How a Summer of Documentary Storytelling Helped Students Find Their Future — and How You Can Help Shape the Next One

Trevor Darr (far right), didn’t expect to find his calling in a summer documentary program. He had something else in mind.

“I joined thinking I was going to be doing filmmaking,” said Darr, a Duke senior majoring in political science and physics. “Spoiler alert: I held a camera for about five minutes.” 

Darr was one of 14 undergraduates who took part in Doc+, a new Duke “plus” program led by CDS. Over six weeks, students collaborated with professional artists or community organizers on four very different documentary projects. 

Instead of rolling film, Darr recorded oral histories with grassroots organizers — an experience that redefined his purpose.

“I don’t think there’s a more compelling candidate for the meaning of life than finding and telling people’s stories,” he said. “I now know that’s what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”

Real Stories, Real Impact

Each Doc+ team was guided by a project lead — Duke faculty or community leaders — and supported by MFA mentors from Duke’s Experimental and Documentary Arts program. Selected Doc+ students came from a range of majors and backgrounds including public policy, environmental science, visual arts and gender studies.

Working in small teams, the students explored pressing topics like labor rights, housing justice, family history and land use. 

“Doc + was designed to engage students in rigorous, hands-on documentary practice while also exposing them to frameworks that shape the field,” said Doc+ Director Lauren Henschel. “Through direct collaboration with working professionals, students gained real-world experience in storytelling, research and media production. Now we're looking ahead — and inviting faculty and community members to propose meaningful projects for next summer.”

• Duke faculty and community members can propose projects for Doc+ 2026 by November 3. 

Spotlight: Student Action with Farmworkers 

Darr’s team partnered with Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), a Durham-based nonprofit that connects students with migrant farmworkers in the Carolinas to improve working conditions and raise awareness about the people behind our food systems. 

North Carolina has one of the largest populations of migrant farmworkers in the country. According to SAF, about 150,000 farmworkers and their families labor across the state each growing season. Even though they play a vital role in putting food on our tables, many farmworkers earn less than $11,000 a year, face dangerous working conditions, and don’t have access to basic protections like overtime pay, health insurance or safe housing.

Led by Jacey Anderson, Bill and Lorna Chafe Postdoctoral Fellow in Oral History and Social Justice, the team focused on capturing stories of SAF staff and alumni — part of a broader oral history initiative documenting how grassroots organizing in farmworker communities fosters leadership, advances equity and drives systemic change. 

In the process, Darr and his teammates developed skills in oral history, interviewing, archival research, organizing narrative data and more. They also created bilingual zines drawing from Duke’s archival collections. These zines, along with other materials developed by the team, will support SAF’s future advocacy campaigns and public engagement initiatives.

“I spent about three weeks in the archive like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, digging through old photographs and documents from the past 20 years,” said Darr. “I compiled stories from five different countries, exploring the push factors that led farmers to migrate.”

Learning by Doing

“I had never conducted an interview before, and it was a really awesome experience,” said Shelby Parker, a computational media major, who worked alongside Darr. “The zine project taught me Photoshop and gave me a deeper understanding of graphic design.”

Across all four Doc+ teams, students worked with tools like Adobe Premiere, Squarespace and archival scanning equipment. Students also participated in interdisciplinary workshops with Arts+ in darkroom photography, archival research and zine making, which gave them the freedom to explore and grow. 

“I came in with the ability to maybe make a student film,” said Courtney Yribarren on the Artificial Horizon team. “I’m leaving with the ability to produce on a professional level.”

Spotlight: Artificial Horizon

Artificial Horizon is a documentary film in early production that explores the layered histories of former plantation land in Alabama. Students worked with filmmaker Elizabeth M. Webb, Lehman Brady Visiting Professor at Duke and UNC, along with industry experts from Hello Benjamin Films, to contribute to the film’s development and impact strategy. 

The land featured in the film is Webb’s ancestral home, adding a deeply personal dimension to the project. Though she was raised as white, Webb uses the film to reconnect with relatives from the Black side of her family. The film surfaces complex relationships — both familial and historical — tied to the land. It also uses plants as metaphors for resistance to constructed boundaries, offering students a rich framework for engaging with themes of identity, inheritance and place.

Using tools including Milanote and Notion, students created a digital story map and a comprehensive production database containing all the documents and resources from pitch materials to raw audio files and location releases. Students also transcribed many hours of interviews and began building an impact campaign focused on Black and Indigenous land stewardship models, heirs property education, and policy reform. Their work included identifying potential partners and planning community screenings and educational workshops to support the film’s outreach goals.

“I’ve always been interested in the film world, but it always seemed very distant,” said Naima Sheikh-Mohamed, a sophomore who worked on Artificial Horizon. “These six weeks, with workshops and really diving into this work, just dissolves that fear away. I definitely see myself in the future taking more documentary studies courses, doing the Certificate in Documentary Studies, and working on a film or even creating a film on my own.”

“We had unencumbered access to their entire production workflow and were deeply trusted with a professional’s work, past the level of interns,” said Courtney Yribarren, who designed a Program II major in sustainable human development. “My group even got a job offer from one of the experts we worked with. The documentary industry is really difficult to break into, and many people without connections prove their worth by doing grunt work for years, but we've been able to dive straight into real work through this program.”  

A Future in Focus

By the end of the program, students had advanced or even completed impressive projects — and gained clarity about their futures.

“There’s so much I know now that I didn’t before,” said Maxwell “Maxi” Simbuwa, a Robertson and Honors Carolina Scholar at Duke and UNC majoring in anthropology and pursuing a Certificate in Documentary Studies. “I'm an aspiring professional documentary filmmaker. Being part of Doc+ and Artificial Horizon has shown me there's so much more that goes into making the thing that I love. I’ve learned about holding the camera, about sound, I learned a lot about organizing. I think it will make me a much better storyteller.” 

“It was a true privilege to work with Doc+ on Artificial Horizon,” says Director Elizabeth Webb. “Our team included a standout group of Duke students from a wide range of departments. My producers and I are so impressed and grateful for the students’ hard work that ensured that our project was able to maintain momentum during a busy season. Their file organization system is a true game-changer and is beyond the scope of what we even imagined possible! We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity and are excited to continue to involve Duke students in our process.” 

“My producers and I are so impressed and grateful for the students’ hard work that ensured that our project was able to maintain momentum during a busy season.” 

Henschel reflected on the students’ growth and the collaborative spirit of the program. “This experience has not only strengthened their creative voices but will continue to shape how they move through Duke and beyond as makers, thinkers and collaborators,” she said. “I truly couldn’t be prouder of the work they’ve done. And all this would not be possible without the project leads who mentored and guided our students with such care, generosity, vision and commitment.”

Doc+ 2026: Call for Proposals

Do you have a documentary project and want to work with Duke students on research, production or impact strategy? CDS is accepting proposals from Duke faculty and community experts for projects for Doc+ 2026. Learn more and submit a proposal by November 3 to help shape the next chapter of documentary storytelling at Duke.

Top image: Doc+ students, project leads and program leads gather on the CDS porch at the end of the six-week program. Photo: Harlan Campbell