“Memory is a powerful tool of resistance.”
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
From the Executive Director
In just a few weeks, it will be one year since the passing of beloved producer and archivist Ann Bennett. The Ann Bennett Visionary Producer’s Prize has been designed to be awarded each year to a mid-career digital archivist and producer whose work uplifts the values of community, justice, innovation, and inclusivity, as Ann did every day. Prize recipients receive $5,000 and opportunities for collaboration, mentorship, and exhibition with the Alliance for Media Arts + Culture throughout the year. Our hope is that the Ann Bennett Prize will help celebrate Ann’s enduring contributions to the field, illuminate the urgency of archival media work, and catalyze the career of a visionary archivist working in community.
We are thrilled to announce the first winner of the Ann Bennett Visionary Producers Prize, Marcellus Armstrong!
Marcellus is an artist, filmmaker, media programmer, and educator. His work focuses on archival and material notions of Blackness and queerness. Since 2019, Marcellus has been collecting oral histories as part of an ongoing film and archival project, Talking Walls. A short film created from the project was released in 2025, winning Best Audience Short Documentary and Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at BlackStar Film Festival 2025. In 2018, he created “The 48203 Dance Show,” a community-based dance show project centered around the archive of WGPR-TV33 in Detroit. He continues to be rooted within participatory community media, working with Scribe Video Center, Detroit Sound Conservancy, and as a film professor at Temple University.
Save the date for the upcoming Power of Storytelling Virtual Film Festival!! On Saturday December 13, we’ll be hosting this online youth media festival with music, live VJ interviews, and juried short films from around the world. In 2026, we’ll be inviting members and partners to co-curate in-person festival screenings with films, panels and performances from their own communities. We all know that “youth media” gets a bad rap — these films are really really good.
As always, please join the Alliance, check out the amazingness of the organizations and artists in the Alliance network, give to your local media arts organizations, and please VOTE.
~ Wendy
wendy@thealliance.media
Notes from the Field
The Root Experience Festival Upcoming in Spokane
Next month, at The Magic Lantern in Spokane, Washington, the nonprofit The Root Experience will be hosting their 2025 film festival. The BIPOC-led organization seeks to use the arts to uplift underrepresented voices in Spokane, focusing on culture, storytelling, and community. The festival will include an honoring of local Indigenous leaders, performances, vendors, and film screenings, and will run from Friday, November 14th, through Saturday, November 16th.
Wide Angle Youth Media Featured in Recent Article An article published this month by Technical.ly explored how young Baltimore artists relate to artificial intelligence in their creative work. The piece features multiple photographs of Wide Angle Youth Media and includes insights from student council member Aaliyah Clark, who discussed using Microsoft Copilot and Canva AI to help guide and refine her artistic process.
Grants and Calls
Women Directing Membership
SeriesFest and Shondaland are hosting a competition for female film directors. The winner will have the opportunity to receive a mentorship experience, shadowing the director of a Shondaland original series and gaining experience on a professional television set.
Deadline: October 31st
Sundance Collab Cultural Impact Residency
The Sundance Collab Cultural Impact Residency is a six-month online program (March–August 2026) supporting early-career, underrepresented storytellers whose work focuses on social impact. Up to eight fellows will receive mentorship, peer support, and educational opportunities.
Deadline: November 3rd
NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship
Three screenwriters working on climate-focused screenplays will be chosen for the National Resource Defense Council Storytelling Fellowship. The fellowship will provide $20,000 to recipients to go towards revisions of a feature screenplay or pilot.
Deadline: November 28th
Workshops, Festivals, Convenings
Black Harvest Film Festival, November 7th-16th, Chicago, IL
New York Short Film Festival, November 7th-13th, New York, NY
Round Top Film Festival, November 6th-9th, Round Top, TX
Doc NYC, November 12th-30th, New York, NY
Media Policy Watch
by Priscilla Genet
Earlier this month, on October 12th, amidst a widespread shutdown of organizations reliant on federal funds, the Smithsonian Institution closed all 21 of the museums it operates. The shutdown was the result of a standstill reached between Congress and the federal government over budget allocations. The Smithsonian, which receives about 62% of its funding from federal sources, had continued operating temporarily on prior-year funds since the shutdown began on October 1st, but ultimately had to close after those funds were exhausted.
One other institution affected by the shutdown was the National Gallery of Art. This interrupted a significant exhibition of Australian Indigenous art, The Stars We Do Not See. The Australian Financial Review described the exhibition as “the largest traveling exhibition of Indigenous art ever to leave Australia,” and reported that artists involved expressed “deep disappointment over the delay.”
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, however, remains open. According to NPR, it still has available funding through Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocated $257 million for improvements and maintenance to the Center.
Job Bank
President of Film Independent, Los Angeles, CA
President and Chief Executive Officer, Children’s Discovery Museum San Jose, San Jose, CA
Executive Director, Museum of Craft and Design,San Francisco, CA
Director of Education and Community Engagement, Ogunquit Playhouse, Brooklyn, NYmore jobs on the Job Bank