Incubator program preps tomorrow’s right-leaning filmmakers

Thomas Pack has documentary filmmaking in his blood.

Pack’s father, Michael Pack, directed the 2020 film “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words” in addition to titles for PBS affiliates nationwide. Thomas' mother, Gina Cappo Pack, has worked in film development and promotion and serves as president of Manifold Productions.

'It’s a program for untold stories and open-minded filmmakers who want truth over messaging and raw American storytelling over agenda.'

Not every would-be filmmaker is so blessed. It’s a reason Thomas Pack oversees a program designed to teach the next generation of center-right filmmakers the tools of the trade.

And if the stories that emerge defy Hollywood groupthink, all the better.

Building an ecosystem

As director of Palladium Pictures’ Incubator program, Pack helps train young storytellers in the fine art of documentary film. The program funds the projects and assists with distribution and promotion.

“Art impacts the larger cultural conversation,” says Pack. “We felt that there was this gap, a cultural shift happening in America ... there’s space for new media and new, great filmmaking, and someone needs to train the filmmakers.”

That’s typically the job of film schools, but those programs often nurture left-leaning artists.

“The left has a vast ecosystem,” Pack says. “Left-leaning foundations fund major film festivals, they fund early filmmakers, and they fund the channels they’re going to be distributed on ... film schools all over the country bought into the progressive orthodoxy.”

“The right,” he says, “needs to build something similar.”

The timing couldn’t be better, given the recent election results and the rise of new media platforms.

“Documentaries are only part of the picture here. It’s an important part, and it’s the part we know about,” he said.

The Moving Picture Institute may be the closest program to Pack’s Incubator initiative, he says, though it deals with narrative features that promote freedom and open markets.

The combined groups represent a drop in the proverbial bucket.

From 'Fast Break' to 'Frozen Embryos'

“Look at the total amount being spent on the right ... it’s really small, including on filmmaking as a whole,” he says.

The Incubator’s first round of “graduates” told stories that won’t be heard in mainstream film circles.

“The Secret Game: A Fast Break to Freedom” follows two college basketball teams in Jim Crow-era North Carolina playing an illegal interracial game at great risk to themselves and the community.

“Spares: Second Chance Stories of Frozen Embryos” visits four couples who put their fertilized embryos up for adoption, highlighting the moral complexities tied to IVF treatments.

“The Bird and the Bee: Satire, Social Media, and Censorship” tells the remarkable story behind the Babylon Bee. The Christian satire site has been at war with the press and social media giants for years, but Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter changed the free speech landscape.

“High Country Murder” tracks an unsolved murder and how the case reveals inconvenient truths about drug cartels along the U.S.-Mexico border.

All four films can be seen on RealClearPolitics’ YouTube channel along with Musk’s X platform. The Incubator program also submits original shorts to film festivals for consideration.

Heterodox storytelling

Pack described the first class of Incubator members as coming from different backgrounds with their own unique styles.

Keely Brazil Covello, the co-director of “High Country Murder,” says “heterodox storytelling” rarely generates support in conventional film circles. The self-taught filmmaker comes from a rural background and appreciated how Pack’s team encouraged stories from that perspective.

“I think any creative will agree that it can be hard to find a mentor you trust, especially when you come in as an outsider or bring maybe a different perspective or unique vision,” Covello says.

The program encouraged her to appear on camera alongside her sister and co-director, Michaela Brazil Gillies, given their ties to the community in question. She wasn’t sure about the decision at first, but she came to trust the program’s intentions.

“Making docs is a scrappy gig; as Michael Pack said at one point, 'If you can make a documentary, you can do anything.' But this program gave us a little bit of a safety net for the first time. I actually had a support system to hash out creative decisions and workshop in a group, not just on my own, which is how I've always worked.”

Raw American storytelling

Covello is just warming up.

“I'm a writer and journalist as well and will continue to do that, but I'm pretty addicted to film at this point. Palladium showed me it is possible,” she says.

The program’s center-right leanings are out in the open, but both Pack and Covello insist the documentaries aren’t one-sided or aggressively partisan.

“Palladium will encourage you to take a fair-minded journalistic approach, as all documentarians should,” she says. “It’s a program for untold stories and open-minded filmmakers who want truth over messaging and raw American storytelling over agenda.”

Pack says film and entertainment offer the “most direct and immediate impact on the culture,” and too many stories are slipping through the cracks.

“A conservative film means a topic that is more interesting to conservatives, or a topic being ignored by mainstream media,” he says. “In our view, there are many mainstream conservative topics that aren’t getting their due.”