Beyond Resilience is a series of online screenings, essays, and curated conversations that explore the challenges, strategies, and experiences of creating and distributing work during periods of social transformation.
From the beginning of artistic practice, documentation and cinema have been used by filmmakers, in partnership with their communities, to weather periods of deep crisis. Through colonization, genocide, mass censorship, political upheaval, recession, warfare, and disease, the work of film has been to bear witness, seek justice, survive and ultimately find strength and expression through the collective.
Our slate or programming takes a global and historical view of films created by filmmakers of color during critical periods of disaster, seeking to learn from the filmmaker, their community, and the resilience born from collective experiences.
The Beyond Resilience Series is sponsored by Open Society Foundations. Beyond Resilience is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Find upcoming events in the Beyond Resilience series as well as recordings of past events on our Events page. Read essays from our Beyond Resilience series on our Medium page.
A panel discussion about co-creating documentary films with justice involved communities.
A Beyond Resilience roundtable featuring Muslim filmmakers on ethics & accountability in the documentary ecosystem.
Firelight Media hosted a special edition of the Beyond Resilience series at the Sundance Film Festival 2022.
Firelight Media hosted a virtual screening of Christine Turner’s documentary short film "Lynching Postcards: 'Token of a Great Day.'"
Join Firelight Media and New Orleans Film Festival for a special Beyond Resilience panel on wellness and sustainability for filmmakers.
Firelight Media and WORLD Channel present a free virtual screening of the new short film 'This Body,' directed by Zac Manuel as part of the Hindsight series.
A livestream Q&A with 'Death Is Our Business' filmmaker Jacqueline Olive and special guests on the one-year anniversary of its filming in New Orleans.
Firelight Media hosted a Beyond Resilience screening + livestream Q&A with filmmaker Dilsey Davis to celebrate the digital premiere of the Hindsight documentary short film series.
Firelight Media hosted a conversation about what filmmaker-centric leadership could look like, and the possibilities for industry-wide structural change in this moment of upheaval.
How does a documentary filmmaker fulfill their role in the midst of a pandemic and an uprising? Is it possible to transform our collective COVID-19 constraints into new creative approaches? What are the ethical considerations we must grapple with? How do we move beyond journalistic standards and root our work in an ethics of care?
Firelight Media joined The Movement for Black Lives' national call to action on June 19 with a panel conversation that explored the history of Juneteenth and the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, and grappled with the path toward economic justice for Black America.
As physical distancing continues to be the new norm, how can we still make an impact when apart? Sonya Childress, senior fellow at the Perspective Fund, takes us through case studies of documentary film campaigns that have launched in this moment and raise key questions around audience access, care, and how to reach social justice impact goals.
A live event featuring a music set by DJ Frotasia to give our community the opportunity to dance, sing, and shout during a time of tremendous difficulty.
Conversations on representation, labor, and equity featuring the work and perspectives of Undocumented storytellers.
A conversation with Black filmmakers on how they are navigating the ubiquitous images of Black trauma in this moment, documenting Black life, and forging new cinematic languages, practices, and formal approaches.
The recent announcement that golfing icon Tiger Woods would be the subject of a two-part HBO documentary series set in motion a heated debate in the documentary industry about equity, power, and BIPOC filmmakers' demands for structural change.
A conversation to lift up the life and legacy of the former Congressman with inside stories and reflections on his leadership.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020, presented at the International Documentary Association’s (IDA) Getting Real conference.
On November 17, 2020, as part of DOC NYC Live, Firelight Media presented a special edition of its Beyond Resilience Series.
On Thursday, March 25 at 3pm ET, Firelight Media presented a virtual screening and livestream Q&A centering women, non-binary, and AAPI filmmakers and artists behind IN THE MAKING, Firelight Media’s documentary short film series in partnership with PBS American Masters.
On Friday, April 23 at 3pm ET, Firelight Media presented a virtual panel discussion about the awards system for documentary films.
On Thursday, May 20 at 5pm ET, Firelight Media and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) presented a special edition of the Beyond Resilience Series at CAAMFest 2021 – “More Than One Lens.”
On the eve of Juneteenth, and in honor of Black Music Month,Firelight Media hosted a Beyond Resilience event celebrating music documentaries by and about Black artists.
