On Monday, January 27, 4-6 pm MT at the Impact Lounge (Presented by Caspian), Prospector Square in Park City, Firelight Media and MacArthur Foundation hosted a panel discussion and reception featuring doc industry leaders at Sundance Film Festival.

Following an unprecedentedly contentious presidential election cycle in 2024, and one week after the 2025 U.S. Presidential Inauguration, join documentary industry luminaries for an urgent discussion about the state of our democracy. With renewed challenges to the rights of immigrants, funding for public media, freedom of speech, and programs dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ people and people of color – among other emergent issues – what role can documentary funders, commissioners, distributors, and filmmakers play in ensuring that the most vulnerable among us are given the tools, access, and platforms they need to ensure their voices are included in these national dialogues? And what role can the documentary industry play in using narrative change strategies to defend democratic principles that many U.S. citizens have taken for granted?

Panelists included Marcia Smith, filmmaker & co-founder of Firelight Media, a nonprofit organization that supports documentary filmmakers of color and celebrates 25 years in 2025; Vinnie Malhotra, president of Higher Ground, the production company co-founded by President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to lift up diverse voices in the entertainment industry; Geeta Gandbhir, director of The Perfect Neighbor (Sundance 2025) and co-founder of Beyond Inclusion, a BIPOC-led collective of nonfiction executives and filmmakers; and Carrie Lozano, president and CEO of ITVS, public media’s leading incubator and presenter of independent film. The event was moderated by Firelight Media Documentary Lab alum Cristina Ibarra, director of Infiltrators (Sundance 2019), 2021 MacArthur Fellow, and Co-Founder of Borderlands Studio, which challenges conventional narratives about the borderlands, and introduced by Kathy Im, director of Journalism & Media, MacArthur Foundation.