2025 Better Angels Lavine Fellows at the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film Awards Ceremony
The Better Angels Lavine Fellowship application will open in Summer 2026.
Established in 2021, The Better Angels Lavine Fellowship supports compelling historical documentary films in post-production that represent the range of the American experience and are well-positioned to benefit from customized mentorship. The fellowship creates a community where filmmakers gain expertise from seasoned industry leaders and share skills to collectively deepen their craft.
The Fellowship is focused on feature-length projects in post-production and offers focused workshops and mentorship that support their completion and distribution. Each selected film receives a $5,000 prize, and filmmakers meet in a virtual cohort setting over the course of several months to advance their projects to the next stage.
The Better Angels Lavine Fellowship is made possible by The Better Angels Society and a generous gift from Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine, and is a companion program of The Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. Fellows are invited to attend the annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film awards ceremony, which welcomes experts from across the industry. Fellows are highly encouraged to submit to this prize in future years.
Past cohorts have participated in workshops focused on packaging and pitching films, archival producing, marketing and distribution, self-distribution, and the PBS programming process. In 2025, workshop mentors included PBS Executive Sylvia Bugg, Distribution Executive Alexandra Hannibal, Distribution Advocates’ Co-founder Amy Hobby, Archival Producer Stephanie Jenkins, Producer Caroline Waterlow, and other industry experts.
Participants have also worked one-on-one with editing mentors who offer targeted feedback on rough and fine cuts of their films. In 2025, editing mentors included Salimah El-Amin (The Vietnam War), Amy Foote (Fauci), Flavia de Souza (Eyes on the Prize II) and Tyler Walk (Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus).
Eligibility:
- Your film must focus on an American historical subject, issue, or person within a time frame occurring at least twenty years prior to submission (prior to 2006) and must present a variety of perspectives grounded in extensive and thorough research. The majority of the film must be historically focused to qualify. We invite submissions employing a broad range of storytelling devices and archival materials, which should be integral to the story.
- Applicants should submit a 20-minute continuous sample; the sample can be from a rough or fine cut of the feature-length project.
- Short films are ineligible.
- Submissions must follow journalistic standards and consider multiple perspectives. Industrial, promotional, “advertorial”, advocacy, and instructional films are ineligible. No product placement or paid messaging is permitted. If a submission uses AI, the project must identify when and where AI is used and adhere to the Archival Producers Alliance’s Best Practices for Use of Generative AI.
- A film previously submitted to the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film can be submitted to the Fellowship if it was not previously awarded.
“The publicity and the fellowship mentors really helped the visibility of our project, which elevated the prestige, and the archival mentors gave us great guidance on this critical aspect.” — J.M. Harper, Soul Patrol, 2026 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection
“Being in the same Zoom room as many of these folks was really outstanding – even just being able to have direct access and the thumbs up to reach out to them directly is indescribably invaluable. It was heartening to understand from these experts that we’re on the right track and much of what we’re already in process on is what they would advise.” — Jillian Schultz, You Should Never Blink
“Diamond Diplomacy’s distribution has been given a big boost by the mentorship, the funding, the new relationships, and the stature of being an honored Better Angels Lavine Fellow…Thank you also for recognizing the importance of history!” — Yuriko Gamo Romer, Diamond Diplomacy
“We cannot express how heartening it is to receive this vote of confidence in the film and support towards bringing it to the finish line…We are deeply honored to have been selected & very much looking forward to being part of the fellowship community!” -Jillian Schultz, You Should Never Blink
Past Fellows
BROTHERS IN BLOOD
Directed by Joseph Puleo
Brothers in Blood is an in-depth chronicle of the Black experience at home and abroad during and after the Vietnam War, told by those who lived it.
DIAMOND DIPLOMACY
Directed by Yuriko Gamo Romer
Diamond Diplomacy explores the long and complex relationship between the U.S. and Japan through the shared love of baseball, revealing a moving diplomatic history that spans generations.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Directed by Christine Felton
SOUL PATROL
Directed by J.M. Harper
After 50 years of silence, Vietnam’s first Black special operations team reunites to fulfill their most crucial mission: bearing witness to history. Their story illuminates a pivotal chapter in America’s past while inviting essential dialogue about service, sacrifice, and our collective national memory.
WEST SIDE FAMILIA
Directed by Taylor Hosking
West Side Familia unearths the buried history of a Puerto Rican biker club on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Through rich archival footage and firsthand accounts, the film explores themes of gentrification, community defense, and cultural pride.
YOU SHOULD NEVER BLINK
Directed by Jillian Schultz and Leah Thompson
Sister Corita Kent, the “pop art nun,” dazzled 1960s America with her joyful art and radical teachings, becoming a counterculture icon who challenged the art world and the Catholic church alike.
THE APOLOGY
Directed by Mimi Chakarova
On January 8, 1963, officials in Alameda County, California, began hearings to discuss the forced removal of Russell City, an unincorporated area comprised of predominantly Black and Latino residents. Soon after, authorities wiped out the entire community with bulldozers and rezoned the 200 acres for industrial use.
Photo: Hayward Area Historical Society Collection
DORY PREVIN: ON MY WAY TO WHERE
Directed by Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth
SECOND GROWTH
Directed by Robert Carpenter
Lacrosse is an ancient Indigenous pastime, played on North American shores long before the first settlers arrived. In the late 1800s, colonists appropriated the game and turned it into modern lacrosse, which has become a major contemporary sport. Second Growth tells the story of the Indigenous lacrosse journey to regain agency in modern lacrosse and use the modern platform as the foundation of a larger cultural movement.
