“I think we’ve always felt that documentary film has a critical role to play in the democratic process and a democratic society,” Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films says in this Peabody Conversation after accepting an Institutional Award on behalf of the organization. For 50 years, the nonprofit has indelibly shaped contemporary filmmaking through its commitment to nonfiction storytelling as an art form, as reflected in the groundbreaking “Hoop Dreams,”“Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita” and “Minding the Gap,” among others. Peabody honored Kartemquin for “its leadership in the tradition of independent documentary and its community, and its values rooted in social justice and democracy.”