Press & Events
Meet YDA Student Filmmaker Taylor Saulsbury
By the time summer rolled around and Taylor Saulsbury was ready to participate in YDA’s 2020 summer program, the COVID-19 restrictions on social gatherings didn’t faze her much. “It was disappointing,” the 16-year-old Palmer High School student said, “but because of school being online I was already impacted, so it was … Read more »
Meet YDA Student Filmmaker Ethan Frederick
It makes sense that YDA student Ethan Frederick wanted to make a personal film about COVID-19. After all, his mother’s a nurse, his father is a teacher and his older brother had to return home from college. “There were interesting perspectives I wanted to highlight. Those were candid conversations that taught me a lot,” he said. … Read more »
Alumnae Share Their Experiences of YDA in New Interviews!
Some of our YDA alums got together to interview each other about their experiences in YDA. Check out the first two below with Rebecca St. John, Class of 2015 interviewing Dee Contreras and Amethyst Reynolds. Dee One Minute with music from Youth Documentary Academy on Vimeo. Amethyst One … Read more »
Meet Some of Our Increadible YDA Student Filmmakers!
The Alexander Valley Film Society caught up with Tom Shepard, the director of UNSETTLED earlier this year. Tom’s passion project has been the creation of the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA), an organization founded in 2013, that trains young people how to direct and produce their own documentary films. Today, we … Read more »
Trailer for OUR TIME, Season 2
See what YDA has been up to, with a preview of OUR TIME, Season 2. Airing now on PBS. To watch Season 1 and Season 2, go to https://www.pbs.org/show/our-time/. And stay tuned. Season 3 will be premiering this fall and next year on most PBS stations! OUR TIME Season 2 … Read more »
YDA Founder/Director, Tom Shepard, Talks Film Arts and Theatre in the Time of Covid
Watch YDA Founder/Director, Tom Shepard, represent the Youth Documentary Academy in this conversation with local filmmakers and theater artists to discuss film arts and theatre in the time of Covid.
YDA Sets New Record at the All American High School Film Festival
The Youth Documentary Academy has always fared well at the annual All American High School Film Festival. But this news is unprecedented. From our 2019 class of graduates, we submitted ten films to the festival. ALL TEN FILMS were officially selected and we’ve been given a heads up that at … Read more »
The Arc Pikes Peak Region Recognizes YDA Student, Samuel!
It’s #WeAchieveWednesday once again! We want to share that at the start of 2020, The Arc Pikes Peak Region’s theme for the year was “Achieve Your Vision.” It was an invitation to those of various abilities in our community to take steps toward achieving their dreams and goals. To believe … Read more »
YDA Film Accepted Into Mill Valley Film Festival
2019 Alumni Filmmaker Kallista Palapas has just had her film, I’LL BE THERE, accepted to screen at the 2020 Mill Valley Film Festival! I’LL BE THERE is an unvarnished account of Kallista’s experience of when a close friend and classmate took his life, creating a ripple of grief and confusion. … Read more »
YDA Looking To Hire Development/Marketing Associate
The Youth Documentary Academy is seeking a part-time marketing/development specialist for our public television series OUR TIME (www.youthdocumentary.org/ourtime). This position would involve soliciting corporate, foundation, and individual sponsorships for the series totaling at 50k. Contributing sponsors will receive underwriting credits on the broadcast version of Season 2 of OUR TIME … Read more »
While walking around Boulder, so many people came up to me and my dad to thank me for making AFTER WAR.
Bailey Francisco, 17
