadline for application is June 1. Click here to apply.

2026 LEF/CIFF Fellowship (deadline: March 27)

The LEF/CIFF fellowship program offers 5 New England-based filmmaking teams with feature length documentary films an opportunity to attend the 2026 Camden International Film Festival for a week of hands-on workshops and project development. This fellowship gives filmmakers a chance to connect with other filmmakers and industry leaders through a series of mentor-led project development workshops, networking events, and curated 1:1 meetings taking place both in-person during the festival and virtually in the weeks following. Selected projects will receive travel stipends as well as accommodations in Camden during CIFF week.

The deadline for application is March 27 at 11:59pm EST. Click here to apply, and direct any questions to artistprograms@pointnorthinstutite.org.

ROY W. DEAN GRANT (Deadline: March 30)

For over 30 years, the Roy W. Dean Grant funds independent films that are unique and make a contribution to society that, without its help, might otherwise never get made. Creative and socially impactful projects budgeted at $500,000 or less are eligible to receive $3,500 in cash and thousands of dollars in donated film products and services.

The deadline for application is March 30. Click here to apply.

ELLIS-BEAUREGARD DOCUMENTARY FILM AWARD (Deadline: April 16)

The Ellis-Beauregard foundation, together with the Points North Institute, is launching the Ellis-Beauregard Documentary Film Award to support visionary non-fiction filmmakers. EBF will provide one $50,000 award to a documentary project currently in post-production, and Points North will welcome the project to Maine for a creative editing retreat to be timed with the 2026 Camden International Film Festival.

Applications open on March 16 and close on April 16. Click here to submit.

BEYOND THE DUPLEX PLANET - WORLD PREMIERE at SXSW

BEYOND THE DUPLEX PLANET, produced and directed by BETH HARRINGTON, is having its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival.

BEYOND THE DUPLEX PLANET is a feature documentary about artist David Greenberger and his quirky interviews with senior citizens at the Duplex Nursing Home in Jamaica Plain. He rejected a pat oral history approach in favor of questions like "Which do you prefer - coffee or meat?" "Why do people spit?" "What do you think George Washington's voice sounded like" and "What is embarrassment?" The result of this was The Duplex Planet, an early 'zine, complete with excerpts from the interviews, as well as unorthodox illustrations and graphics, all by the residents themselves. Over time this material has become the basis for spoken word shows, podcasts, graphic novels, and numerous albums, and David Greenberger's work interviewing seniors continues to this day. The film explores aging and its intersection with art and community. It's also a revealing look at an artist devoted to documenting the elderly, while himself moving into his senior years.

Catch Beth Harrington, David Greenberger, and music composer and collaborator Tyson Rogers at the screenings of their films on March 12, 13, and 18. Click here to reserve.

OUR MR. MATSURA - UPCOMING SCREENINGS

OUR MR. MATSURA, also produced and directed by BETH HARRINGTON, is making its way around the festival circuit including: The new Better Angels' historical festival Hindsight in Savannah, GA, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Spokane International Film Festival, the Ashland Independent Film Festival, Portland Panorama and the Salt Spring Film Festival, with others to be announced very soon.

OUR MR. MATSURA is the story of a Japanese-born photographer, Frank Matsura, who makes his way to rural Washington State in the early 1900s, endears himself to the community of miners, loggers, cowboys, and native peoples and becomes its leading chronicler and, arguably, its most beloved citizen. The son of a samurai, Matsura seems to have traveled to the Pacific Northwest in order to reveal himself through hundreds of self-portraits. In addition, several thousand images of his making depict life in frontier America and capture an interesting array of relationships and collaborations among Matsura and local people that raise questions about representation and reinvention, gender roles, power dynamics, and the notion of community.

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER - FLIFF40 "BEST DOCUMENTARY" AWARD WINNER & UPCOMING SCREENINGS

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER, produced and directed by MARISA FOX, has won the Best Documentary award at FLIFF40! The film also received a feature in the Guardian. Click here to read the story.

