The annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival unspools this weekend in downtown Durham.
In recent years, Full Frame has grown to become of the leading documentary film festivals in North America, with a reputation for high-quality presentation and collegial Southern friendliness.
But Full Frame is just part of a larger local documentary filmmaking scene in Durham and the Triangle.
The festival itself is a program of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), which offers undergraduate classes, continuing education courses and an MFA program in documentary arts. Part of CDS’s stated mission is to bridge university and off-campus filmmaking communities.
Then there’s the Southern Documentary Fund (SDF), a Durham-based nonprofit and an increasingly key component of the local documentary scene. Founded in 2002 by a collective of North Carolina filmmakers, the SDF provides both financial and artistic support to filmmakers in the Triangle, the state and all over the South.
Rachel Raney is the executive director of the SDF and a longtime veteran of documentary production and public broadcasting. Before moving to North Carolina, she worked for years in California on independent films and the PBS series “Frontline.”
Raney says the SDF works in part as a “fiscal sponsor” for documentary filmmaking projects. The nonprofit does not itself award grants, but instead administers funds from other sources. “In the documentary film world, if you want to raise money – from foundations, wealthy individuals, government entities – you’re usually required to put the money through a nonprofit,” Raney explained.
The Southern Documentary Fund currently has 48 sponsored projects on its roster. “The projects come to us in different stages,” Raney said. “Sometimes people come to us for sponsorship before they’ve even picked up a camera. Sometimes they’ve shot a lot of footage and want to do some fund raising. They want to get their work out into the world.”
