Filmmakers Collaborative

11/26/2025

The last few episodes of Making Media Now featured conversations with documentary filmmakers about the profoundly serious topics that are explored in their films: the decline of print journalism, addiction recovery, and PTSD.

👉 We lighten things up a bit on the latest episode with a conversation with Daniel Masciari, writer and director of Stationed At Home, his feature debut now available via video-on-demand.

👉 Check out this really fun conversation about his creative process, the allure of black & white film, and artistic influences.

👉 And look for Daniel's delightful film, it's perfect for kicking off the holiday season!

11/26/2025

Dave Wiskus, founder and CEO of streaming service Nebula, joined PBS' Firing Line to discuss the rise of the creator economy, how the rapidly growing industry is changing the traditional media ecosystem, and what it means for entertainment, content moderation, and politics.

Dave Wiskus, founder and CEO of streaming service Nebula, discusses the rise of the creator economy.

11/25/2025

"...The co-writer and director, who spent a decade traversing America for her first three features before winning an Oscar for 'Nomadland' (2020), has created something that operates on a frequency beyond traditional narrative filmmaking. It’s a dangerous kind of vulnerability, and Zhao knows it."

Chloé Zhao talks about making "Hamnet," four years after the "Eternals" and what to expect from "Buffy" TV sequel.

11/25/2025

"...Twenty years ago, documentary film was an extremely niche segment of the entertainment industry, devoid of funding or mainstream interest. Presently, non-fiction filmmaking (in the form of docuseries) stands as a cornerstone of streaming economics, a format bolstered and degraded by an ever-growing demand for cheap, time-consuming content."

Unpacking streaming's embrace and erosion of non-fiction storytelling.

11/24/2025

Last night's 60 Minutes featured a segment on All the Empty Rooms, for which FC is honored to be the fiscal sponsor.

In the film, which will debut on Netflix on December 1, filmmaker Josh Seftel follows a reporter and a photographer as they set out to memorialize the empty rooms of America’s forgotten children.

They visit the homes of families who have lost a child, and photograph these sacred spaces frozen in time, exactly as they were when the child went to school for the last day.

Rooted in emotion and shared humanity, the film will bypass traditional political divides, and work to bring us together on an issue that has been at a standstill.

For many parents of children killed in school shootings, bedrooms left behind are a devastating reminder of what was taken. Several parents share an emotiona...

11/22/2025

"...Journalist Sebastian Junger has spent the last three decades enthralling audiences with his long-form investigative magazine stories, best-selling books, and documentary films.

His hallmark work, the 1997 book The Perfect Storm, started out as a story in Outside in 1994. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2011 for his documentary about the Afghanistan war called Restrepo.

Junger is back in the limelight this month. He is the executive producer of a four-part Netflix series, Marines, which focuses on the U.S. Marine Corps as it prepares for a doomsday-like global war. Junger, 63, worked on the series alongside director Chelsea Yarnell."

The author and filmmaker is the executive producers of a new Netflix series about the United States Marine Corps

11/21/2025

"...Story Syndicate, the New York-based production house founded by Oscar and Emmy-winning documentary couple Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus, is launching a multi-million dollar equity fund for nonfiction films and series.

The first three projects being financed by the fund are currently in production.

They are Paul Solet’s “Master Thief,” which focuses on Sean Murphy, the New England Patriots fan convicted of stealing Eli Manning’s New York Giants Super Bowl rings in 2008;

Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce’s “Saget,” about beloved TV dad Bob Saget; and Alex Holmes’ “Beverly & Dereck,” about visionary filmmakers and wildlife conservationists Beverly and Dereck Joubert whose work helped inspire “The Lion King.”

Story Syndicate, the New York-based production house, is launching a multi-million dollar equity fund for nonfiction films and series.

11/20/2025

"...Football fans talk a lot about coaching trees—how so many current successful NFL coaches used to work for Mike Shanahan, or how Bill Parcells at various points in his career employed Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, and Tom Coughlin. (This usually extends to discussion of how those trees spawn other trees, with mixed success, like Belichick’s.)

But there are TV coaching trees, too, where producers or shows bring together many writers and/or directors who then go on to have amazing careers of their own, and in some cases create their own trees."

Vince Gilligan is eternal proof of the strength of the ‘X-Files’ writers room. But frankly, that room has a ton of competition across television history.

11/19/2025

“...'Eddington,' 'One Battle After Another' and 'After the Hunt' focus on young characters navigating the current political climate. The depictions aren’t always flattering."

“Eddington,” “One Battle After Another” and “After the Hunt” focus on young characters navigating the current political climate. The depictions aren’t always flattering.

11/19/2025

"...Each year, Frontline Features will either commission or come in at the early stages of three to five doc projects — both features and shorts. Each film will premiere at a festival, go on the fest circuit, and then have a theatrical run of at least two weeks."

The new banner will be led by Raney Aronson-Rath, an Oscar-winning producer who has expanded the PBS Frontline series

11/19/2025

"...Former child actresses, as well as teenage girls around the country, have posted photos of themselves at 15 years old after journalist Megyn Kelly seemed to downplay the youth of Jeffrey Epstein's victims on her podcast.

In a discussion with NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon on 'The Megyn Kelly Show' on Nov. 12, Kelly stated that she knows 'somebody very close to this case" who 'told me from the start [...] that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pe*****le.'

'He was into the barely legal type, like, he liked 15-year-old girls,' Kelly continued. 'I'm not trying to make an excuse for this, I'm just giving you facts — that he wasn't into, like, 8-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passer-by.'

After commentator Megyn Kelly seemed to downplay the youth of Jeffrey Epstein's victims, former child actresses and current teenagers took to social media to express outrage.

11/18/2025

"...It’s difficult to swallow that school shootings are simply part of life in America, disasters that are rare, but for which precautions must still be taken.

'Thoughts and Prayers,' a new documentary premiering Nov. 18 on HBO, has done the swallowing, and in just under 90 minutes gives an intensive tour of the dystopian morass of military-grade preparedness drills, innovations in school-hardening technology, and children who have accepted that any day a gunman could massacre them and their friends, and forces the viewer to digest it."

"Thoughts and Prayers," a new HBO documentary, examines the culture and commerce that has emerged around hardening schools against active shooters.