About

NBC News Studios is a full-service production company inside NBC. Our specialty is documentary storytelling, but we dabble in scripted, too. We partner with premier filmmakers and leverage the assets of our esteemed news organization to bring stories to the screen, including eight decades of television and radio archive, a global network of journalists, a world-class investigative team, and rich trove of editorial IP. Our team has decades of experience in documentary film and television and has been honored with multiple Emmy, Peabody and DuPont awards.

 

Recent work includes, Every Body (Tribeca Film Festival/Focus Features) directed by Julie Cohen, Leguizamo Does America (MSNBC), The Disappearance of Shere Hite (Sundance) directed by Nicole Newnham and co-produced with This Machine; Diamond Hands: The Legend of Wall Street Bets (SXSW) from Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari; the scripted mini-series The Thing About Pam (NBC) starring Renée Zellweger and produced with Blumhouse Productions and Big Picture Co; Upcoming projects include collaborations with directors Errol Morris and Dawn Porter.

Work

Team

Partners


Directors + Collaborators


David
Belton



Zackary
Canepari



Julie
Cohen



Drea
Cooper



Bjorn
Johnson



Errol
Morris



Nicole
Newnham



Dawn
Porter



Contessa
Gayles



Sacha
Jenkins



John
Leguizamo



Partnerships

Focus Features
Broadway Video
Peacock
MSNBC Films
Participant
BlumHouse
Anchor
Unanimous
Westbrook
This Machine
The New York Times
Submarine
Media Res
BBC Studios
Latchkey Films
BET Studios

Fellowship

NBCU Academy in partnership with NBC News Studios, the NBC News documentary division, is collaborating with IF/Then Shorts to launch a national open call for archival and journalistically driven short documentaries highlighting social issues and identities.

Five teams will be invited to take the stage at the Original Voices Shorts Pitch, an inclusion­ focused pitch session where a curated selection of diverse filmmakers propose their documentary works in progress to a panel of industry professionals. The five pitching teams will receive a grant of $6,000 each to help further their documentary and to assist with the costs of attending the pitch event.

From the five finalists, NBCU Academy and NBC News Studios will select one winning project to commission with a $100,000 investment.

Eligible filmmakers are US-based documentarians who identify as – or showcase stories highlighting social issues affecting – women, LGBTQ+ folx, communities of color, and people with disabilities regardless of career stage.

The purpose of the Original Voices Shorts Pitch is to open doors to the NBCU newsroom and archive to diverse documentary filmmakers eager to present a more vibrant, equitable, and accurate take on American history and society today. Reaffirming the values of integrity and inclusion in order to spur innovation, the Original Voices Shorts Pitch aims to break down barriers of authorship and authority between news media networks and consumers, support diverse documentary filmmakers with the resources of a legacy news organization, and strengthen public trust in fact-based reporting and film.

The pitch will take place at DOC NYC 2023.

Learn More

Press