Producers' Forum: The Great Experiment by Stephen Maing and Eric Daniel Metzgar

The Great Experiment by Stephen Maing and Eric Daniel Metzgar

(USA, Mexico, 2026, 100 mins)

What holds a people together when the story they tell about themselves begins to fracture? The Great Experiment is an epic poem in documentary form – a mirror held to an American nation at war with its own reflection, asking not who is right, but whether the experiment itself can survive. Filmed in striking black and white across the US over four consequential years, from 2017 to 2021, the film considers the results of what George Washington once called “our last great experiment” in democracy.

Stephen Maing is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor based in New York City. His most recent film, The Great Experiment, is an ambitious observational chronicle of one of the most volatile and perplexing eras of American history & identity. Maing's films seek to expand the aesthetic form and limits of longitudinal nonfiction filmmaking. They are highly observational visual investigations of societal phenomena, complex power structures, and the fascinating individuals who challenge them.