We are very concerned about the future of Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and want to voice our enthusiastic support for its ongoing success.

For over two decades Full Frame has been a world-class showcase, helping to launch thousands of documentary films. Its reputation as an industry leader is widely recognized, with AMPAS designating it an Academy Award-qualifying festival and the Producer’s Guild of America designating it a PGA Award-qualifying festival.

But what makes Full Frame such a special – and irreplaceable – festival is the way it has consistently brought together and nourished the documentary community.

Documentary professionals: Full Frame attracts filmmakers from around the world to Durham -- many of whom come each year, even when they don’t have films showing in the festival. For filmmakers, it is as much a professional retreat as a festival. They know they will be able to watch each other’s new work and share ideas about the art, craft, business, and thorny ethical challenges of making documentary films. And they’ll be able to do it in an unusually open and supportive environment -- no velvet ropes or exclusive social events that require “knowing somebody” to get in.

Up-and-coming filmmakers: The festival also creates a spirit of mentorship between generations of filmmakers. Some of this happens informally -- in the courtyard between screenings, at panels, and at social gatherings. But it also happens through formal programs like the School of Doc, a free filmmaking program open to Durham Public School high school students; the Full Frame Fellows Program which has hosted hundreds of young filmmakers from colleges around the country including Duke, NCCU, UNC, Howard, NYU; and the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant.

Duke University: As one of the crown jewels of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, Full Frame fosters meaningful relationships between Duke students, professors, and the larger filmmaking community -- and it helps keep Duke on the map of the documentary world.

The community: The festival is enjoyed by thousands of local visitors who come to watch documentaries each year. And its outreach is extended through programs like The Road Show, which organizes free documentary screenings in Durham and communities across the state of North Carolina; and Teach the Teachers, a professional development program that helps Durham Public School teachers learn to use documentaries in their classrooms.

We are concerned that the festival was abruptly cancelled this year without explanation. And we are alarmed by reports of problems at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, which oversees the festival.

We worry that layoffs of Full Frame staff — and the possibility of further resignations — will cause so much institutional knowledge to be lost that soon it will become impossible to revive the festival we love so much.

We hope that Duke and the leadership at the Center for Documentary Studies will take to heart their roles as stewards of this important and unique festival and will work aggressively to get it back on track for next year.

Thank you very much.