A Banner Year
- Directed & Produced by: Josh Davidsburg
- Stage:
- Location:
- Updated: October 16, 2026
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Logline
In Baltimore, an ambitious nonprofit newsroom is either the future of local journalism or proof that it can't be saved. A Banner Year follows its coming of age: a city hall reporter pushed to the breaking point, an investigative team chasing a story that shook the city, and a startup that becomes a Pulitzer winner.
Clips
Stills
Participants
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Emily Sullivan
City Hall Reporter
Participant
Emily Sullivan
City Hall Reporter
Emily schmoozes like a politician and swears like a sailor while constantly scooping the competition. She loves the Banner, but is the stress of covering a city election at a startup slowly pushing her out the door? -
Julie Scharper
Investigative Reporter
Participant
Julie Scharper
Investigative Reporter
Everyone loves Julie. A mother of three, Julie quit reporting to focus on her family, but the Banner lured her back into journalism to break stories like a Spotlight-style investigation into an international megachurch covering up sexual abuse.Spending a year on that investigation, she had to balance her kids, conduct parking-lot interviews, and get to the truth. -
Justin Fenton & Jess Califeti
Investigative Team
Participant
Justin Fenton & Jess Califeti
Investigative Team
Justin Fenton and Jess Calefati join Julie to round out the investigative team. Over the course of a year, cameras follow them as they dig into a sex abuse scandal within a cult-like megachurch—one with far-reaching, international implications.
As they navigate the emotional toll of earning survivors’ trust, the frustrations of the editing process, and the constant pull of family life, the pressure mounts. Will their investigation ever see the light of day—and if it does, will anyone care enough to read it?
Team
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Josh Davidsburg
Director & Producer
Team
Josh Davidsburg
Director & Producer
Josh Davidsburg is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and senior lecturer at the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park. His first feature-length documentary Queen of the Capital is available to watch on Starz, and screened at film festivals across the country, including Slamdance. Josh teaches documentary, broadcast journalism and the future of video. He is currently producing his second feature-length documentary. -
Adam Evans
Editor
Team
Adam Evans
Editor
Adam Evans is a British filmmaker and editor. His most recent work as an editor is David France and Jesse Short Bull’s ‘FREE LEONARD PELTIER’.
His other credits include Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill’s ‘CATCHING FIRE: THE STORY OF ANITA PALLENBERG’ and David France’s ‘HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC’.
For his work on ‘HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC’, he was nominated for Outstanding Editing in Documentary/Nonfiction Theatrical Feature by the HPA and received a Cinema Eye Honors award nomination for Broadcast Editing. The film also won Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary at the 44th News and Documentary Emmys.
He has worked in the post-production world for 15 years on shorts, series and features for broadcasters such as HBO, BBC and Netflix. His work has played at festivals around the world, including the Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, CPH:DOX, the BFI London Film Festival and DOC NYC.
He is currently the Editor-In-Residence at the Johns Hopkins University/Maryland Institute College of Art Film Center. He is a graduate of the School Of Visual Arts and The Edit Center. -
Alex Glass
DP for Interviews
Team
Alex Glass
DP for Interviews
With a background in journalism and documentary storytelling, Alex’s production company Cottage Creative tells human stories for businesses and nonprofits across the country. Alex has worked on documentaries that appeared on STARZ, Peacock and film festivals across the country. -
Keniera Wagstaff
Co-producer
Team
Keniera Wagstaff
Co-producer
Keniera is a film and journalism student at Morgan State University. She’s got a thriving video production and photo business and is a musician. She wants to go into film and documentary when she graduates. -
Imani Muleyyar
Assistant Editor
Team
Imani Muleyyar
Assistant Editor
Imani Muleyyar is an Emmy Award-winning producer/editor with over 15 years of experience in the broadcast TV industry.
He began his career as a producer at the local Baltimore Fox affiliate station and has since produced and edited original broadcast and commercial content for numerous public access stations, educational institutions, and major league sports teams.
