Festival Overview

In recent years, the creative landscape of films inspired by investigative reporting has flowered in unexpected and exciting ways, and across a variety of genres and platforms.

Yet this flourishing of creativity comes just as the rights of journalists and visual storytellers are challenged on nearly every level—legally, financially, logistically and in terms of safety. And despite their common ground, journalists and filmmakers often remain strangers to each other. They tend to operate in distinct silos within their own ecosystems, missing out on the critical opportunity to interact and engage in an exchange of ideas, resources, and best practices.
“Every city in America should have an investigative film festival.”

This is where Double Exposure fits in.

Double Exposure fills a significant void in a burgeoning field, providing a bridge between two intersecting but divergent communities—traditional investigative journalists and visual storytellers. It opens an unprecedented space for filmmakers and investigative journalists to explore common issues, and to seed new forms of inspiration and collaboration.

This three-day event pairs a film festival showcasing the best new films inspired by investigative journalism with a concurrent symposium for working journalists and filmmakers, giving them an opportunity to connect not only with each other, but with producers, editors, funders, and experts who can advance their work.

Double Exposure casts this evolving body of work toward recognition as a coherent artistic vision. It ties audience appreciation for artistic output to the rights of reporters and filmmakers to pursue investigations in the public interest; it ties stirrings of artistic curiosity to practical consequences and groundbreaking storytelling to policy changes.