MY UNDERGROUND MOTHER is a documentary feature that traces a daughter’s epic search for her late mother’s hidden Holocaust past. Shot throughout the U.S., Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Israel and Canada, it is about post-Holocaust identity lost and found, of a daughter yearning to connect with a mother she never understood, and, above all, an empowering story of women who forged a mighty sisterhood to resist Nazi inhumanity and risked their lives to document their traumas and triumphs — and won’t be shamed into history’s shadows any longer.

Check out the film's upcoming screenings at Jewish film festivals, including Boca International Film Festival and Seattle Jewish Film Festival. Click here for more details and links to tickets.

ONE ANOTHER - WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW

ONE ANOTHER, directed by AMBER LOVE and produced by ANDREA RABY and ELIVIA SHAW, is having its world premiere at SXSW 2026!

ONE ANOTHER follows three of the filmmaker's loved ones as they confront the possible end of intimate friendships. Over three years, the film charts their life changes, heartaches, and attempts to reconnect as they find a way forward.

Come support the team at one of their screenings on March 12, March 13, or March 16. Click here to reserve.

ADAM'S APPLE - WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW

ADAM'S APPLE, produced and directed by AMY JENKINS and produced by BRIT FRYER, will world premiere at SXSW.

The film is an intimate, collaborative documentary told through the dual perspectives of Adam, a transgender teen, and his mother, visual artist Amy Jenkins, that offers an authentic and tender counterpoint to the hostility facing trans youth today. Adam’s journey balances the milestones of gender transition with the rhythms of adolescence. As Adam asserts his identity and steps out into the world, his parents grapple with the challenges of raising a teen while learning to let go. Through a visually poetic approach, the film transforms a deeply personal archive, collected over two decades, into a powerful, joyful testament to the beauty and difficulty of reckoning with profound change.

Screenings are on March 13, March 15, and March 17. Click here for the schedule.

MY BROTHER'S KILLER - WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW

MY BROTHER'S KILLER (formerly called The Story of Billy London / Pretty Boy Blue), produced and directed by RACHEL MASON, will be premiering at SXSW on Friday March 13. The film has also received features by the Advocate, the Hollywood Reporter, and the LA times.

On October 29, 1990, a head and two feet were discovered in a dumpster in West Hollywood. Thirty years later, while working on her film “Circus of Books,” director Rachel Mason learned about this unsolved murder. Mason decided to make a new documentary focused on the story of the victim, Billy London, a young man who escaped from rural Wisconsin, only to be murdered in the city that he hoped would be a place of safety. Eventually, while researching Billy’s life and death, Mason, along with her collaborators, solved the case, making headlines in the Los Angeles Times and beyond. Billy’s death was revealed to be a hate crime, committed in plain sight by a person within the gay community — someone responsible for even more deaths.

SXSW screenings are on March 13, 16, and 18. Click here for the schedule.

SALLY! - AVAILABLE STREAMING

SALLY!, produced and directed by DEBORAH CRAIG, and produced by JÖRG FOCKELE and ONDINE RAREY, has just become available to stream on both Kanopy (linked here) and FirstLook (linked here).

SALLY! brings into focus the life and legacy of Sally Gearheart - a charismatic lesbian-activist, feminist, professor, and fantasy author. A trailblazer in the 1970s and '80s U.S. lesbian feminist movement, Sally is a "hidden figure" deserving more attention: she was a key spokeswoman for an important period of women's history. The film makes clear most of us haven't heard of Sally or her accomplishments largely due to the patriarchal lens through which history is recounted. At the same time, the documentary honestly and unflinchingly examines Sally's contradictions, iconoclasm, and the complex relationship between spokeswomen like her and the movements for social change they champion, which are necessarily collective and layered. Balancing humor, insight, and heart, SALLY! is both a celebration of a radical icon, a meditation on the tensions inherent in revolutionary movements, and a powerful reflection on the lessons her work offers for today's struggles for civil rights, justice, and equality.

