The Impact of Story: Director and Humanitarian Kathryn Everett on the Life-Changing Power of Documentary Films
By Stacey Lindsay
When Kathryn Everett was falling in love with film as a teenager, she fell especially hard for documentaries. “I would drive to the Jacob Burns Film Center, which was one of the few theaters in my area that would showcase documentaries,” she says about where she grew up in New York state. “I would always come home and tell my parents about everything that I had seen.”
One film, Bowling for Columbine, the 2002 Michael Moore documentary that explores the 1999 high school shooting massacre and American homicide rates, particularly imprinted on her. “I was completely blown away about how the fight for gun control was shaking out,” remembers Everett, who says the “outrage” she felt led her to go to the Million Mom March rally. “I decided to protest for gun control because of that [film].”
It would be easy to assume Everett’s desire to inspire change at the time was the product of a charged teenager. That her internal flame might continue through college until its embers lost oxygen with a decision to choose a more traditional career, “like a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher” that she says were endemic to where she grew up. Instead, Everett stayed fueled. And she built a career that seemed to open a new portal for what it means to align your work with your values.
After graduating with a degree in international relations, Everett dived into politics. She traveled the country, campaigning and fundraising. She eventually moved into the non-profit sector, which led her to concentrate on girls’ education. When she started working with an organization in Pakistan that was striving to end the education crisis—the millions of Pakistani children that were not attending school or attempting to learn in horrific environments—she challenged her capacity to do even more. “I just kept thinking: How can I get other people to care about this? What’s the most effective way to get people to talk about this or to do something about it?”
That answer was documentary film. Everett realized that the best path to broadening people’s knowledge around a situation or crisis was to give them a narrative—which is what she’s always sought. “After years working in the field, in different non-profits internationally, and on the ground in politics, I saw clearly that if you wanted to make an impact at scale, you have to tell a better story,” she says. “You have to be able to get people's attention and get people to care and make them feel something—and I think that documentary film is absolutely the best tool to do that.”
In mid-2019, Everett began honing that “tool” in a role that she describes as “the greatest job in the world”: head of film at XTR, a non-fiction film and TV production company and studio founded by media entrepreneur and filmmaker Bryn Mooser. XTR—which launched its documentary streaming platform Documentary+ in early 2021—is set on taking a different approach to telling stories, one that values the filmmakers, as well as impact and inclusion and equity, over the mere profit-focused goals that permeate the film industry. The company works at various levels, from financing and development to production and distribution. Since 2019, XTR has been part of the financing and producing of more than 50 documentary features and series, of which more than 70 percent are directed or co-directed by women.
Everett says that in the early inception of XTR, she, Mooser, and Justin Lacob, XTR’s head of development, asked each other if they should make it an explicit company mandate to support female filmmakers. But then they looked beyond the marketing jargon to what they are: true amplifiers of all impactful creatives and work. ”We decided that we weren't going to make it sort of an official piece of the company because, to us, it has to be automatic. We want to support the best projects—and women are part of the best projects.”
The documentaries the XTR team gets behind are diverse and wide-ranging. Each one gives oxygen to a subject—and filmmaker—that moves humanity forward. Of the many films, there’s Us Kids, the story of teenage survivors of the Parkland school shooting who catalyzed a movement against gun violence. There’s At the Ready, which chronicles the journey of several Mexican American students who work toward careers with the US board control. And the team announced in September that they’re behind Lakota Nation VS. the United States, a film about the Lakota Indians’ quest to reclaim their stolen land.
Everett and the team at XTR are also leveling the playing field for the filmmakers. Earlier this year, they announced that for every project they distribute via Documentary+, the streaming arm of XTR, they will reveal the film’s performance ratings to its filmmakers—an unorthodox move in a system that has always been cryptic. The decision is a no-brainer, says Everett. Streaming platforms use that data to their advantage, so why wouldn’t the creators be privy to it? “Of course we should share that with the filmmakers, because then they can pivot and iterate based on what they're learning and have increased success themselves.”
These days, Everett is set on charging forth with this multi-level approach to amplifying the entire spectrum of documentary filmmaking, from the support and creation to the awareness and viewership. And it’s paramount that she and the XTR team continue to do this in their way. “That’s something that we're also really interested in as we are building our studio: How do we keep independent film growing? How do we make sure that independent film is still pushing boundaries in the way that it needs to in terms of giving access to diverse creators and giving opportunities to join the marketplace to diverse creators? Because I think that's like that's the biggest barrier to entry. There are so many talented people who are making films and who are telling amazing stories. It's just that there's no way for them to get in the room.”
When asked if she felt people gravitated to documentaries for their impact, much like she did when she was younger, Everett is realistic. “First and foremost, when people are watching documentaries, the number one thing that they're looking to do is be entertained,” she says. But it’s what ensues that can be the game-changer. “Most viewers aren't watching with the intention of having an impact or even thinking that that's what's going to happen. But the result is that they end up having one because they're better informed and they're doing research and going further on the topic at hand… That's how we see documentary films making such a big impact as they do.”
To learn more about Kathryn Everett and XTR, visit xtr.com.
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