Independent Film and Media Arts Field Group
Partnership
Convened by the National Endowment for the Arts with the Sundance Institute, the Independent Film and Media Arts Field Group connects artists and organizations from across independent film and media arts fields in the United States. Through community building, convenings, resource sharing, and direct financial support to field initiatives, IMAG aims to forge collaborative partnerships to advance equity and sustainability for artists.
Get Involved
How To Join
If you are a U.S.-based independent film and media arts organization, an independent filmmaker, or a media artist who would like to get involved, please fill out this registration form.
Once you complete your registration form, you will be added to the IMAG e-mail listserv via Google Groups. You must accept the Google Group invitation in order to participate. All are welcome to share ideas, resources, comments, events, and more, in keeping with the Sundance Institute Community Agreement.
For general questions about IMAG, please email communityoutreach@sundance.org.
Community Building
IMAG convenes regularly. We hold public national field meetings that serve as a peer networking forum for continuous knowledge exchange between local, regional, and national stakeholders. We also provide tools, resources, and direct financial support to community members to organize their own field convenings.
IMAG National Field Meetings are announced via the IMAG listserv and the Media Arts Newsletter of the Arts Endowment (sign up for the Arts Endowment here). Accessibility for online National Field Meetings includes ASL interpretation, CART captioning, and audio descriptions.
Field Stipends
IMAG provides direct financial support to field initiatives through stipends and artist honoraria. Examples include stipends to IMAG Regional Working Groups; convenings such as “Localism Works” at AFI DOCS 2018 with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and South Summit at the New Orleans Film Festival; and artist-led field initiatives such as Distribution Advocates, Documentary Producers Alliance, and Independent Documentary Directors.
Restoring The Future
Informed by the Restoring the Future initiative led by the ALLIED coalition, IMAG is collaborating with artists Tony Patrick and Karim Ahmad — who also serves as the director of Outreach & Inclusion at the Sundance Institute — on regional community engagement and rapid prototyping.
The aim of community prototyping is to build off of ALLIED’s yearlong collaborative world-building and future architecture process for Restoring the Future, designed to envision a radically aspirational future for our media arts system by centering restorative values and putting them into practice.
Community prototyping sessions in fall 2021 will take place on October 6, October 27, November 10, and December 8. Details will be shared on the IMAG listserv.
Read the Restoring the Future report at restoringthefuture.org.
Resources
Sustain on Sundance Collab
SUSTAIN on Sundance Collab is a collection of online resources curated by IMAG. Resources in this collection focus on career sustainability, financial support, and free educational content such as toolkits, case studies, articles, reports, and other materials for independent filmmakers and media artists.
To recommend a resource to the SUSTAIN Resources collection, fill out this form. We will review and add resources that meet our SUSTAIN guidelines.
Regional Working Groups
IMAG Regional Working Groups provide an opportunity to connect and collaborate with other artists and arts organizations in your area. Active working groups are provided a participation stipend for their organizing. To connect with your regional working group, please indicate in your membership registration.
Mid Atlantic
Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia
Midwest
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Northeast
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio
South
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia
West
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
