Dear friends,

 

Here's a number to sit with: 80% of people want stronger climate action.

Most of them have no idea they're the majority. 

Why? Because the media isn't telling them.

 

Look at the maths. Climate coverage is now 38% below its 2021 peak. Across all of 2025, US broadcast networks managed just 505 minutes of it, eight hours, for an entire year, on the story that will define the century. Meanwhile PragerU poured $29.4m into advertising last year alone. The silence isn't an accident. It's a strategy and someone is paying for it.

 

So let's be clear. This is not a comms problem. It's a systems problem, one that public interest media publishers + curators as well as climate funders need to reckon with. We've unpacked this moment in a new long-form piece ahead of London Climate Action Week (LCAW) and the short version is this: culture is the highest-leverage intervention point in the whole system. It's the ace card. The disinformation industry has known this for years and bet accordingly. 

So what is our collective response? 

Yes, let's improve our analysis. Meanwhile, one shorefire cure for manufactured scarcity and individual overwhelm is real company and real resources. 

 

So this June, we're offering both.

 

First, the gathering. Join the team at Doc Society + board member Fatima Ibrahim of Green New Deal Rising as we put culture front and centre at LCAW. Celebrating the filmmakers championing stories of environment and climate justice and connecting them with allies from across civil society. If you're in London on Wednesday 24th June and free between 6 PM - 9 PM BST, email climate@docsociety.org by June 19 and we'll share details.

 

And second, the money. Our Climate Story Fund 2026 call for applications is now open. More on this below!

 

This month's track: Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Aces. Hammond organ soul-jazz from Seattle, holding its nerve and laying down the groove. Press play friends. 

 

With love and rockets, 

 

Team Doc Society 

We are now accepting submissions for the 2026 cycle, with grants of up to $125,000 for independent non-fiction films, series, podcasts and radio docs that help audiences envision the just transition and act to make it happen. We welcome projects from late production through rough cut, as well as completed projects seeking impact funding. 

This year we're especially keen to support non-fiction shorts, which can apply from late development onwards with grants of up to $40,000. Selected grantees receive ongoing support through production and impact. Open to emerging and established creators worldwide.

 

Q&A Webinar: Monday 22 June 2026, 3 PM BST. Register here.

Submissions deadline: Monday 6 July 2026, 2 PM BST.  More info and apply here!

Friends, on 9th June, the The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a formal investigation into the Paramount-WBD deal. A consolidation which will impact UK jobs: WBD employs thousands across the UK, at four major sites, and those jobs are on the line. This is about who controls news: The CNN and CBS news archives hold over four million clips spanning 45 years. The footage of elections, wars, and history that journalists and documentary makers rely on to hold power to account.  This is about the future of cinema: with fewer indie films getting made, the bold and the risky stories are the first to be cut. 

 

The window to comment is tight. Decisions will be made by early July - so don’t delay. Read more about the impact and write to the regulator this week. 

Your voice // our collective pressure matters.

Plenty on the move across the funds this month, folks. The BFI Doc Society RAD (Research & Development) and Development Fund open for Round 1 on 24th June, 2026 and close on 5th August, 2026. The Expanded Screen Fund closes at 1 PM on 22 June, and Made of Truth, our short film fund with BFI NETWORK, closes at 1 PM on 1 July. All made possible by National Lottery funding.

Explore the funds and apply here.

An afternoon dedicated to creative non-fiction filmmaking at The MAC in Belfast for Creative Documentary Making in Focus, in partnership with Docs Ireland and open to documentary talent across the UK and the island of Ireland. 

 

We'll open with an introduction to our funds. The afternoon then kicks off with a spotlight on creative non-fiction shorts - Roisin Agnew (The Ban), Ruairi Bradley (We Beg to Differ) and Sam Howard (Relic), hosted by Ross McClean. 

 

Jamie Allan, our Talent Development Manager, then hosts a panel on the festival landscape with programmers from Visions du Réel, Square Eyes, Galway Film Fleadh and Jihlava IDFF. 

 

Hannah Bush Bailey, our Senior Film & Production Executive, closes with Ed Sayer on his BFI Doc Society-backed feature Super Nature. Thursday 18 June, 2 PM - 5 PM BST. 

Drinks reception after. We look forward to seeing you there. More details and register here.

We're once again teaming up with the BFI Network to support 15 early-career UK directors, and producers and writers, across documentary and fiction developing their debut features. Participants get festival accreditation, industry talks, filmmaker Q&As and a follow-up weekend of masterclasses in spring 2027. Made possible with National Lottery funding. Deadline: Wednesday 24 June 2026, 11 AM BST. More info and apply here.

Two BFI Doc Society Made of Truth fund supported shorts have their world premieres at Docs Ireland this month, both in the Short Irish Documentary Competition, screening on Saturday 20 June, and we'll be there cheering them on.

I Didn't Want to Be Here, dir. Fionnuala McCormack, prod. Rosie McNally. A women's group meeting becomes a stage for reclamation and healing through shared experiences of trauma, addiction and the justice system. Competition Shorts: Programme 1, 1 PM BST.

 

Children of Here, dir. Rabie Mustapha, prod. Chris Kelly. The camera is handed to Generation Alpha to ask how the next generation sees the world. Competition Shorts: Programme 2, 3:15 PM BST. Big claps to both teams. See the full Docs Ireland programme.

