Live Case Study: No Time to Fail
Join us this Friday for an examination of how the release gave voice to our largely invisible, yet completely indispensable election workers.
This Friday I will be conducting a live case study webinar about the feature documentary No Time to Fail with filmmakers Margo Guernsey and Sara Archambault. No Time to Fail shines a light on the heroic efforts of local election administrators. When I programmed this case study - I imagined that we might be in the throws of another endless series of election challenges and stop the steal paranoia - calling into focus those unsung heroes working our elections. That clearly is not the case.
However, as Guernsey and Archambault point out that it will be tougher and tougher for left leaning political films to find distribution. They have a number of important lessons to help all filmmakers including:
Building effective partnerships.
Engaging with a niche audience is a success not a failure
How to effectively communicate what you are doing with the film.
Learning how to eventize your release so that not all the work is on the filmmaking team.
And more - Guernsey will also discuss how she used the lessons from NTTF for the release of her next film The Philadelphia Eleven which has had over 400 community screenings since September 2023 and with another 4-5 each month - a year later - see “long tail”.
Sara Archambault is an independent documentary producer. Recent producing credits include the Indie Spirits-nominated RIOTSVILLE, USA (Magnolia/Hulu); TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES (MUBI); A DECENT HOME (America ReFramed) and RICHLAND (in festivals). Her award-winning films have shown in festivals around the world and received support from the Sundance Film Institute, Ford Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, SFFILM, Catapult Film Fund, IDA, Perfective Fund and Democracy Fund among others. Sara was a 2020 Impact Partners Producing Fellow, a 2013 Sundance Creative Producers Lab Fellow and was named the 2020 SF DocFest Vanguard Awardee. Sara serves as the Program Director for the Shorenstein Center’s Documentary Film in the Public Interest program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance and a board member of The Flaherty.
Margo Guernsey (she/her) is a documentary Director/Producer, impact strategist, and founder of Time Travel Productions LLC. Her films include Councilwoman(America ReFramed 2019) and The Philadelphia Eleven (in festivals). Prior to film, Margo worked as a union organizer, non-profit development director, and Spanish/English translator. Margo’s work has received support from Chicken & Egg Pictures, ITVS, Catapult Film Fund, GoodPitch, Perspective Fund, Ford Foundation, LEF Moving Image Fund and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She speaks both Spanish and English and holds an MFA in Film (University of Miami), MA in History (UMass Amherst), and a BA in History (Brown University). Margo teaches producing as affiliated faculty at Emerson College and is a member of the Documentary Producers Association.
I look forward to seeing you there.