The 2020s have been hard on Boston’s documentary film scene. In 2022, the LEF Foundation’s DocYard screening series went on indefinite hiatus; in 2024, the Bright Lights Cinema Series was cancelled after its curator, Anna Feder, was let go in what appeared to be a politically motivated dismissal. In comparison, last month’s leadership transitions at the Harvard Shorenstein Center and MIT Open Documentary Lab seem relatively tame.
On July 20, the Lab announced that its founding director, Sarah Wolozin, will leave her role on Sept. 1 after 15 years in the role. At Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, whose Documentary in the Public Interest initiative convenes journalists, filmmakers and academics, Enrique Pedraza-Botero assumed founding director Sara Archambault’s role on July 30. Archambault will stay on as a researcher, but there are no plans to fill Wolozin’s current role at MIT; the organization will pause some programming as they restructure this fall.
Though both transitions are amicable according to the parties involved, they lay bare that even in Cambridge’s most storied institutions, arts programs are often held up by a skeleton crew of passionate staff and grant funding. When those people leave, or if the funding disappears, those programs—and the resources they offer to the public—can change significantly.
Cambridge at the cutting edge of documentary
Cambridge has a long history of documentary innovation: Harvard’s Film Study Center was founded in 1957 by Robert Gardner, and MIT’s film program was launched in the late 1960s by cinéma vérité pioneers Ed Pincus and Richard Leacock. Both universities have been pushing the boundaries of nonfiction media ever since.
In the 21st century, mobile phones and social media have changed the documentary landscape significantly. MIT’s Open Documentary Lab, founded in March 2012, was launched to look at how new technologies were impacting production and distribution. At the time, the focus was on mobile devices, but the Lab eventually began to focus more on virtual reality and other immersive technologies. In 2016, Katerina Cizek helped Wolozin launch the Co-Creation Studio, which researches collective storytelling as an alternative to the singular author. In 2018, Cizek also started an AI working group for documentary storytellers to discuss the implications of AI on visual storytelling.
“I think what’s exciting about all these forms,” Wolozin said, “is the role that people can play in the story. You can personalize it, or it can be collective, or you can move through it. What interests me is the idea that you’re not just sitting passively watching something, but that you’re able to really be active in it.”
At Harvard, the Documentary in the Public Interest Initiative (DFPI) also looks at how technology is changing documentary, but with a greater focus on how public policy can influence the visual storytelling landscape – and vice versa.
“We want to lead the thinking on how documentary and nonfiction storytelling are evolving,” Pedraza-Botero said, “including how work is funded, produced, distributed, discovered, and experienced by audiences. What makes us distinctive is our ability to examine the broader nonfiction media landscape rather than focusing on a single format or institution.”
In her new role, Archambault plans to research how platform‑driven storytelling is changing our information environment. “I’m interested,” she said, “in when and how visual storytelling supports small‑d democratic goals: helping people understand complex issues, see themselves in public life, and participate more fully as citizens.”
Civic infrastructure
Trust in higher education has been on the decline in recent years, and a 2026 study by Yale researchers declared that the institutions themselves are largely to blame. In an era where colleges and universities feel pressured to justify their existence, public arts programming can be a way to give back to the public.
The visiting artist fellowship program was one of Wolozin’s favorite accomplishments during her time at the Open Documentary Lab. Intended as a supportive experience for artists to workshop ideas and issues within their artistic process, the fellowship was a “portal to MIT,” Wolozin said, letting artists take classes and use the Institute’s resources.
“It can be a very lonely job, when you’re the pioneer and the person on the edge of your field,” she said. “So people were so excited to have [that] community.”
Similarly, the Shorenstein Center has provided several public resources through their work. One of Archambault’s proudest moments, she said, was at the end of the Center’s Doc Ideas Symposium in 2025. The event was an important opportunity to bring together documentary leaders, she said, “for a serious, forward-looking conversation” about issues in the field that resulted in a publicly-available report with takeaways and recommendations.
“I was especially moved,” Archambault said, “by how many participants remarked that the convening felt unlike anything they had experienced related to the field. That is exactly what we hoped to create from the outset, and it helped set the course for the initiative’s future work.”
Another key Shorenstein offering gives awards to exceptional journalism and film projects. In 2025, the Center launched the inaugural Henry Awards, granting a cash prize to a public interest-focused documentary. Backed by Boston Globe co-owners Linda and John W. Henry, the award was discontinued in November 2025 due to a change in funding, just two weeks after submissions had opened for their second year.
Despite the cancellation, Shorenstein spokesperson Liz Schwartz noted that they honored one film project in 2026 through the Center’s existing awards programs. The plan is to continue recognizing film through existing awards, she said, but “everything is funding dependent.”
Looking ahead
This fall, Schwartz said the DFPI will host another installment of its Doc Ideas Symposium, this time about public media as civic infrastructure.
And Harvard will “continue to serve as a collaborative partner and convener” in other ways, Pedraza Botero said, including sharing their research at Maine’s Camden International Film Festival and “creating stronger connections among filmmakers, journalists, researchers, and institutions throughout the region.”
After Wolozin leaves the Lab at MIT, the visiting fellows program will go on hiatus but will have “an anticipated return in early 2027,” according to the Lab’s announcement. Wolozin plans to pursue her own projects and “see where I can have impact in other ways,” she said.
In an era of shrinking public funding, media consolidation, and loneliness epidemics, both leaders see visual storytelling as an important way to keep people connected and engaged.
“What inspires me most,” Archambault said, is the Initiative’s “core belief that visual storytelling is a form of civic infrastructure, not just a cultural product. Documentary work, whether on traditional screens or emerging platforms. can help build a more informed, empathetic, and engaged public.”
“It’s such a broken world right now,” Wolozin said, “so I’ve been thinking a lot about the word repair, and how can the work that we do help repair? So just thinking from a bigger stance of, why does this all matter? And how can experiences in immersive media empower you, change your perspective, help you imagine a better world?”
A stronger
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