American Documentary, Untitled Filmmaker Org (UFO), and Bird Street Productions have named the projects selected for the second edition of Shorts In-Session, a recurring work-in-progress program that helps short-form documentary makers refine their films with guidance from peers and industry experts. The new cohort will present at the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF).
Conceived as an open, community-driven forum, Shorts In-Session invites filmmakers with shorts in production or post-production to screen excerpts and discuss editorial choices in front of an expert panel and a festival audience. This year’s working committee includes UFO co-directors Sean Weiner, Arno Mokros and Martha Gregory; representatives from Bird Street Productions; and Opal H. Bennett, senior producer of POV Shorts at American Documentary. Organizers describe the session as a way to break the isolation of the edit room, connect artists with supportive industry leaders, and surface standout projects at a festival known for formally adventurous nonfiction.
The participating filmmakers reflect a range of practices within the short form. Rebecca Blandón, a Nicaraguan-American journalist and filmmaker from the Bronx, makes work about communities “hidden in plain sight”; her shorts have screened at major U.S. festivals and she has contributed reporting to PBS Frontline and The Boston Globe. Bianca Giaever, an independent radio journalist and filmmaker whose pieces have appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is the creator and host of the podcast Constellation Prize and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy-winning director, cinematographer and editor with credits across The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, CNN, Netflix and National Geographic; her projects include USA V SCOTT, the NYT Op-Doc This Is What a Post-Roe Abortion Looks Like, Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller, Netflix’s Explained and the feature Mija. Rounding out the group, filmmaker and writer Maia Wikler—also a Ph.D. candidate in Political Ecology at the University of Victoria and a National Geographic Explorer—focuses on memory, corporate accountability and climate justice; her short Walking Two Worlds premiered at Tribeca, and she recently attended the Woodstock Filmmakers Residency to advance her forthcoming Wild, Wild East.
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Beyond the showcase value, the initiative addresses a structural need in nonfiction: editing is often solitary, while breakthroughs typically emerge through rigorous conversation. By staging a public work-in-progress forum at CIFF, the partners aim to accelerate craft development, expand professional networks and amplify emerging voices at a time when short documentaries play an outsized role in cultural and civic discourse.
UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Org) focuses on giving time, space and money to under-resourced filmmakers through programs that prioritize in-person, inclusive community-building. Its core initiatives include a Short Film Lab at BAM for underrepresented early-career artists and a Family Filmmaker Residency at the Silver Sun Foundation in the Catskills that provides childcare alongside creative support. Bird Street Productions develops documentary shorts and features with a mandate to amplify diverse perspectives and provoke civic reflection. American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc)—the nonprofit behind POV and POV Shorts on PBS—presents contemporary, socially relevant nonfiction across broadcast, digital and community platforms, pairing distribution with engagement strategies that translate stories into dialogue, education and participation.
Event date: Friday, September 12, 2025.
