SYNOPSIS:

We’re takin’ it to the streets, sure—but this week we’re also takin’ it to the list: the Nonfiction Hotlist, with producer Anna Rau. Anna's got the scoop on this new endeavor to connect nonfic producers with money and distribution, and she’s here to share just what the Nonfiction Hotlist is and where it’s going. It started when former ESPN producer Adam Neuhaus made a viral LinkedIn post that inspired a community initiative championing unreleased nonfiction storytelling. And it’s growing quickly. Anna explains their brand new Yahoo partnership that's creating a real home for short films that deserve more than a life relegated to the purgatory of the filmmaker’s hard drive.

Anna has a lot going on right now! She’s been producing commercials and doc-series for years, with her husband Corbett and their company The Range, but she realized there was a language on the finance side of this industry that she still needed to learn. So she enrolled in an MBA program to decode the business, and to find some creative ways to grow… and that growth has yielded big ideas in the form of westward expansion. Anna reveals that she is turning a grad-school assignment into an active business plan by putting an offer in on the legendary Palace Theater in Marfa, TX—the single-screen showroom where GIANT premiered, in the town where Anna and Corbett got married, and where they’ve got big plans to build a cinema-slash-production-hub from the ground up. Producer, MBA grad, entrepreneur, and Media Mogul—now that’s a hot list. 

Plus: a ufo-shaped gazebo on the shores of Lady Bird Lake; we eye a colorful ceramic cow; talk abundance over scarcity; and walk away feeling like the future of nonfiction is in very good hands.

***Also deadline for the Yahoo initiative is this Friday if folks want to get something in under the wire, there’s an info Q+A happening tomorrow on instagram live over @nonfictionhotlist 

Discussion Links: GIANT (1956) | JAWS (1975) | CALIFORNIA'S GOLD (1991–2012) | ARTBOUND (2012–Present) | ALL WE NEED IS ANOTHER CHANCE (2017) | TENDING NATURE (2018–2021) | EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) | THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS (2025) | GOOD MOMENT (in post-production)

00:00 Welcome to Doc Walks: Banter About Banter 02:42 Introducing Anna Rau: Old Friends, New Walks 03:00 The Marfa Wedding Suit Disaster 05:00 Anna's Career: The Range, PBS, and Beyond 06:30 Enter the Nonfiction Hotlist 08:30 What Is the Hotlist? Origin Story and Mission 10:00 The Blacklist Comparison: Nonfiction's Turn 12:00 Human-Centered Curation and Painting the Back of the Fence 15:00 Anna's MBA Journey: Understanding the Money Side 17:48 The Business of Docs: Tangibles, Intangibles, and Impact 20:30 The Yahoo Shorts Partnership: Finding a Home for Short Films 22:00 Why Shorts Are Harder Than Features 25:00 Ben's Short Film Life and the Distribution Dead End 27:00 Submission Details: Who Should Apply 29:00 The Gazebo Detour: Women Voters and Homeless Photographers 31:00 How the Curation Actually Works 33:30 Anna and Corbett's Body of Work 36:00 The Huel Howser Tangent We Needed 40:00 Crisis as Opportunity: Abundance Over Scarcity 41:00 The Palace Theater in Marfa: A Big Announcement 44:00 Pivots, Blind Leaps, and Never Having a Real Job 48:00 Community Over Competition 50:30 MBA Takeaways and the Finance of Filmmaking 54:30 Gateway Drug Film: GIANT 56:00 Advice for Young Filmmakers: Curiosity and Joy 58:30 Closing Thoughts and South by Southwest Preview