- March 26, 2025
At CPH:DOX, U.S. and European doc leaders met to strategize new funding distribution models for political documentaries as major American streamers shift toward less politically risky content.
- February 15, 2025
Frustrations are mounting within the documentary community as Oscar voters continue to overlook celebrity-driven docs, highlighting deeper tensions around streamer influence and the future of social issue filmmaking in a polarized political climate.
- February 13, 2025
At the Berlinale’s kickoff, Todd Haynes called for creative resistance amid rising political tensions, emphasizing cinema’s role in confronting destabilization under Trump.
- January 23, 2025
While streaming platforms have grown wary of political documentaries, Sundance Film Festival continues to spotlight politically engaged documentaries like “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” and “Khartoum,” prioritizing their cultural significance over commercial appeal.
- December 18, 2024
A NATO report projects strong theatre attendance trends, with 85% of moviegoers planning to maintain or increase their theatre visits in 2025. Gen Z and Hispanic audiences show particularly strong engagement, with Gen Z ranking opening weekend moviegoing as their top leisure activity and Hispanic viewers being 11% more likely to attend opening weekend than the general population.
- September 19, 2024
Amazon is set to become the seventh member of the Motion Picture Association, marking a significant milestone in the convergence of entertainment and Big Tech.
- August 20, 2024
Distribution Advocates, a collective that reclaims power for independent storytellers, has launched the FilmADE Fund. The Fund supports up to 30 independent film releases annually through marketing strategies and distribution experiments.
- April 24, 2024
Writer Addie Morfoot reports on staff departures and government-funding issues surrounding the 2024 edition of the Hot Docs Film Festival.
- April 24, 2024
Variety Co-Editor-in-Chief Cynthia Littleton reports on the changing climate in Washington, DC, surrounding mergers and acquisitions and the enforcement of—and calls for revisions to—antitrust laws.
- April 5, 2024
Writer Addie Morfoot summarizes points made from a panel discussion called "Documentary Dealmaking" at the 2024 Full Frame Film Festival, highlighting the financial challenges faced by documentary filmmakers and the need for fair compensation, stronger alliances with industry organizations, and collective action to address systemic issues in the industry.
- March 13, 2024
Writer Anna Marie De La Fuente reports that Argentina's President Javier Milei is moving forward with his plan to defund INCAA, threatening the local film community, as well as national film festivals like Mar del Plata and film and TV market Ventana Sur, and prompting protests from the coalition Cine Argentino Unido.
- February 3, 2024
The 2024 Oscar documentary nominations, dominated by international filmmakers and with little major streamer-backed films, have sparked discourse on potential resentment in the documentary branch, a preference for social-issue documentaries, and considerations for altering the voting system.
- January 26, 2024
Writer Addie Morfoot details reports of strong interest in independently-made documentaries at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, which offered hope to sales agents about the trajectory of distribution for these projects.
- December 20, 2023
Writer Addie Morfoot reports on Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment and film distributor 1091 Pictures facing legal disputes centered on missing revenue-sharing payments to filmmakers, who are also trying to reclaim their distribution rights should 1091 Pictures' parent company go bankrupt.
- December 6, 2023
Writer Addie Morfoot describes the 2024 Oscar documentary shortlist race, with fewer streamer-backed films opening up possibilities for filmmakers utilizing smaller awards campaign budgets.
- October 13, 2023
Writer Todd Spangler reports that Best Buy will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs in early 2024, aligning with a broader decline in physical media sales.
- October 11, 2023
Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton discusses how the 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike exposed the flaws in the industry's bargaining system, and proposes the need for a process to integrate streaming-era economic structures into contracts, as well as for ongoing communication between labor and management.
- April 1, 2022
Freemantle's global head of documenaries, Mandy Chang, spoke at at the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival (CPH: DOX), about how streaming platforms stick with true crime, sport, and celebrity-driven stories so that they become mainstream and popular, essentially locking out opportunities for other, perhaps viewed as "challenging," documentaries.
