Brown Girls Doc Mafia

Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM) is an initiative advocating for over 4,700 women and non-binary people of color working in the documentary film industry around the world. We fight inequality by building community and sharing resources, nourishing our members’ creative brilliance, demanding access and visibility in creative and professional environments, enriching our community with the knowledge to sustain ourselves financially, and by cutting through oppressive industry structures to advocate for our members.

Our members are made up of emerging to veteran filmmakers—writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, as well as other industry professionals––curators, academics, corporate executives, funding administrators, and more. Our members are spread across 10 countries and over 20 U.S. states––the majority are in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Bay Area. 

Since it's founding in 2015, Brown Girls Doc Mafia has created a vibrant online community, launched the BGDM Member Directory for discovering BIPOC women/non-binary talent, and implemented numerous programs advocating for members' access, visibility, creativity, growth, sustainability, and power in the documentary film industry. In 2021, BGDM was thrilled to introduce two grantmaking initiatives - The BGDM Sustainable Artist Grant, and the BGDM Black Directors Grant- both of which aim to bolster the creative and professional development of this community and spur change in the documentary field at large.

BGDM is fiscally sponsored by Walking Iris Media. We’re grateful to have received funding from the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic Documentary Films, and the Bertha Foundation amongst others.