About Us
Founded in 2014, the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) trains young people how to locate stories from their lived experiences and direct their own documentary films. In a two-month summer intensive, students learn all aspects of documentary filmmaking from professional filmmakers, faculty and guest artists. At the end of the program, students complete a film, and learn how to distribute it to film festivals, community organizations and television outlets.
More about YDA
The Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) is housed at Pikes Peak State College in Colorado Springs. Students from the ages of 14 to 18 are encouraged to apply to the Summer session. What kinds of stories are ideal to explore in the Youth Documentary Academy? The answer is: personal, family or social-issue stories that tell us something we don’t know, especially something about diverse communities.
It might be a story about coming from a first generation immigrant family or about growing up as an LGBTQ+ person or coming from foster care or from a less traditional family. It could be a story about living with a disability or living with a family member who has a disability. Or maybe it’s a story about growing up in a military family or with few financial resources. Or even how a social or environmental issue may have affected you or your community. What access do you have to an untold story?
What Students get from YDA
YDA offers 12 tuition-free fellowships per year in Colorado Springs to support training, equipment and facilities, each worth over $5,000. At the end of the summer, YDA graduates learn to make a short documentary film, become exposed to professional filmmakers in the area, make connections with other young filmmakers, and visit local colleges and universities to learn more about careers in documentary filmmaking and storytelling. In addition, YDA students often learn how to wrestle with situational hardships in their lives and how to own their own stories, turning challenge and constraint into superpower. During the following year, graduates work closely with YDA to distribute their films locally and nationally, including, now, on PBS. YDA’s public tv series, OUR TIME, now broadcasts across 80% of PBS stations nationwide.
The program is intensely fun but also very rigorous. YDA is looking for young people who are willing to share their stories with each other, who are deeply respectful of others’ differences, and who will work very hard. For more information about our admissions process, application guidelines or to apply, please click here.
What an honor to be part of this year’s launch of the Youth Documentary Academy. From original concept to finished films, community response has been tremendous. We look forward to partnering with YDA well into the future.
Linda Broker, Director, Rocky Mountain Women's Film Institute
