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Kim Dinh came to Scribe Video Center with a documentary they wanted to make and a problem: They did not yet have all the skills to make it.
Their project, “American Worker: The Labor to Belong,” was still in its early stages, and Dinh needed to learn camera operation, cinematography and editing. In 2023, they came to Scribe for classes that could help them move the film from idea to production. Before that, they had made videos and contributed to documentary projects as an illustrator, but directing a feature-length film was new ground.
“It’s a bit crazy,” Dinh said. “It did feel a little crazy.”
Founded in 1980 by Philadelphia filmmaker Louis Massiah, Scribe Video Center is a West Philadelphia nonprofit that helps people make films, learn visual media skills and use documentaries to tell stories about themselves and their communities. Massiah describes Scribe as “fundamentally a teaching institution.”
The center offers workshops, screening programs, youth filmmaking, the Film Scholars Program, the Precious Places Community History Project and a community radio station.
When Massiah started Scribe, Philadelphia had filmmakers, but he said the city lacked the kind of media arts center he had seen in Boston and New York where people could learn from each other and access equipment. Today — whether it’s on their iPhone or a handheld DSLR — nearly everyone carries a camera. In the early 1980s, Massiah said, access to a camera was “extraordinarily rare.”
“Having a place where people could have access to both equipment and the knowledge — and also to each other — really was something that seemed quite important,” he said. “Something that Philadelphia could benefit from.”
At Scribe, Massiah encourages individuals to use film to express themselves and start conversations about their community.
“I go to see films at the multiplex like everybody or I’ll see films that are being streamed,” said Massiah. “But film has a civic value, film has a community building value.”
Scribe began modestly. For its first several years, it operated in free space at Brandywine Workshop on South Broad Street, with Massiah working on it after hours and on weekends while he worked full-time as a producer at WHYY. It later moved to a building near 13th and Cypress streets, then to West Philadelphia in the early 2000s. In 2018, after years of adding programs, Scribe opened its current space on Lancaster Avenue.
At Scribe, some people come for a single workshop, others move through longer programs. The Film Scholars Program is structured to take adults from planning to production management to technical skills, a 14-week production session, and post-production workshops.
Ashley Whiteside, a therapist and social worker by day, joined the Film Scholars Program in fall 2025; she calls the program her “community MFA.” First inspired to join Scribe by movies she saw at the North Philadelphia History Festival (which returns next week with a special focus on John Coltrane!), Whiteside is now working on a documentary about her relationship with her father called “Dutiful Daughters.”
“Scribe is a community place that’s open and available for any person who is interested in telling a story,” said Whiteside. “They will always be able to support you.”
Passionate about film before working with Scribe, she says she’s learned some things she can’t “un-learn” and now watches films more closely, but her new skills have helped people tell stories that otherwise would’ve gone untold.
“I’ve been saying that this is my second act,” said Whiteside. “I started my work in social work because I wanted to help people, and I think that film can also be a vehicle for that, so it’s still the same mission. It’s just a different modality.”
Dinh’s benefit from Scribe has been a bit more tangible. They received a $2,500 planning grant from Scribe, which helped them travel for interviews for their film. Later in their filmmaking process, they received a $3,500 finishing grant, which helped them work with a motion graphics specialist and composer.
Starting their film without prior filmmaking skills and with funding often elusive for independent filmmakers, Scribe made a first feature documentary feel possible.
“When I think of why, like how this project even exists,” they said, “it’s probably because Scribe is here.”
Scribe’s funding comes from a mix of local funders, individual donors, distribution and exhibition of work, and public arts support. The William Penn Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, People’s Media Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the City of Philadelphia are among its supporters. Massiah said Scribe had grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities that were cut by the Trump administration, then later received funding again at a lower level.
Still, he said Scribe’s biggest help isn’t monetary.
“The greatest resource of Scribe really is the people: the people who teach at Scribe, and the people who come to learn at Scribe, and the people who present films at Scribe,” said Massiah. “So that is a huge resource that may not necessarily show up on the balance sheet.”
Those people range widely in age. Massiah recognized one individual, Willa Cofield, an educator and activist who came to Scribe in her late 70s wanting to make a film about Enfield, North Carolina. She has since made three films, he said. Massiah also mentioned David Block, a legally blind filmmaker who took workshops at Scribe and went on to make about a dozen films.
Kamani Bright, a high school student, first came to Scribe about five years ago after his mother told him about a filmmaking program. He had liked movies and cartoons, but had not thought seriously about making films himself. Through the Documentary History Project for Youth, he said students choose subjects, handle camera work, conduct interviews and make editing decisions. He is now in his fifth year with the program and working on a film about Tustin Playground in West Philadelphia. In the future, he said he hopes to make films like those of his favorite director, Spike Lee.
“It’s changed what I want to do in my life,” said Bright. “I want to go to college and have a career in filmmaking, and that stems from my first year at Scribe.”
