Our Story
Supporting Screen Industry Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers
We build solutions that allow filmmakers to launch and advance careers in the screen industry, regardless of their personal needs or care responsibilities.
Reel Families for Change (RFC) is a national 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to eradicating work-life conflict for screen industry professionals. What began as direct support for families during the pandemic has grown into a care infrastructure movement for the screen industry.
We don't just support stories about care. We support the people who live them, so they can tell them.
Our Theory of Change
Culture Precedes Narrative. Period.
How we make the work is as important as what gets made. It decides who stays. And who stays determines which stories get told. It's called production culture and begins before anyone calls action.
Hover or tap each box to learn more.
Production Culture
From script to screen, care is built into how we write, pitch, fund, develop, and make the work.
Workforce Vitality
People stay, do their best work, and have the space to advance and tell their own stories.
Narrative Change
Storytellers shaped by care, family, and identity finally get to tell their stories, and we see it on screen.
Social Impact
These rich, impactful stories shape how we see ourselves and our society.
The people who shape the stories that shape our society
deserve systems that let them stay.
Care Isn't Idealism. It's Infrastructure.
People are the backbone of every production. Yet their care is treated as something to handle off the clock, if it gets handled at all.
But care needs are not issues for individuals to solve.
They're production problems.
When people can't take care of themselves, meet their basic needs, or ensure the well-being of their loved ones, they leave. And their stories go with them.
Hover over or click each card to see what we lose.
Story shapes us. Everyone should get to tell theirs.
What We Do
Stories about care shape how we see work, family, and each other. They're more likely to be made when those with real access needs can enter this industry, stay, and advance.
Building on the ideas of Moms-in-Film, which closed in 2020, and the efforts of Raising Films and WonderWorks in the United Kingdom, we're carrying the movement forward for screenworkers in the U.S.
To us, people are the infrastructure.
A production only gets what its crew has left to give. And our industry is only as sustainable as the productions behind it. That's why our work spans people, productions, and the paradigm: to make care the rule, not the exception.
People
Funds that cover care costs at key career moments, and community spaces where filmmakers solve shared challenges together.
Family Care Grants
Targeted awards of up to $1,000 for screen industry caregivers at the moments when care costs stand between them and their next career step.
Community Conversations
A monthly space where screenworkers connect, share, and build solutions together.
Productions
Training and models that build care into how film and television get made.
Made With Care
Workshops that give producers, crews, and creators practical tools for care-centered production.
The CarePro Model
An operational framework that helps productions budget, schedule, and staff with care built in from the start, with a tiered certification pathway for care-centered practice.
The Paradigm
Data and convenings that help decision-makers identify and adopt best practices.
Applied Research
From biennial reports to field testing new departmental roles, RFC gathers the data that shows what care-centered production makes possible.
Legacy Lounge
RFC's Legacy Lounge brings industry leaders and partners together around care-centered production.
Be a Care Champion
Are you a creative who cares?
Partner with us to build productions where everyone can do their best work.
How We Got Started
Click a year to explore our story
Today Onward
Today Onward
RFC builds care infrastructure for the screen industry through direct support, production models, training, research, and convenings.
2026
January
RFC launches the SCRIPT Project, the Steering Committee for Responsible and Inclusive Production Tactics.
March to August
RFC field-tests a fully embedded CarePro department on set. Nearly 100% of crew report valuing the emotional support and feeling seen and respected.
September
RFC issues the Call for Care in Federal Film, an open letter urging Congress to build care into the proposed federal film incentive.
2025
2025
Our research shows the people hired to protect safety, access, and set culture often lack the power to do it. RFC begins building CarePro: an embedded department, with its own head, that gives care real authority on set.
2023
March
RFC Founder Akima A. Brown joins filmmaker Rebecca Stern and journalist Tiffany Pritchard for "Parenthood with Cameras," a featured SXSW Film & TV Festival panel on the realities, challenges, and support systems for parents working in film and television.
April
At Making Waves, Akima speaks on "The Kids Stay in the Picture," a panel on care infrastructure, sustainable production practices, and keeping parents and caregivers in the screen industry.
2022
June
RFC publishes the Work-Life Sustainability Report for American workers and convenes the Screen Industry Work-Life Sustainability Summit with partners at the Geena Davis Institute, PAAL Theatre, No More 10/12s, and Women in Film and Video.
November
RFC presents the Work-Life Sustainability Town Hall, sharing report findings with industry leaders, policymakers, and news media professionals.
2021
January
RFC's Canadian cohort partners with Women in Film and Television Canada Coalition on the Family Care Report, a cross-Canada survey on how COVID-19 affected child and family care in the screen industry.
July
RFC launches the Work-Life Sustainability Survey in the U.S.
October
The Canadian cohort and WIFT Canada Coalition release the Family Care Report, calling on Canada's federal government to support childcare and family care through its labour tax credit policy. RFC also launches the Family Care Grant, putting direct funds in the hands of screen industry caregivers at key career moments.
2020
July
Amidst the pandemic, a host of artist-parent support organizations shutter, leaving a huge need for working families in film and television. A small coalition forms to find a new, solutions-based banner for families in film.
September
Brought together by a collective goal to see screen professionals thrive, even with care responsibilities, a name is chosen, a mission is crafted, and a movement is born. We become Reel Families for Change.
We're Building So People Stay.Let's Do It Together.
Our vision is a screen industry where care responsibilities don't force folx out. You can build care into the equation from day one. Ask us how.