Multititude Films is a production company that produces documentaries related to social issues including… Life after and Pray awayis shifting to a non-profit model under new leadership.
The company’s co-founder, producer Anya Ross, will assume the role of president after serving as vice president of the company for eight years. Ross will lead the company in its new 501(c)(3) iteration along with its first-ever Board of Directors, which will include Center for Constitutional Rights Defense Director Nadia Ben Youssef, Documentary Accountability Working Group Director Natalie Pollock Brown, Curiosity Capital CEO Felipe Estefan and 4th World Media Co-Founder Tracy Rector.
Multititude Films said the board will provide strategic advice and leadership as the company moves forward as a nonprofit organization.
“Our core ambition continues, to produce courageous documentaries and mobilize culture-change strategies in service of cultural transformation and a more liberated future,” Ross said in a statement. “As a non-profit organization, we will expand and sharpen our commitment to collaborating with partners inside and outside the film community, and working with organizers and movements to build long-term narrative power.”
The leadership change comes after founder and former president Jess Devaney moved to Perspective Films, a production company launched by the Perspective Fund.
“Anya has been a key architect of Multititude’s strategy, programs and business,” Devaney said in a statement. “She brings a rare combination of political clarity, creative instinct, disciplined leadership, and a deep commitment to the filmmakers and movements in which we participate.”
Launched in 2016, Multitude Films has produced a number of social justice-focused titles that have landed on Netflix, PBS, Peacock, and HBO Max. Company movie 2022 Lowndes County and the Road to Black PowerThe film, directed by Geeta Gandbheer and Sam Pollard, was nominated for an Emmy Award. It’s 2023 short How do we get freedom?by Gandbhir and Samantha M. Knowles, nominated for an Academy Award and a 2025 award Life afterThe documentary, directed by Reed Davenport, won the Special Jury Prize for American Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival.
But this is a difficult time in the documentary market for the social issues in which Multitude Films specializes. Major streaming platforms now routinely focus more on celebrities, sports and true crime projects in their unscripted shows than on issues like racial justice or climate change, while Participant Media’s demise in 2024 removed a major backer from the space.
In its new form, Multititude Films will continue to advance this justice-focused work, supporting underrepresented filmmakers and focusing on work that has a strong social impact component “to ensure bold cinema can contribute to systemic change,” the company said in a press release.
In this spirit, the brand’s upcoming animated documentary will be screened alive!directed by Pray away Christine Stoulakis’s Helmer follows two young women who start over after suffering from severe, life-threatening eating disorders.