EL SIGNO VACÍO - UPCOMING SCREENINGS

EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign), produced and directed by KATHRYN RAMEY, will be opening the Wide Open Experimental Film festival on April 23 (click here for the program). Kathryn Ramey's short film, BETTER LIGHTING, completed during her residency at MassMoCa, will also be screened at the festival.

EL SIGNO VACÍO is a feature length cinematic essay interrogating the 120-year US occupation of Puerto Rico and the director's bizarre connection to it via her surname, Ramey, to reveal how U.S. democratic narratives effectively obscure capitalist/military domination of the islands.

EL SIGNO VACÍO will also be screened on March 18 and 19 at Frames of Reference at the University of Virginia (click here for the program). This will be along with KATHRYN RAMEY's other CID-supported films YANQUI WALKER AND THE OPTICAL REVOLUTION and WEST: WHAT I KNOW ABOUT HER, as well as her films ENOLAEMEVAEL/LEAVEMEALONE and LIMEN.

Finally, BETTER LIGHTING will also be screening at Experiments in Cinema in Albuquerque New Mexico in April.

IT'S DOROTHY! - STREAMING PREMIERE

The exclusive streaming premiere for IT'S DOROTHY!, directed JEFFREY MCHALE, will begin on Friday March 13 on PEACOCK.

Since Dorothy Gale started her epic journey down the Yellow Brick Road 125 years ago in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she has become a beacon for marginalized voices across our culture. IT’S DOROTHY! brings to life her timeless adventures in Oz through the human experiences of a new generation of star performers, infused with the spirit and influence of Judy Garland and others. With a chorus of cultural luminaries, unforgettable music, and a magical remix of archival and cinematic art, this film centers the perspectives of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ voices. Exploring the meaning of a cherished character through the eras, we celebrate Dorothy as an enduring symbol of hope and a touchstone in our universal quest to fly over the rainbow and find home again.

Check out the trailer for IT'S DOROTHY! here on Youtube.

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WING? - FALL 2026 PREMIERE

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WING?, directed by LARISSA LAM and produced by BALDWIN CHIU, is preparing for a Fall 2026 premiere. Their first community screening is already scheduled for October in partnership with the Mississippi Humanities Council. The film will feature newly added commentary from acclaimed actors including Amy Hill (Lilo & Stitch), Nancy Kwan (Flower Drum Song), Ann Harada (Schmigadoon!), and Tony Award winners BD Wong (M. Butterfly) and Francis Jue (Yellow Face).

The film tells the story of Virginia Wing—a trailblazing Chinese American actress, singer, and former Mississippi beauty queen. Despite some successes, Virginia continually faced the harsh reality of the lack of quality roles for Asian women on the biggest stages and screens. The film will examine the history of limited roles for actresses of Asian descent - as well as other performers of color - in film, TV and theater. In a time where the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype and anti-Asian sentiment persists, Virginia wonders how she can help change perceptions of Asian Americans. What role has she played in the past in perpetuating stereotypes that still exist today? Through this journey of looking at the past, Virginia will discover who she is today as a Chinese American Southern woman and what legacy she wants to leave for future generations.

NATHAN-ISM - AVAILABLE TO STREAM

It's official! NATHAN-ISM, produced and directed by ELAN GOLOD, is now available to stream, rent or buy online! (in North America)

The film tells the remarkable story of Nathan Hilu, a self-taught artist who spent decades creating vivid drawings inspired by his memories as a young U.S. Army guard during the Nuremberg Trials. Through Hilu’s artwork and recorded recollections, Nathan-ism explores how one person grappled with the weight of history—and the responsibility of remembering it.

The film is currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime (link here) or stream for free (with ads) on Tubi (link here). Please help the team share Nathan Hilu's powerful voice far and wide.

