How Do You Get a Documentary Made? Ask the Woman Who Co-Runs RKO

Do you have a documentary, or do you have a Wikipedia entry?

Somebody decides whether your documentary gets made. Sophia Dilley is one of those people. She runs Concord Originals, the division behind Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. on HBO, and she is Co-President of RKO, which Concord bought in June 2025 along with more than 5,000 titles including King Kong, Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life. In this episode she gives away the three questions she asks before her team commits to anything.

In Episode 286, Christian sits down with Sophia Dilley, Executive Vice President of Concord Originals and Co-President of RKO, to talk about how a project gets chosen, how to reach out to someone far above you, and how music rights for film work when the budget you have is the only budget there is.

The spine of the conversation is a question Dilley asks before her team commits to anything: is this a Wikipedia story we're telling? If the whole thing is already available in twelve seconds of searching, there may not be a film in it. Around that sit her two other threshold questions, a working answer to why the documentary business feels impossible right now, and the plainest reassurance in the episode. "It's scary," she says. "It's scary for everybody." Along the way: a punk band that played CBGB's, a production designer father who left for set at four forty-five in the morning, Roger Deakins as a case study in how to write to someone you admire, and the difference between distribution rights and derivative rights, which is the thing almost everyone (including Christian!) got wrong about the RKO deal. If you have ever been told that music rights for film are impossible on an independent budget, she has a different answer.

In this episode, you'll learn:

What Concord actually acquired when it bought RKO, and why distribution rights and derivative rights are two entirely different thingsThe three questions Sophia Dilley asks before committing to any storyHow to tell whether you have a film or a Wikipedia entryThe difference between sync and publishing, and why one song can mean two negotiations with two different companiesWhat to say to a music company when the budget you have is the only budget there isWhy a music documentary takes five years on average, and what eats the timeWhy a rejection is usually about the marketplace rather than about your filmHow to open a door with someone you admire without being, in her words, a scary, creepy fanWhat it looks like inside a company tha