13 years of showing up for each other.
RocDocs started in 2013 with five filmmakers in a back room, passing a laptop around to watch each other’s rough cuts. The room got bigger. The habit stayed the same.
About
Our mission
RocDocs brings Rochester’s documentary community together to share work, build skills, and support each other, so we can all tell the stories that need telling.
Our vision
A city where documentary work gets made, seen, and paid for.
We want Rochester to be a place where a filmmaker can spend years on a hard story and not do it alone. Where the crew, the notes, the gear, and the audience are all within reach.
That means advocating for our members, building an audience for local nonfiction, and making sure the door stays open to people the industry usually leaves out.
What it feels like to be here
Everyone belongs
Twenty years in or holding your first camera, the welcome is the same.
Kind, candid notes
Feedback here is generous and specific. It’s how the cuts get better.
Nothing kept secret
Grants, gear, contacts, rates. What one of us learns, all of us learn.
In it for the long run
Docs take years. We’re the people still asking how it’s going in year three.
Who keeps it running
Come sit in the dark with us.
Membership is $50 a year free until July 2027, and nobody’s ever been turned away for not having it.