Working Films brings the worlds of social and environmental justice together with documentary filmmaking. For 25 years, we’ve been a leader in the field of media for change by remaining responsive to the filmmakers and organizations we serve.
FEATURED PROJECTS
Impact Kickstart
Impact Kickstart supports underrepresented filmmakers create strategic goals for impact and specific plans to engage future partners, funders, and audiences in meaningful ways.
Documentary Accountability Working Group
DAWG catalyzes and cultivates a culture of care and accountability within the field of nonfiction filmmaking.
Indie Media Arts South
A regional collective of arts organizations, film festivals, and media makers working to strengthen the independent sector across the greater South, with a focus on equity and sustainability.
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Screenings That Work
With mounting attacks on our most vulnerable communities, resources pulled away from the frontlines, and major cuts to public media, organizers and activists are stretched thin. In this climate, grassroots organizers’ need to build relationships and mobilize their communities for change. At a time of digital overload, unplugging and coming together IRL has become one of the most important tools in an organizer’s toolkit. This is where local film screenings become invaluable—not only do they educate, they build community and inspire collective action to confront social and environmental threats. Whether…
Announcing the 2026 Impact Kickstart Cohort!
Now in its eighth year, Working Films’ Impact Kickstart resources underrepresented documentary filmmakers to develop and implement impact campaigns that meaningfully engage audiences, partners, and supporters. This year, three incredible film teams have been selected to receive $20,000 each in impact campaign funding, along with in-kind partnership and strategy development from Working Films, and participation in a year-long cohort experience where filmmakers can learn from and support one another. Hannah Hearn, Impact Coordinator and Fellowships Lead at Working Films, reflected on the ways Impact Kickstart has evolved to respond at…
Partners: A Film to Strike To
In case you haven’t heard, the "Red Cup" season looked a little different this holiday season. Starbucks workers across the country are on strike. Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union representing workers at over 600 stores nationwide, has walked off the floor during the company's busiest season. Their goal? To protest illegal union-busting and secure the fair pay and consistent hours they deserve. But while workers are on the picket line, a new documentary, Partners: How Starbucks Baristas Started a Labor Revolution, is catalyzing community solidarity in union halls and…
Love your houseplants? Love the people who grow them, too.
Our friends at We Count!, along with Dēmos, and Partners for Dignity and Rights, just released a report that exposes the exploitation underpinning the $50 billion US houseplant industry, The Human Cost of House Plants: Labor Conditions of Florida’s Plant Nursery Workers The report details the pervasiveness of poverty wages, dangerous working conditions, widespread sexual harassment, and retaliation against workers who speak out. To turn insights from the report into action, you can host a screening of the newly released film Without Shade, Without Rest. Funded through Working Films’ Docs…
Announcing the 2025 Docs in Action Film Fund Recipients
We are living through a time defined by intensifying threats to basic rights, safety, and democracy itself. Yet even as political violence rises and divisions deepen, people everywhere are organizing, supporting each other, and imagining a different future. Amplifying stories of resistance matters now more than ever, as these threats have been steadily growing and will continue to worsen without deliberate and collective action. We need to demonstrate how solidarity and collective care and action can counter the growing dangers we face. More than just a call to defense, these…