It's official. How to Build a Library, dir. & prod. Maia Lekow and Christopher King, lands on PBS as part of POV's new season on Monday 24 August at 10 PM ET. 

 

The film is supported by our New Perspectives Fund and follows Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka as they take Nairobi's McMillan Memorial Library, closed to Black Kenyans until 1958, and rebuild it brick by brick into a public space for the city's readers, writers and dreamers.  To reach POV's audience on US public television is such big news and huge congrats team!! Mark your calendars and catch it live, or stream it on PBS.

We mark it the way we know best, by backing the storytellers reshaping how queer lives are told. Queer Now is more than convenings, it's a strategic intervention: against rising anti-gender movements, we're moving the story away from "survival" and towards collective power, narrative sovereignty and unapologetic joy. As Twiggy Pucci Garçon and Beadie Finzi remind us, in a hostile environment our stories find their way through community, tenacity and creativity.

 

Over the next six months we'll be dropping exclusive insights from our recent convening. Need a dash of queer storytelling magic? Dive into our LGBTQIA+ film playlist here.

The Impact Field Guide is our living toolkit for filmmakers pushing for change. Elev8Docs has published fresh data on marketing documentaries to diverse audiences. Across 2025, they ran 8 marketing experiments supporting 27 documentaries by filmmakers of colour, distilled into case studies and actionable strategies for the field. Elev8Docs is a project of Color Congress, the membership organisation supporting non-fiction filmmakers, leaders and audiences of colour across the US and US islands. Explore the Elev8Docs resource, dive into the guide, and suggest a resource.

Our GIPA Regional Ambassadors are hosting a public webinar exploring how impact strategies are evolving across South East Asia's growing film and impact storytelling ecosystem.

 

Speakers include Anupama Mandloi (GIPA Regional Ambassador, India), Sofia Setyorini (GIPA Regional Ambassador, Indonesia), Ian Yee (The Fourth, Malaysia), and Brenda Denker (Freedom Film Network, Malaysia), with welcome remarks from Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala (GIPA Advisor, Philippines). Wednesday 24 June, 11:30 AM IST / 1 PM WIB / 2 PM MYT. Free and open to all. Register here.

This month's provocation by Gita Saedi Kiely is such a heartfelt piece, given the times we are in. Do have a read, and if inspired, please do share your thoughts in the comments. "No matter where you live, this is not life as usual, and if you are not speaking up, you are not saying enough. I hope you are finding ways to be heard and tell stories that matter - they are as important as they’ve ever been, and your bravery and courage will yield better tomorrows." Read the full piece

There are some brilliant opportunities circulating across the field at the moment, from development funding to labs and festival calls. Dive in and explore what might be a fit for your project!

 

IDFA Forum and IDFA DocLab Forum - Amsterdam's co-production and co-financing markets are open for entries. The Forum backs artistic feature documentaries seeking co-producers and financiers; DocLab Forum does the same for XR, immersive and interactive work. Both run during IDFA, 15 -18 November 2026, with entries through MyIDFA. DocLab Forum closes 15 August.

Find out more here.

 

Grierson-Percy Documentary Grant - A new finishing fund from the Grierson Trust, made possible by a donation from Norma Percy, awarding two to three grants of £10,000–£25,000 this year. It's for UK-based independent documentary makers with films on political or international crises that promise riveting storytelling and surprising insight, in the final stretch with principal photography done and the offline edit underway. Funding goes toward essential finishing costs. Deadline: 5 PM BST, Tuesday 30 June 2026. Apply here.

 

BFI International: TIFF Producer Delegation - BFI International and the BFI Inclusion team have opened a call for producers identifying as Black and/or as part of the Global Majority to attend TIFF: The Market in Toronto. You'll need at least one lead Producer credit on a completed feature or TV project released or broadcast commercially in the past five years. Spread the word and point any suitable producers our way. Deadline: 10 AM, Thursday 18 June 2026. Read the guidelines and apply.

 

Film London: Upstream - Film London's Upstream connects feature projects in development with the financiers and partners who can move them forward, feeding into its Production Finance Market. Deadline: Monday 22 June 2026. Find out more about how it works, and submit your project here. 

 

8 Above Distribution Lab - Led by veteran distribution innovator Jon Reiss, the next cohort of the 8 Above Distribution Lab kicks off this summer. This weekly immersive programme guides you through building a full distribution and marketing plan and budget for your film, with guest workshops from industry experts and a community of filmmakers around you. Deadline: 24 June. Sign up to meet Jon and learn more. 

 

QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab 2026 - has opened applications for their 2026 Screenwriting Lab, with eight spots for emerging queer and trans writers and writer-directors from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and their diasporas working on fiction feature projects in early development. A vital space for stories that are too often shut out. Apply now and share with your networks!

 

IDA's Getting Real '26 conference open for registration - IDA's seventh biennial Getting Real conference returns 20 to 23 July 2026, hybrid out of Los Angeles and online worldwide. This year's theme is Terms of Service, with three programme tracks (Investment, Inspiration, Impact) examining the gap between our current industrial reality and an expanding world of documentary practice. The largest peer-to-peer doc gathering of its kind in North America. Register here. Use code EARLYBIRDGR26 to save $100 off regular-priced All Access Passes.