THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS LAVINE FELLOWSHIP
Washington, DC – September 30, 2026 – The Better Angels Society, the preeminent organization supporting outstanding American history documentaries to inspire lifelong learning, promote civic engagement, and encourage civil discourse, today announced the five winners of the 2026 Better Angels Lavine Fellowship.
Established in 2021, the Fellowship supports compelling documentaries that represent the full range of U.S. history and are well-positioned to benefit from tailored mentorship. The Fellowship is focused on feature-length projects in post-production and offers workshops that support their completion and distribution. In addition to a $5,000 prize for each selected film, the Fellowship creates a community where filmmakers gain expertise from seasoned industry leaders and share skills to collectively deepen their craft.
“We are proud to support these important films at a key phase of their development,” said Katherine Malone-France, President and CEO of The Better Angels Society, “and to strengthen the pipeline for U.S. history documentaries from development through distribution.”
“Historical documentaries are powerful tools for learning about our shared history,” said Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine. “We are pleased to recognize these documentaries, which reflect a broad range of our history, and will help us understand the American experience in new and insightful ways.”
The 2026 Better Angels Lavine Fellows are:
AMERICAN WORKER: THE LABOR TO BELONG, directed by Thien Dinh
America sold the U.S. public a poster: the “American Worker.” The American Worker belongs here; he is patriotic and free; he is white and male; he built the nation, so the nation belongs to him. This film tears the myth open. In the wreckage of decades of mythmaking, the director, an immigrant labor activist and filmmaker, embarks on a journey across time and geography to uncover how race, labor, and power have shaped belonging and exclusion in America’s story of work.
CLAIBORNE REVISITED, directed by Katherine Cecil and Raynard Sanders
Claiborne Revisited tells the story of one avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, and through it, captures a broader story of urban renewal and racial discrimination in America. This vivid and shifting community-led portrait of the nation’s oldest historically Black main street spans from the 1940s to the present day, illuminating the history nearly erased by Federal Interstate planning practices.
NAMPEYO, AN AMERICAN MODERNIST, directed by Tom Radford and Steve Wikviya LaRance
Nampeyo, an American Modernist, follows a traditional Hopi-Tewa matriarch and potter who became a founder of the Modernist movement. She transformed adversity into artistry, revived ancient pottery traditions, created visionary abstract artwork, and influenced Picasso, Kandinsky, and O’Keeffe. Praised in her lifetime yet largely forgotten today, the film reclaims Nampeyo’s place as a foundational force of American Modernism.
ONCE A VALLEY DREAMS, directed by Colin Rosemont
Weaving a tapestry of a place and a people, Once A Valley Dreams traces a history of the first California Indian Reservations, land dispossession, and a centuries-long struggle for land and recognition for the Kitanemuk people of the Tejon Tribe. Diving into both the memories and struggles of Tejon Indian Tribal members working to reclaim tribal community and share their history, the film sets out to tell a collective story of coming home–a 21st-century creation story from Native California.
UNDETECTED, directed by Jaime Morgan Muñoz
Undetected explores the forgotten cultural clash between small-town America and Soviet weapons inspectors dropped into suburban Utah in 1988. These Marxist apparatchiks lived a simulation of red-blooded, meat-and-potatoes American life all while preventing thermonuclear war. Through narration, archival materials from the 1980s and 90s, footage of historical spaces across the West, and in-depth interviews with Russian and American nuclear weapons inspectors, Undetected is a historical and irreverent documentary essay that explores the power of mundanity to shape our world.
As part of the Fellowship, filmmakers meet over the course of several months to advance their projects to the next stage. Previous workshops have focused on packaging and pitching films, archival producing, marketing and distribution, self-distribution, and the PBS programming process. Each filmmaking team will also receive individualized mentorship on their works-in-progress from industry leaders. Past mentors have worked on acclaimed documentary films, including Little Richard: I Am Everything, The Last Movie Stars, and OJ: Made in America.
Past Fellowship-winning films have included Soul Patrol (J.M. Harper), Dory Previn: On My Way to Where (Julia Greenberg & Dianna Dilworth), and Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story (Jennifer Takaki). Films have screened at major film festivals, including Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and secured distribution on PBS, WORLD Channel, Strand Releasing, and Kino Lorber.
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 encouraged to submit their projects for the Prize for Film in future years.
For more information, visit The Better Angels Society’s website.
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About The Better Angels Society
The Better Angels Society is the preeminent organization supporting outstanding American history documentaries to inspire lifelong learning, promote civic engagement, and encourage civil discourse. The Society works to ensure that films about American history by emerging and established filmmakers are completed, broadcast, promoted, and shared with wide audiences, along with complementary education and outreach resources and programs. Through the annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film and the Better Angels Lavine Fellowship, The Society provides resources, mentorship, and recognition to U.S. history documentaries in process. The organization is also engaging the next generations of historical documentarians through innovative partnership programs that provide young people, ages 11-22, with the inspiration and training to make their own American history documentaries while building skills in historical research, critical thinking, leadership, communication, and civics.
About The Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation
Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine established the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation to focus a significant portion of their philanthropic efforts toward leveling the playing field for individuals and families. The Foundation works to address pressing social challenges in education, community and public service, health and welfare, discrimination, and poverty. The Foundation supports the multi-disciplinary efforts of organizations that serve to strengthen society through research, innovation, public policy, direct service, and advocacy.
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