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Reality Check Forum 2026 / Panel

Persistence of Vision:

The Long Life of Documentary

What happens when a documentary leaves the festival circuit and begins to live in the world?

For many independent filmmakers, the premiere is only the beginning. Today’s documentaries move through an expansive and unpredictable ecosystem — theatrical screenings, streaming platforms, public television, classrooms, grassroots organizing networks, community spaces, social media, and live events that extend a film’s reach far beyond its initial release. Increasingly, a film’s lasting significance is shaped not simply by scale or visibility, but by the depth of engagement it fosters with audiences and communities over time.

Bringing together filmmakers and impact practitioners whose work has circulated through these spaces in strikingly different ways, this panel explores how documentaries sustain public life beyond conventional commercial pathways. From labor organizing and LGBTQ+ advocacy to environmental activism and global debates around technology and ethics, the conversation considers how films are carried forward by educators, organizers, advocates, and audiences who transform viewing into participation. The panel will also explore how documentaries can become spaces for difficult public dialogue — creating shared ground for communities to confront division, engage disagreement, and navigate urgent political and cultural tensions together.

Moving beyond familiar discussions of distribution strategy and “impact campaigns,” PERSISTENCE OF VISION asks what it means for documentaries to truly persist — not simply to be watched, but to remain active within culture, civic life, and collective memory.

Mia Bruno

Mia Bruno

President, Fourth Act Film

Mia Bruno is a distribution producer and founder of Fourth Act Film, a company that supports independent films through theatrical, hybrid, and self-directed releases without taking rights. Fourth Act partners with filmmakers to manage booking, marketing, sales, and non-theatrical distribution, reflecting today’s increasingly flexible, filmmaker-driven models.

She has worked across narrative and documentary films on theatrical releases, awards campaigns, and educational distribution. Mia’s work emphasizes transparency and filmmaker agency, helping teams better understand the costs, opportunities, and tradeoffs of distribution so that it becomes a deliberate creative phase rather than a reactive process.

Recent projects include HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY, COEXISTENCE, MY ASS!, ALL THAT’S LEFT OF YOU, and the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning NAVALNY.

Sandi DuBowski

Sandi DuBowski

Director

Sandi DuBowski is the Director/Producer of Sabbath Queen, Director/Producer of Trembling Before G-D, Producer of A Jihad For Love, and Co-Producer of Budrus. His award-winning work has screened at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, and Toronto, theatrically released in 150 cities, and broadcast on ZDF/Arte, BBC, Channel 4, and PBS. In 2020, he was invited to join the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. DuBowski spearheaded a groundbreaking impact campaign with the award-winning Trembling Before G-D, personally conducting 850 live events for over 250,000 people, which changed the lives of countless individuals, their families, religious leaders, and communities around the world. Feature stories on the project appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Globe and Mail, and BBC News. From 2009-2016, DuBowski worked with over 125 of the world’s best social justice documentaries as the Outreach Director of Doc Society’s Good Pitch. He is a Co-Founder of The Creative Resistance, a collective of media makers who create award-winning political ads and design. In the mid-1990s, he began his media and activism work at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, focused on the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement.

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Shalini Kantayya

Director, Love Apptually

Shalini Kantayya is a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose fiction and nonfiction work explores the intersection of science, technology, and storytelling. Her film TIKTOK, BOOM. was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection of the SXSW Film Festival. Her critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival film CODED BIAS was broadcast nationally on Independent Lens and released globally on Netflix in 2021. The film received nominations for the Critics Choice and NAACP Image Awards Awards, and won Best Director at the Social Impact Media Awards and the Visionary Filmmaker Award at GlobeDocs Film Festival. Both TIKTOK, BOOM. and CODED BIAS received Emmy nominations.

Her debut feature, CATCHING THE SUN, was released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016, with executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio, and was named a The New York Times Critics’ Pick. Shalini has also directed for National Geographic’s series Breakthrough, executive produced by Ron Howard, as well as episodes of NOVA and projects for YouTube Originals. She is a TED Fellows Fellow, a Fulbright Program Scholar, and a Concordia Studio Artist Fellow.

Brandon Kramer

Brandon Kramer

Filmmaker

Brandon Kramer is a Washington, DC-based filmmaker and co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures alongside his brother, Lance Kramer. Most recently, he directed HOLDING LIAT, which won the Best Documentary Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, was shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Awards, and broadcast on BBC Storyville. His previous directing credits include THE FIRST STEP, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival; CITY OF TREES, which broadcast on PBS and streamed on Netflix; and the Webby Award-winning documentary series THE MESSY TRUTH, which premiered on CNN.
Jess Kwan

Jess Kwan

Senior Vice President of The Concordia Fellowship, Concordia Studio

Jess Kwan is Senior Vice President of The Concordia Fellowship at Concordia Studio. Based in New York, she manages year-round virtual and in-person programming and helps determine the Fellowship’s ongoing operational and strategic priorities. Jess advises Fellows on creative, financing, and distribution approaches for their nonfiction films, and she represents the Fellowship at domestic and international film festivals, markets, and industry panels. Jess was previously COO at Fork Films and, before that, spent five years at Archer Gray, a media and film production company, building and leading its documentary financing arm.

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Mars Verrone

Director, Buckskin

Mars Verrone is an award-winning filmmaker, musician, and educator from Los Angeles, CA, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. As a first-time producer, Mars produced the Oscar-shortlisted feature documentary UNION (dir. Stephen Maing, Brett Story), which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition and won a Special Jury Prize for “The Art of Change.” The film was distributed by PBS POV and the Criterion Channel. Mars received a Cinema Eye Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production.

In 2022, Mars directed and produced the award-winning short documentary GOLDEN VOICE, which continues to screen at LGBTQ+ festivals and events worldwide. Mars is a Sundance Documentary Producers Fellow, NBC Original Voices Artist Mentor and Fellow, PGA Create Fellow, Firelight Media Impact Fellow, Brown Girls Doc Mafia Sustainable Artist Fellow, Dear Producer Mentee, and was selected for DOC NYC’s 2024 “40 Under 40” cohort. Their work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, and the International Documentary Association, among others.