The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has helped make PBS a home for independent documentaries for more than 50 years. In an email to NPR, CPB said it provided over $24 million to documentary filmmaking during the 2024 financial year. The government's decision to rescind CPB's entire $1.1 billion budget in July, subsequently causing it to announce its closure , led last week to PBS's announcement that it would be reducing its budget by 21%. This on top of sweeping grant cancellations earlier this year at both the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts, which both served as important sources of federal funding for documentarians.

Despite these losses, the documentary community said it is not giving up. "Can't stop. Won't stop," said filmmaker Carol Bash, whose

See Full Page