With U.S. federal arts funding gutted, public media infrastructure under pressure, and media consolidation accelerating, the conditions under which documentary is made, distributed, and seen are now explicitly political questions. Sectors facing parallel pressures in local journalism, music, and the arts broadly have learned that fragmented advocacy loses; coalitions win. In this panel, we will hear from grassroots coalitions who have launched campaigns, won policy victories, and built field-wide political power where there was none to explore what cross-sector coalition-building looks like in practice. They will discuss how they identified leverage points, what has worked, and what it would take for documentary filmmakers to show up—and stay—as a political force.
Moderator: Michael Bracy (Policy in Focus)
Panelists: Brigid O'Shea (Documentary Association of Europe), Maya Chupkov (Common Cause), Jax Deluca (Future Film Coalition)
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Brigid O’Shea is a documentary consultant, helping documentary projects and filmmakers reach their full international potential and professional goals. Her international network spans the globe, working on all continents, with both emerging talents and industry veterans. She’s worked with ARTE on projects such as Generation Africa and Generation Ukraine, on festival strategy for these collections of films. Together with colleagues, she founded Documentary Association of Europe (DAE): a members’ network and support system for documentary filmmakers inside and outside of Europe that has grown to seven hundred members in just three years. She currently serves as the co-director of this organisation. She was head of DOK Industry Programme at DOK Leipzig and worked for the Berlin International Film Festival for more than ten years.
Maya Chupkov is the Senior Program Manager for Media & Technology at Common Cause, where she works at the intersection of media policy, civic engagement, and public-interest storytelling. Her work focuses on strengthening local information ecosystems, advancing public-interest media policy, supporting press freedom, and building cross-sector coalitions around civic media and democracy. In addition to her policy and advocacy work, Maya is a filmmaker, impact producer, podcaster, and founder of Proud Stutter, a nonprofit and storytelling platform amplifying the voices of people who stutter. She is currently co-directing a feature documentary with filmmakers Tessa Andrade and Christina Chin centered on Issac Bailey, a Black journalist and professor from Saint Stephen, South Carolina. The film explores race, disability, family history, incarceration, and resilience in the American South through the lens of Bailey’s life and experiences as a person who stutters. Maya is based in San Francisco.
Jax Deluca is a cultural strategist with more than two decades of leadership across public service and nonprofit arts organizations. She currently serves as Interim Executive Director of the Future Film Coalition (FFC), a newly established coalition advocating for funding, resources, and policy protections for the indie film sector by uniting thousands of filmmakers, cultural workers, and organizations. From 2016 to 2025, Jax served as Director of Film & Media Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she oversaw a federal funding portfolio and led national initiatives addressing the structural challenges facing independent film. Her work included launching the Independent Media Arts Group (IMAG) in partnership with Sundance Institute and BAVC Media, as well as producing field-leading research on infrastructure, creative technology, and the sustainability of the independent film sector. She is a Documentary Film in the Public Interest Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy (2025–2026).
Michael Bracy is an advocate, strategist, entrepreneur, and educator who works at the intersection of emerging technologies, culture, and public policy. In 2017, Michael co-founded the Music Policy Forum, a non-profit dedicated to catalyzing music ecosystems. He also co-founded and co-owns Misra Records and is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University. As a Founder Emeritus of the non-profit Future of Music Coalition, Michael spent fifteen years bridging the gap between the music community and policymakers with a particular focus on consolidation of the commercial radio industry, protecting and expanding non-commercial radio, solidifying legal structures to facilitate webcasting, increasing artist access to health care and protecting innovation through strong net neutrality regulations. In the film community, Michael created and leads Policy in Focus, a boutique consultancy that helps creators maximize their social impact, revenue, and audience through a service-based model prioritizing film teams, film participants, and the broader advocacy ecosystem in which the project lives. Through Michael’s public affairs firm, Bracy Tucker Brown, he has provided representation and strategic counsel to a wide range of public agencies and cultural institutions including the Cities of Albuquerque, Tucson, and Boise, NEA, American Ballet Theatre, NPR, Native Public Media, International Documentary Association, Colorado Creative Industries and Fractured Atlas.
With U.S. federal arts funding gutted, public media infrastructure under pressure, and media consolidation accelerating, the conditions under which documentary is made, distributed, and seen are now explicitly political questions. Sectors facing parallel pressures in local journalism, music, and the arts broadly have learned that fragmented advocacy loses; coalitions win. In this panel, we will hear from grassroots coalitions who have launched campaigns, won policy victories, and built field-wide political power where there was none to explore what cross-sector coalition-building looks like in practice. They will discuss how they identified leverage points, what has worked, and what it would take for documentary filmmakers to show up—and stay—as a political force.
Moderator: Michael Bracy (Policy in Focus)
Panelists: Brigid O'Shea (Documentary Association of Europe), Maya Chupkov (Common Cause), Jax Deluca (Future Film Coalition)
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Brigid O’Shea is a documentary consultant, helping documentary projects and filmmakers reach their full international potential and professional goals. Her international network spans the globe, working on all continents, with both emerging talents and industry veterans. She’s worked with ARTE on projects such as Generation Africa and Generation Ukraine, on festival strategy for these collections of films. Together with colleagues, she founded Documentary Association of Europe (DAE): a members’ network and support system for documentary filmmakers inside and outside of Europe that has grown to seven hundred members in just three years. She currently serves as the co-director of this organisation. She was head of DOK Industry Programme at DOK Leipzig and worked for the Berlin International Film Festival for more than ten years.
Maya Chupkov is the Senior Program Manager for Media & Technology at Common Cause, where she works at the intersection of media policy, civic engagement, and public-interest storytelling. Her work focuses on strengthening local information ecosystems, advancing public-interest media policy, supporting press freedom, and building cross-sector coalitions around civic media and democracy. In addition to her policy and advocacy work, Maya is a filmmaker, impact producer, podcaster, and founder of Proud Stutter, a nonprofit and storytelling platform amplifying the voices of people who stutter. She is currently co-directing a feature documentary with filmmakers Tessa Andrade and Christina Chin centered on Issac Bailey, a Black journalist and professor from Saint Stephen, South Carolina. The film explores race, disability, family history, incarceration, and resilience in the American South through the lens of Bailey’s life and experiences as a person who stutters. Maya is based in San Francisco.
Jax Deluca is a cultural strategist with more than two decades of leadership across public service and nonprofit arts organizations. She currently serves as Interim Executive Director of the Future Film Coalition (FFC), a newly established coalition advocating for funding, resources, and policy protections for the indie film sector by uniting thousands of filmmakers, cultural workers, and organizations. From 2016 to 2025, Jax served as Director of Film & Media Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she oversaw a federal funding portfolio and led national initiatives addressing the structural challenges facing independent film. Her work included launching the Independent Media Arts Group (IMAG) in partnership with Sundance Institute and BAVC Media, as well as producing field-leading research on infrastructure, creative technology, and the sustainability of the independent film sector. She is a Documentary Film in the Public Interest Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy (2025–2026).
Michael Bracy is an advocate, strategist, entrepreneur, and educator who works at the intersection of emerging technologies, culture, and public policy. In 2017, Michael co-founded the Music Policy Forum, a non-profit dedicated to catalyzing music ecosystems. He also co-founded and co-owns Misra Records and is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University. As a Founder Emeritus of the non-profit Future of Music Coalition, Michael spent fifteen years bridging the gap between the music community and policymakers with a particular focus on consolidation of the commercial radio industry, protecting and expanding non-commercial radio, solidifying legal structures to facilitate webcasting, increasing artist access to health care and protecting innovation through strong net neutrality regulations. In the film community, Michael created and leads Policy in Focus, a boutique consultancy that helps creators maximize their social impact, revenue, and audience through a service-based model prioritizing film teams, film participants, and the broader advocacy ecosystem in which the project lives. Through Michael’s public affairs firm, Bracy Tucker Brown, he has provided representation and strategic counsel to a wide range of public agencies and cultural institutions including the Cities of Albuquerque, Tucson, and Boise, NEA, American Ballet Theatre, NPR, Native Public Media, International Documentary Association, Colorado Creative Industries and Fractured Atlas.
