Docs on the Spot

After a one-year pause, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will return to Durham in 2024.

The four-day festival, which routinely draws huge crowds for films and panel discussions, will be presented again at the Carolina Theatre and Durham Convention Center April 4-7.

“Full Frame is an extraordinary cultural event for Duke, Durham and the broader documentary film community,” said Ed Balleisen, Duke’s vice provost for interdisciplinary studies. “Rest assured: Full Frame will return in 2024 and its impact will only grow in coming years.”

The festival began in 1998 as the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival before being renamed in 2002. It was held virtually from 2020 to 2022 due to the pandemic and was then put on hold for 2023 as the Center for Documentary Studies, which oversees Full Frame, undergoes a strategic planning review. For the upcoming year, the festival will be a partnership between CDS and Duke Venues and Performance Management (DVPM), the campus arm that handles planning, ticketing and other logistics for arts and other Duke events.

“Nothing will change in how festival leadership determines a vision for the event, nor how documentary experts select films,” Balleisen said. “But the festival will mesh more substantially with operations at Duke to leverage logistical expertise and capacity.”

Duke’s senior leadership is currently reviewing CDS’s organizational framework, informed by the work of a faculty review committee. During that process, Balleisen is fulfilling the responsibilities of the center director.

“Duke remains committed not only to Full Frame, but to documentary studies, a robust set of  undergraduate classes in this sphere, the certificate program in documentary arts, and CDS,” Balleisen said.

Full Frame veterans Emily Foster and Sadie Tillery, who have been co-directing the festival since 2021, will continue in that joint leadership role.  Tillery, who stepped down from the role earlier this year, agreed to return to it upon learning of Duke’s plan to revamp the festival’s infrastructure. She will lead programming and operations with DVPM, while Foster, who came to Full Frame in 2019 as marketing director, will lead festival production, development, and other planning with CDS.

“By the time we get to Full Frame in 2024, it will have been five years since we last held an in-person festival,” Foster said. “Returning to the physical landscape is a big milestone for Durham and the documentary community. We’re committed to maintaining the core values that make Full Frame so special, while also building upon them to create a vision for Full Frame well into the future.”

The new festival partnership with DVPM will streamline operations and create a more efficient process, Tillery said. The goal is to build on the festival’s long history.

“Full Frame is regarded as a filmmakers’ festival. I am committed to cultivating the sense of community and intimacy that Full Frame is known for as we return to in-person programming, while celebrating artists and exceptional documentary storytelling,” Tillery said.

About Full Frame

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an internationally recognized event that proudly presents the best of nonfiction films on the festival circuit each year. Based in Durham, North Carolina, the annual festival gathers thousands of enthusiastic fans from around the globe to celebrate the documentary art form, engage in meaningful conversation, and experience the impact of exceptional nonfiction cinema firsthand. The next Full Frame Documentary Film Festival takes place April 4–7, 2024.

The festival is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies and receives support from corporate sponsors, private foundations, and individual donors whose generosity provides the foundation that makes the event possible. The 2024 festival is being produced through a partnership with Duke Venues and Performance Management, the campus arm that handles planning, ticketing and other logistics for arts and other Duke events. The Presenting Sponsor of the festival is Duke University. To learn more about the mission of Full Frame or how to support Full Frame, visit fullframefest.org.