Stories the industry won’t tell. Made by the people who lived them.
Convergence Lens Studios is a worker-owned film and media production cooperative. We produce narrative films, documentary series, and episodic media that center around marginalized voices, challenge oppressive narratives, and prove that high-quality storytelling doesn’t require the current exploitative industry structures at all.
What We Do
We work with creatives who want to see their TV/Film projects come to life without worrying about the burden of Hollywood’s typical restrictions, demands, and barriers.
We are owned and governed by the people, for the people.
Every project we take on is an equal collaboration between every worker on set, and that includes equal compensation. Everyone working for us, from the PAs to the lead actors, receives an equal share of the net profits.
Narrative Film
Original and adapted narrative projects that center the lived experiences of communities that are typically left out at mainstream studios. We are always working on and looking for feature length films to produce that align with that mission!
Episodic and Short-Form Media
Series, shorts, and episodic projects created for streaming and community distribution. We want to reach audiences where they are as much as we can, along with making our work affordable for as many people as possible.
Documentary Series
Long-form investigative and observational documentary work adapted from The Convergence Lens’s journalism and original research, bringing the artistry of journalism to the screen.
Why We’re A cooperative
The film industry is built on hierarchy, precarity, and the extraction of labor from people who rarely see the profits of what they produce. We have structured Convergence Lens Studios differently.
CLS is a worker cooperative, which means the people who make our films — directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, researchers, assistants — are also owners of this company. We govern democratically, share our financial surplus, and invest in the next generation of filmmakers through our Fellowship and Residency Program.
The only way to consistently create film and media that challenges power is to organize the production process itself as a challenge to power, and that’s exactly what we did.
Pathway to Production
Our Fellowship and Residency Program creates paid, mentored pathways into cooperative film production for aspiring filmmakers from working-class, Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized backgrounds. Fellows work on real productions and have a clear trajectory to becoming Worker-Members of the cooperative.
The Convergence Family
Convergence Lens Studios is the production arm of The Convergence Lens, an independent media publication covering culture, politics, and social justice. Our productions draw on TCL’s investigative journalism and editorial content, bringing that work from the page to the screen under a formal revenue-sharing and content licensing agreement.
CLS and TCL are separate organizations — aka distinct legal entities with separate governance — but we do share a Founder, a mission, and a belief that independent media must be worker-owned to be truly independent.
Stay Connected
Follow our productions, our fellowship applications, and our organizational updates. Or, reach out with general inquiries using the form here or on the contact page.