DOCUMENTING THE TENTH ISLAND

CID filmmaker CLAIRE ANDRADE-WATKINS will join fellow Rhode Island film director CHRISTIAN DE REZENDES in conversation at "Documenting the Tenth Island". They will discuss their films SOME KIND OF FUNNY PORTO RICAN? (2006) by Claire Andrade-Watkins, and THE POWER OF NOSTALGIA: EPISODE 8 OF SLATERSVILLE: AMERICA'S FIRST MILL VILLAGE (2024) by Christian de Rezendes.

Both films document Cape Verdean and Portuguese heritages in Rhode Island. SOME KIND OF FUNNY PORTO RICAN? in particular tells the untold tragedy and scandal of what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence Rhode Island who were forcibly displaced by urban renewal to make way for coffee shops, antique stores and elegantly restored houses. It is the first in a trilogy of documentaries about Cape Verdean community in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island.

The event will be on Wednesday, March 25 2026, from 10am-noon, at Gaige Hall 200, Rhode Island College. It is free and open to the public. Please contact Dr. Silvia Oliveira for more information at soliveira@ric.edu.

LOVING JOHN - DOCUTAH "AUDIENCE FAVORITE" WINNER

LOVING JOHN, produced and directed by ROBERT ROOY, and produced by ANNE DE MARE and KIMBERLEE BASSFORD, has won the DOCUTAH Audience Favorite award!

LOVING JOHN is a deeply compassionate documentary for PBS that grapples with death and dying with vulnerable honesty and generous helpings of biting humor. John Godinet is an irrepressible Pacific Islander and ultra-runner living with his husband Peter in rural Maryland as he faces ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Navigating ALS is physically and emotionally exhausting. But John, Peter and their close circle of friends have a tried-and-true survival strategy: a rich mixture of love and laughter.

The PBS broadcast will be in May. NETA has acquired the film and is distributing it to all of the PBS member stations. Click here for the 30-second PBS promo. 

The film will have its American Samoa premiere on March 31; Producer and director Robert Rooy, John’s husband Peter, and at least three other participants in the film will be in attendance.

LOVING JOHN has been accepted to tour parts of the South as part of the 2026-27 season of the South Circuit, run by South Arts in Atlanta. Click here to learn more about this program.

Finally, New Day Films has accepted LOVING JOHN — most likely launching in June.

SURVIVAL FLOATING

SURVIVAL FLOATING, produced and directed by TRACY HEATHER STRAIN, is one of 18 documentary projects to receive early funding from Catapult Film Fund - beating around 2,000 other submissions. The film will receive a $25,000 development grant through Catapult's Core Development program.

Sparked by the memories of a near-drowning at a northern Black swimming pool during the 1960s-70s-era segregation, an African American swimmer/filmmaker dives into an existential exploration of Black resilience examining Black peoples’ complex, joyous and fraught relationship to swimming and water.

DIAMOND DIPLOMACY - RECENT SCREENING

DIAMOND DIPLOMACY, produced and directed by YURIKO GAMO ROMER, was screened at Emerson Paramount Center in Boston on Friday March 6. The event featured a post-screening Q&A with Yuriko Gamo Romer, cultural historian Bijan C. Bayne, and moderated by Nate Shu. CID executive director Susi Walsh joined the screening and got to meet Yuriko in person for the first time in 30 years!

DIAMOND DIPLOMACY explores the long and complex relationship between the United States and Japan through a shared love of baseball. Using the baseball life of Masanori “Mashi” Murakami (the first Japanese major leaguer) as a touchstone, DIAMOND DIPLOMACY reveals a surprising, obscure and often-controversial duality that has existed throughout this history. Dedication to the game has been tossed between the U.S. and Japan since the opening of Japan to the West in the late 1800s, and mirrors profound shifts in diplomacy and conflict between the two nations.