Scottish Documentary Institute

Rebecca Day recently attended the Getting Real conference in Los Angeles, run by the folks at the International Documentary Association. It’s a three-day event filled with international filmmakers, inspiring keynotes, presentations, workshops, and vital conversations around the most urgent issues facing the documentary community today.

As in past years, the main focus was the ever-increasing question of sustainability within the industry. This year transparency and creativity were added to the conversation, which made it the perfect environment to launch a much-needed discussion around the more vulnerable aspects of making documentaries. Rebecca went over there to host a panel discussion titled ‘Therapeutic Interventions in Documentaries’. Here she tells us a little more about how her work as a producer is merging with her new focus on mental health in the documentary sphere.

As you may have heard, SDI's latest offering Freedom Fields is to have its World Premiere this Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival!

The film is the first feature from British/Libyan director Naziha Arebi, making it also the first feature documentary made by a Libyan female director! 

Here's a quick shout out to all the Arab films making waves and heading to TIFF this week!

This is the final instalment of our guest blog from filmmaker Karen Guthrie, we hope you've found it enlightening! The self-distribution journey can be a challenging one but as Karen has pointed out the opportunities it affords can take you places you never expected. If more people taking distribution into their own hands means more great documentaries like The Closer We Get out there it can only be a good thing!

In the penultimate instalment of the guest blog Karen Guthrie recalls her experiences of taking The Closer We Get to audiences far and wide. The preparation, the travel, the money (or lack thereof) and the unexpected moments that make it all worth while!