Welcome to the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, and to its home, the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.

One of the nation's premier film exhibition centers, AFI Silver is a state-of-the-art film and digital media exhibition venue that serves as a national model for preserving and honoring our shared film and film-going heritage.

Launched in 2003, the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival and its concurrent International Documentary Conference has become widely recognized as the nation's preeminent documentary festival, and is an event with genuine global impact and influence.  We are immensely proud of the creativity, vision and commitment of the Festival team, both past and present, which made this possible.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director, Sky Sitney the Festival team has brought together an astonishingly rich selection of films, and given us a unique opportunity to celebrate and connect with the films and filmmakers who are defining the documentary form today. And similarly, this year's International Documentary Conference will once again bring together more than 1,000 leading media-makers, funders, commissioners and distributors to explore the state of documentary filmmaking today, and the power of documentary form to engage and enrich civic discourse.

None of this would be possible without the vision and commitment of the Festival's Founding Sponsor, Discovery Communications. We are also grateful to the Festival's other major supporters including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the United States Institute for Peace.

Have a wonderful week at the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival!