MDOCS Storytellers' Institute

Founded in 2014, the annual Storytellers’ Institute, part of the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS), is a five-week residency program hosted at Skidmore College. For the month of June, the institute welcomes its Fellows to work on independent projects and engage in an annual theme.

Residency spots are open to professional documentary practitioners (Visiting Fellows) and Skidmore College students, faculty and staff. We value all non-fiction forms and select Fellows working in a wide range of mediums including but not limited to: audio, performance, film/video, written word, photography, interactive media, performance, etc. The residency provides an intensely focused period of time for the Fellows to work independently and collaboratively in order to hone their craft and advance their current projects.

Towards the goal of non-hierarchical learning, we foster a collaborative learning community in which Visiting, Faculty/Staff, and Student Fellows learn from each other through group critique and informal seminars.  Along with an honorarium, practitioners are provided with room, board, workspace, and the opportunity to take advantage of MDOCS' production equipment, media lab and other resources.

Opportunities for public presentations of current or past work are offered to Visiting Fellows during the annual MDOCS Forum –– a public events series combining festival presentations of artistic work with symposium-style conversations around an annual theme. The forum is free and open to the public, as well as the documentary community.

This year our theme is On This Land. For more info Enter Storytellers' Institute site >