EXCLUSIVE: The International Documentary Association has announced the full lineup for Getting Real ’26, its upcoming biennial conference “on the art and industry of documentary filmmaking.”

The event, set to unfold in person in Los Angeles from July 20-23 and globally online, will feature keynote addresses by Mandy Chang, CEO, UK Documentary Film Council, and Petna Katondolo, filmmaker and artistic director, Yole!Africa. A panel discussion on the State of the Business will feature Sam Denby (chief content officer of the Nebula streaming service and founder of Wendover Productions) and Sohini Sengupta (cofounder of Doverlane), among others.

Two panels promise candid stories of documentary production, some of them disturbing. “Stories We Do Not Tell,” facilitated by Tracy Rector, is “built from accounts of exploitation, bad faith, and outright abuse submitted by documentary filmmakers and carefully reviewed by IDA.” It will explore “private, anonymous experiences of our industry colleagues read aloud, organized into categories of harm that reveal the systemic patterns behind individual cases.”

In the panel “Here’s What Really Happened,” acclaimed filmmaker Alan Berliner will reveal how his documentary Letters to the Editor – on which he spent decades – was scuttled by “a major legal challenge.” The film had already premiered at festivals and was set for an HBO broadcast before it got derailed. “Five years after the dust settled, he is ready to talk about it publicly for the first time,” notes the Getting Real ’26 program.

This year’s Getting Real program is centered around the theme Terms of Service, “focusing on investment, inspiration, and impact.” The conference is open to the public; find more information here.

“Rather than simply restating the industry’s many challenges,” states a release, “Getting Real’s program is organized around what filmmakers are doing in response—the tactics, models, and alliances being built in practice—and the conversations usually too risky or too raw to have anywhere else.” The IDA notes the conference “gathers the industry’s most powerful players and visionary filmmakers, including editors, producers, funders, studios and streaming platforms — for candid, revealing conversations on the most pressing issues facing the field.”

Getting Real ’26 is programmed by Abby Sun, Meghan Monsour, and Lisa Valencia-Svensson. Below are some of the program highlights:

–Confirmed participants include AXS Film Fund, BAVC Media, Big Sky Film Institute, Black Public Media, CAAM, California Film Institute / DocLands, Catapult Film Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, CPH:DOX, DCTV, Doc Society, Docs in Progress, Double Exposure, Film Independent, Firelight Media, GBH, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, HotDocs, ITVS, the Jewish Film Institute, Kartemquin Films, Latino Public Broadcasting, the LEF Foundation, Louverture Films, Multitude Films, New Day Films, NPR, The New York Times Op-Docs, Points North Institute, POV, SFFILM, Shine Global, the Southern Documentary Fund, Sundance (Catalyst, Documentary Film Program, and Ignite), The Berkeley Film Foundation, The Film Collaborative, TIFF, Video Project, Visual Communications, and more.

Getting Real will also include fireside chats with Tikkun Olam Productions, Set Hernandez and Leonard Cortana; sessions on AI, coalition politics, transitional justice, and antitrust; workshops, breakout sessions, gatherings, and the return of the participatory “Build Your Own Breakout Session.”

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