Now Imani owns and operates the production company Imani Network while also teaching media production to students of all ages. -
Alanna Delfino-Kopania
additional cinematography, co-producer
Team
Alanna Delfino-Kopania
additional cinematography, co-producer
Alanna Delfino-Kopania is a professional visual storyteller and editor based in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. region. She’s a Baltimore native and is passionate about telling stories involving her community. In 2022, Alanna became the full-time lead instructor for the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s News Videography courses. She’s a proud mentor to many students and is the faculty advisor for UMD’s Video Club. Alanna has an extensive resume. She launched her career at WJLA ABC7 in 2015 as an editor in the nation's capital. She bounced back to Baltimore when she was offered an opportunity as a visual storyteller at WBFF. She quickly climbed the ladder and earned a couple of EMMYs along the way. Her solid reputation in the business garnered attention from National outlets, and, in 2020, she made the leap into national news as a multimedia photojournalist for Tegna’s National Verify team. Alanna produced long-form data-driven stories and was responsible for producing videos for their daily fact-checking national content. On a daily basis, Alanna was able to produce powerful stories on general news topics like crime, education, health, politics, societal concerns, and sports. Whether working solo or in a team setting, she was able to bring a voice to the community with stories containing strong natural sounds and powerful visuals. Some of the work Alanna produced has earned her accolades on national platforms. In 2018, she and two colleagues produced an award-winning short documentary called “After Shock: Inside a Year of Violence.” In that same year, Alanna traveled to Puerto Rico, where she captured stories from the town of Yabucoa one year after the deadly Hurricane Maria. She was able to document stories of survivors as they received a new water infiltration system, which gave their entire neighborhood fresh water. Then, Alanna joined Sinclair’s Full Measure team as they traveled to Vietnam to produce stories in remembrance of the Vietnam War and was even there to witness first-hand, Vietnam turning over the remains of US troops missing in action. Alanna's experience was recognized by news industry leaders, which gave her the platform to share her knowledge as a speaker at national conferences. She is a passionate speaker, a supportive team leader, and a mentor to storytellers across the country. She is also a faculty member of one of the most coveted journalism workshops in the country, with the National Press Photographers Association. The prestigious Workshop in Norman, Oklahoma is a week-long training seminar that brings in journalists from around the world. She’s also been on the speaker circuit for NPPA’s Education Committee and has been a guest speaker at events for NPPA, NATAS National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter, Kentucky News Photographers Association, NPPA’s Women in Visual Journalism Conference, Sound of Life Conference, and RTDNA’s National Conference. Outside of news, Alanna helped co-produce a full-length documentary called “Queen of the Capital,” which appeared at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival and was eventually bought by Starz. Currently, she is a producer and cinematographer for another full-length documentary covering the creation and growth of The Baltimore Banner. The documentary is set to air by the end of 2025. -
Gene Deems
Executive Producer
Team
Gene Deems
Executive Producer
Gene Deems started his career in newspapers, spending more than 20 years at Capital-Gazette Communications learning the craft of journalism, production, and how the news business reinvented itself from print to digital.
He then took that experience into public service, spending 27 years as eGov and Digital Services Manager at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, helping launch the state’s first website and online services so people could find information, buy products and licenses, and connect with the outdoors digitally. That work cemented his passion for using technology to solve real-world problems and make government easier to navigate.
Gene’s commitment to service runs through his leadership with organizations such as the Parole Rotary Club, Hospice of the Chesapeake Foundation, Medicine With a Mission and the Heart Health Foundation, as well as through the #makingadifference Fund supporting innovative, sustainable nonprofit work. Across these roles, he focuses on investing his time, talent, treasure, ties, and testimony into partnerships that measurably improve lives, locally and globally.
Budget
This section includes information about this project.
Team camera director producer editing project festival film narrative award. Production creative award film impact film cinema doc cinema independent independent award director independent impact cinema.
Grants & Awards
- 2023 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Production Fellowship
- 2025 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Editor-in-Residence Pilot Program
Rights
This section includes information about this project.
Doc award cinema cinema story film production creative narrative journey doc team cinema cinema festival cinema. Cinema team independent screenplay producer film editing journey team screenplay editing journey narrative.
Our Ask
Every week, two American newspapers shut their doors. Since 2005, the newspaper industry has lost more than 75% of its jobs across all roles, including reporters. While demagogues and oligarchs destroy our media landscape from the top down, hedge funds and private equity are devouring it from the ground up, leaving news deserts across the country. If democracy dies in darkness, that darkness is growing. But this documentary is about a new light shining brightly out of Baltimore. It’s a light that could be spread, replicated and has already started to disinfect. It’s a new nonprofit news organization called the Baltimore Banner, and some hail it as the most important experiment in journalism and democracy in our country right now.
For more than a year, our cameras got unfettered access to the journalists who are grinding away, helping the Banner establish itself. We followed the investigative team as they uncovered sexual abuse at a cult-like megachurch with international implications. We watch them empathetically convince victims and the family members to go on the record, meet sources in parking lots and argue with their editors and lawyers over word choice. We also follow the city hall reporter as she covers a nail-biting city election, running from debates, interviews, missing meals and working late into the night. She is one of the best at what she does, but as she prepares to start a family, the brunt of working at a startup and covering politics starts to become unbearable. This documentary will show how hard the work-life balance of a journalist is, while also showing how important it is. Meanwhile, the Banner goes from scrappy startup to Pulitzer Prize winner.
This documentary is my life's calling. My dad was a journalist for NBC, covering major events like Vietnam, the Six-Day War, and the Kent State shooting, and spent 30 years at Baltimore TV stations. My wife is also a journalist; she worked at the Annapolis Capital-Gazette and left a year before the tragic mass shooting. She now covers space for Mashable. I, too, have been a reporter and photojournalist, and now I teach college students how to become reporters. The American public must see how journalism is done, from the people who are doing it. This documentary does that, while at the same time showing what could be a path forward to save local journalism.
We are still raising money to finish post production, distribution and impact.
We are still raising money to finish post production, distribution and impact.
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