International Documentary Association (IDA) announced that applications for the organization’s flagship Enterprise Documentary Fund and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund providing over $500,000 will be received through a unified Open Call using the Core Application beginning May 29, 2024. The application deadline is June 25 for non-IDA members and July 9 for IDA members. Learn more and apply here. Filmmakers can apply for the journalistically focused Enterprise Documentary Fund and the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund. In addition to cash grants, IDA provides artist support and professional
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Political statements are hardly foreign to a film festival’s red carpet, especially during such politically unsettled times. Yet there are statements that hold particularly immense power and urgency, in light of the inconceivable suffering and loss of civilian life in some parts of the world. Such were the ones calling for “Ceasefire Now [in Gaza],” stitched onto the back of the black dresses of Danish film producer Katrin Pors and American director Eliza Hittman, who trod the red carpet ahead of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival’s opening gala.
Elahe is an award-winning filmmaker. Her films include 'The Doll' (Critics Choice Nominee, IDA Nominee, Student Academy Awards, Best International Short Hot Docs 2021), 'Can I Hug You?' (Sheffield Doc/Fest 2023, SIMA Awards Best Short 2024), and 'A Move' (Visions du Réel 2024 Best Youth Jury Short) which spanned over 50 festivals and competitions, reflects her prowess in storytelling and women's rights advocacy. Elahe's projects are supported by IDA, One World Media; awarded on forums such as Dok Leipzig Short-n-sweet; and broadcasted/streamed via platforms such as NPO, VPRO, DW, VG, etc.
Filmed in Mongolia for over seven years, Daughter of Genghis follows Gerel, a 33-year-old loving single mother by day and a balaclava-wearing leader of a neo-nationalist gang by night. The tension between these two identities takes center stage in the debut feature of Danish photojournalists-turned-filmmakers Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als. The film is both engaging as a portrayal Gerel’s troubling quest to protect, in her own words, “Mongol women, Mongol children, Mongol genes,” and moving in capturing her changing relationship with her son, Temuulen, who literally grows up in
Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival takes place in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the most northerly town in England, resting near the border to Scotland and where the River Tweed meets the sea. The festival places site-specific installations within this setting and has risen to prominence in a way that many festivals outside of cities struggle to achieve, attracting audiences from across the United Kingdom. In past editions, it spotlighted international filmmakers, including Peggy Ahwesh, Sky Hopinka, Shireen Seno, John Torres, and this year, Basma al-Sharif. At the same time, the festival has
In September 2020, amidst a global pandemic, the government of India passed three farm laws which met with resistance. Nishtha Jain’s new documentary Farming the Revolution chronicles the resulting farmers’ protest, from 2020–2021; the contentious agricultural reforms, pertaining to regulating the pricing and sale of farm produce, were peddled as beneficial but viewed as exploitative by the farmers. Indian farmers, especially from the agrarian states like Punjab and Haryana, staged widespread protests against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power since 2014, by marching up
How To With John Wilson is an 18-part series of comedic documentary essays framed as tutorials. In each episode, filmmaker John Wilson poses a question that is also the episode title, like How To Make Small Talk or How To Throw Out Your Batteries. The questions are very rarely answered directly, instead offering a free-associative portal into both Wilson’s life and those of the people he meets.
The Asian American Documentary Network, colloquially known as A-Doc, announces nine participants across two funding initiatives: the Our Stories, Our Voices Microdocs series, and the inaugural Impact Fellowship. The third A-Doc-produced microdocs series, Our Stories, Our Voices , will consist of six 2-minute short documentaries on the 2024 U.S. elections and civic engagement. According to a press release, selected filmmakers will receive $3,000 in production funding plus another $750 in “impact support to create and conduct an impact campaign leading up to November, in partnership with
On Christmas Eve of 1989, a pregnant mother of nine named Imelda Bbaale was inexplicably shot and killed in her home. It was a shocking tragedy that forced Imelda’s husband to flee with his young children to a different continent with the murder remaining unsolved. Nearly a quarter century on, Imelda’s daughter Patricia Bbaale Bandak gave birth to her own baby girl (also Imelda) on that very same horrible yet holy date. The coincidence catalyzed Bandak, now an acclaimed Ugandan-Danish filmmaker, to return to her native land to seek answers—less about the circumstances surrounding her mother's
If Alex Garland's fictional film about a hypothetical new American Civil War feels insufficiently political, Charlie Sadoff's Against All Enemies, warning of the ways a real one could come about, may be more suitable. Now on VOD, and burning up the iTunes charts, Against All Enemies is produced by the liberal PAC Meidas Touch, Restrepo (2010) director Sebastian Junger, Ken Harbaugh, and Sadoff.