Documist is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning production company based in New York City and Toronto. Our original films have garnered dozens of awards and screened at hundreds of festivals including Sundance, TIFF, SXSW, and CPH:DOX. Two of our original films,
The Territory and Nuisance Bear were named to the 2023 Academy Awards® shortlist for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short, respectively.
Documist brings together the integrity and curiosity of journalism with the craft and creativity of cinema. Our goal is to make films that communicate the messy, complicated world we live in, and we believe in storytelling that not only reflects this reality, but also helps shape it.
Impact
We look for projects that invite audiences to get involved and help move us towards a world with more empathy, compassion, and justice.
Recently, THE TERRITORY helped push for the landmark EU Anti-Deforestation Act, and is in the process of co-developing a multimedia production hub within the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau territory in the Brazilian Amazon.
We work to give back to the communities we operate in, and make sure our films find distribution in the regions where they were produced. In The Territory, that meant hundreds of community screenings, many of them in remote Indigenous territories, and for Nuisance Bear, that meant bringing a projector to the far reaches of the Canadian Arctic.
Our impact work has been generously supported by the Sundance Institute, Doc Society, Luminate, and Movies that Matter.
In addition to creating our own work, Documist has led filmmaking workshops and training on video-as-evidence for lawyers, activists, and human rights defenders around the world. Our teaching has been supported by The Aga Khan Graduate School of Media, Witness, and Human Rights Watch.