WEDNESDAYS IN MISSISSIPPI
Directed by Marlene McCurtis
Wednesdays in Mississippi tells the story of an all-women civil rights program whose Black and white women teams from Northern cities navigated high personal risk to contribute vital strategic presence on the ground in dangerous Mississippi during Freedom Summer and throughout the 60s, seeding a legacy for social change.
WELCOME TO JAY
Directed by Jeffrey Morgan
When a black teenager is shot and killed attending a party in Jay, Florida, the town’s racist past becomes its present and leads to the uncovering of a shockingly similar murder in 1922 that changed the community forever.
BAD LIKE BROOKLYN DANCEHALL
Directed by Ben DiGiacomo
The story of New York City’s dancehall culture told by its legendary participants, from early pioneers to present day megastars Shaggy and Sean Paul. Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall creates a coherent account of dancehall as a New York immigrant evolution of shared Jamaican identity and cultural pride.
THE DAY THAT SHOOK GEORGIA
Directed by Patrick Longstreth
In 1971, one of the worst industrial tragedies in U.S. history shook rural Southeast Georgia. The victims were predominantly Black women, manufacturing trip flares for the Vietnam War. Over 50 years later, survivors and first responders shed new light on the bravery and sacrifice of that day, and a grassroots campaign seeks to award the victims with the Congressional Gold Medal.
NEW WAVE
Directed by Elizabeth Ai
Mile-high hair. Synthesized music. Underground parties. The “Vietnamese new wave” scene of 1980s California was the catalyst to healing a generation of refugees in limbo. NEW WAVE is the coming-of-age story about trailblazers who pioneered a raucous music scene and inspired their community to rebuild in the wake of war.
PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE: THE CORKY LEE STORY
Directed by Jennifer Takaki
Using his camera as a “weapon against injustice,” Chinese American photographer Corky Lee brought art and politics together through decades of documentation of the Asian American experience. From Lunar New Year to street protests, Pakistani Independence Day to Diwali, Lee’s photographs empowered generations of AAPI pride. Filmmaker Jennifer Takaki’s unprecedented access reveals the triumphs and tragedies of the man behind the camera.
SECOND GROWTH
Directed by Robert Carpenter
Lacrosse is an ancient, Indigenous pastime, played on North American shores long before the first settlers arrived. In the late 1800s, colonists appropriated the game and turned it into modern lacrosse, which has become a major contemporary sport. Second Growth tells the story of the Indigenous lacrosse journey to regain agency in modern lacrosse and use the modern platform as the foundation of a larger cultural movement.
A LONG MARCH
Directed by TS Botkin
Three Filipino-American veterans trace their paths from war to erasure by the U.S. Government, marching from an obscured history to the Federal courts, right up to the steps of Congress in search of promises denied.
BUFFALO SOLDIERS: FIGHTING ON THE TWO FRONTS
Directed by Dru Holley
THE PHILADELPHIA ELEVEN
Directed by Margo Guernsey
When eleven women became Episcopal priests against the rules in 1974, they challenged two thousand years of patriarchal Christianity. The media catches on, and they find themselves leading a movement. In a largely archival journey, with parallels to today, we meet the women who create a blueprint for institutional change.
GARDEN CITY, KANSAS
Directed by Rob Hurst
THE LAST PHILADELPHIA
Directed by John Carstarphen
Award-winning film director John Carstarphen’s The Last Philadelphia explores racial violence, the MOVE bombings and the power of the Black family in this dramatic memoir about the Eastwick neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia in the 1960s and 1970s. Told primarily through the POV, experiences and voices of Black mothers, The Last Philadelphia shows us that Black History is everyone’s history, and that ultimately, one American’s story is every American’s story.
A TASTE OF HEAVEN: THE ECSTATIC SONG & GOSPEL OF MAESTRO RAYMOND ANTHONY MYLES
Directed by Leo Sacks
FANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA
Directed by Joy Davenport
KANSAS CITY DREAMIN’
Directed by Diallo Javonne French
From the evolution of jazz in the 1930’s, to present day popular music. This film shows Kansas City’s importance to American music. Featuring interviews with Kansas City natives: Bobby Watson, Janelle Monáe and Tech N9ne. With segments on area legends like Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, and others.
SOUL SISTERS
Directed by Peter von Puttkamer
Patti Henley & Brenda Lee Eager are two talented singers from the golden age of rock/soul and R&B. Soul Sisters is about their lives: first working for Martin Luther King/Jesse Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket. They become the “Voice of the Movement”. Now they bring powerful messages about Black History to schoolchildren.
HOME FROM SCHOOL: THE CHILDREN OF CARLISLE
Directed by Geoff O’Gara
In 2017, a delegation of Northern Arapaho tribal members travels from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to retrieve remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial school in the 1880s. It’s a journey into the troubled history of Indian boarding schools, and a quest to heal generational wounds.
INVISIBLE WARRIORS: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN WORLD WAR II
Directed by Gregory S. Cooke
During World War II, 600,000 African American “Rosie the Riveters” work in industry and government for the first time. These “Greatest Generation” heroines overcome racism and sexism to create employment opportunities for future generations of Black women.
