caitlin mae burke

 IF/Then Shorts is a fund and mentorship initiative of Field of Vision.

IF/Then supports storytellers in breaking barriers to access, exposure, and sustainability in the media landscape. Founded in 2017 by Amy Hobby and Mridu Chandra at Tribeca Film Institute, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, IF/Then champions inclusive, regional storytelling by underrepresented filmmakers to challenge dominant narratives and dismantle inequities.

IF/Then Shorts taps into the need for broader geographical representation in the stories that get told through its regional pitch events. We work with creators who experience inequity based on factors such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, ethnicity, age, citizenship, and/or geography. IF/Then holistically supports short documentary storytellers in their creation of compelling, character-led, community-inspired stories that embody the breadth and diversity of the people and places they represent.

Through her work over five and a half years as the creative lead as well as Program Manager, Supervising Producer, and now Co-Director, Caitlin Mae Burke mentored 117 short documentaries from development to distribution. Projects have gone on to be Oscar-shortlisted, win numerous Best Of designations at festivals internationally, and broadcast/stream on Criterion Channel, Al Jazeera English, Disney+, NYT OpDocs, The New Yorker, POV, Reel South, NHK, and more.

During Caitlin’s tenure, she spearheaded the Distribution Initiative acting as a first-of-its-kind pro bono sales agent focused on filmmaker friendly and equitable multiplatform distribution for short films, forged partnerships with Hulu, The Redford Center, NBCUniversal and Emergence Magazine. She provided workshops on pitch training, mult-iplatform distribution and documentary development to hundreds of filmmakers on four continents.

For the latest successes of IF/Then projects) check out IF/Then Shorts.