Hot Springs 2025: Uncertainty and Camaraderie

Riding from the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock to Hot Springs, Arkansas to cover the 3rd annual Filmmaker Forum at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, I asked the only other industry attendee in the car what he’d be doing at the upcoming event. His response was both startling and perhaps an unsurprising sign of today's federal rescissions times: He didn’t know. A 17-year veteran of Alabama Public Television, Chris Holmes had initially agreed to participate on a panel with other public media reps. Unfortunately, Holmes had also just been let go as Vice President of Production & Digital Studios at APT, thus he wasn’t exactly sure of his role at the three-day filmmaker/industry conference (or job-wise back in Birmingham for that matter). Fortunately, the doc vet would end up being in good company, as grappling with seismic uncertainty proved to be the theme of this year’s event as well.

To read all about it visit Documentary magazine.