Details

Amy Goodman will moderate a 90-minute panel titled, DEMOCRACY IN DOCUMENTARY

The Woodstock Film Festival program reads,

As corporate news consolidation accelerates and independent journalism faces growing challenges, documentaries are filling a critical gap. Even as shifts within the documentary industry reshape how nonfiction stories are funded, distributed, and seen, the form remains a powerful force for public understanding and civic engagement. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, what role can documentaries play in strengthening an informed public – and what responsibility do filmmakers have in protecting democracy?

Panelists: Maite Alberdi (A Child Of My Own), Raney Aronson-Rath (Frontline), Carl Deal (Steal This Story, Please!), Stephen Maing (The Great Experiment), Pamela Yates (Borderland: The Line Within)

Carl Deal is an independent filmmaker. He directed and produced Steal This Story, Please!, Citizen Koch, and Oscar®-nominated Trouble the Water with longtime collaborator Tia Lessin. Deal has also produced and distributed several Michael Moore films.

Raney Aronson-Rath is an Oscar®-winning producer and a leading voice in documentary filmmaking and distribution as editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism documentary series. She also leads the GBH Documentary Unit, which includes Frontline, Nova, and American Experience. Aronson-Rath has spearheaded Frontline’s expansion into the theatrical documentary space with global reach. Producing more than 20 films each year on the defining issues of our time, select highlights during her tenure include: winning the Academy Award for 20 Days in Mariupol and receiving Academy Award nominations for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail and For Sama. Under her leadership, Frontline Features produced and distributed One in a Million, which follows the ten-year journey of a Syrian refugee and won the Sundance Audience Award and jury prize for directing. Aronson-Rath is also a producer on One In A Million.

Stephen Maing is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. His most recent films, Union (P.O.V./Criterion Channel) and Crime + Punishment (Hulu/IFC), won Special Jury Awards at the Sundance Film Festival and were shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Crime + Punishment also received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. He was story producer and an editor on the Academy Award®-winning documentary All The Empty Rooms (Netflix). His previous films, which he also directed, filmed and edited – High Tech, Low Life, The Surrender and Dirty Gold – have screened internationally, received numerous awards and were released on POV, Field of Vision and Netflix, respectively. Maing is the recipient of DOC NYC’s Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence, the Maysles Documentary Center’s Albie Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, United States Artists, Sundance Institute, and NBC Original Voices, as well as a World Press Photo Award, Pictures of the Year International Award, and IDA’s prestigious Courage Under Fire Award. He has worked as an adjunct professor and filmmaking mentor at numerous universities and organizations.

Maite Alberdi is a director, screenwriter, and producer from Santiago, Chile, considered one of the most notable and influential voices and talents in contemporary Latin American documentary filmmaking. From her earliest work, she showed a particular interest in exploring everyday life and discovering, in the simplest gestures, fascinating stories that surpass fiction. Short films such as Carrete Down (2004), Los Trapecistas (2005), and Las Peluqueras (2007) anticipated a cinematic perspective that would later fully develop in her debut feature The Lifeguard (2011). The film surprised audiences with its sensitivity and keen observation, marking the beginning of a distinguished international career. Her recognition grew with Tea Time (2014), a documentary that became the first work of its kind to be nominated for a Goya Award in the Best Ibero-American Film category.

Alberdi subsequently directed The Grown-Ups (2016), which portrays the adult lives of a group of people with Down Syndrome. In 2020, she achieved global reach with The Mole Agent, a feature documentary that earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary Feature. This milestone made Maite Alberdi the first Chilean woman nominated for a documentary film, and the film the first Chilean production to compete in that category.

Four years later, another of Maite Alberdi’s works would make history again. The Eternal Memory (2023), which portrays the story of journalist Augusto Góngora and his partner, actress Paulina Urrutia, after he receives an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, became the first Chilean film to win the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film, and also the highest-grossing documentary in Chilean cinema history. It received the Grand Jury Prize for Best International Documentary at Sundance and an Academy Award nomination. Most recently, Maite Alberdi also directed In Her Place, her first foray into fiction, which received a Goya Award nomination. A Child of My Own (2026), which had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, is her first documentary filmed entirely in Mexico.

Pamela Yates is the founder of Skylight, a non-profit organization that combines cinematic arts with the quest for justice to inspire the defense of human rights. She directed the Sundance Film Festival award winning When the Mountains Tremble; is the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning Witness to War; and the Director of State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism, which was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award and has been translated into 47 languages and broadcast in 154 countries. Her film Granito, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, was used as key forensic evidence in the genocide trial against Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala. Her third film in the Guatemalan trilogy, 500 YEARS had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, was broadcast on the Public Television series POV, and was selected for the Amazon Festival Stars program streamed around the world. Her most recent film that investigates the U.S. border-industrial complex, BORDERLAND | The Line Within, opened in 50 cities across the U.S. and is in high demand right now from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, Memphis to Chicago, as part of the movement to inform, activate, and strengthen communities aimed at stopping immigration abuses. It was awarded the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale University and the Inaugural Art of Activism Award from the Woodstock Film Festival. She is currently in production on the sequel: The Truth Tellers.

Moderator:

Amy Goodman hosts Democracy Now!, a daily, independent, award-winning news program airing worldwide, with millions of subscribers across social media platforms. She is a bestselling author, columnist, and the subject of the documentary Steal This Story, Please!, by directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal.

Organizer

• Woodstock Film Festival