DPA PANEL – What Can a Producer Do for You?

So you’re making a documentary film and want to expand your team.  Learn more about the role of the producer on a documentary film - and how best to work with one when you've been going it alone. 

Panelists include producers of DSFF ‘23 films: Dawn Mikkelson (Director/Producer Minnesota Mean,  Mike Scholtz (Director/Producer Iron Opera), and Melody Gilbert (Producer  40 Below: The Toughest Race in the World), as well as producer Risé Sanders-Weir and moderator & producer Fenell Doremus.

Mike Scholtz is a documentary filmmaker from northern Minnesota. His first feature-length documentary was "Wild Bill's Run," which followed a charismatic adventurer on a snowmobiling expedition to Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Since then, he's made films about competitive jigsaw puzzling, the secret Viking history of Minnesota and a celebrity death pool. He also founded the Free Range Film Festival, an annual celebration of independent cinema that takes place in a barn in the middle of nowhere.

Melody Gilbert is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has directed more than a dozen documentaries, most recently Judy’s Thoughts (2022), Stories I Didn’t Know (PBS/2020), and Silicone Soul (STARZ/2019). She is also a producer for other documentary projects that inspire her, including Love Them First: Lessons from Lucy Laney Elementary (2020 Alfred I. duPont award), Beneath the Ink (nominated for a 2019 Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary), Women Outward Bound (2016/PBS), and the James Beard award-winning The Starfish Throwers (2015).

Dawn Mikkelson is an Emmy Award-winning producer and McKnight Filmmaking Fellow, whose work highlights the power and joy found in the margins. She has been broadcast, streamed, and screened internationally. Festival screenings of her feature documentaries include the Galway Film Fleadh, Cinequest, Mill Valley Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival, DOC NYC, Frameline Film Festival, and American Indian Film Festival. Broadcast and streaming include APT (American Public Television), PBS, CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation), Yes-Docu (Israel), Deutsche Welle (Germany), iTunes, and Amazon Prime.