Feras Fayyad has been denied a visa to visit the U.S. in support of his latest film, The Cave, due to his Syrian nationality. He is being denied a voice to speak to us out of fear. Likewise, Americans are being denied the opportunity to hear from a vital voice in documentary filmmaking.
Advocacy
IDA defends the rights of documentarians to express their ideas and opinions fully (without censorship, threats or intimidation), and the rights of audiences to have access to documentary practice.
To define freedom of expression our frame of reference is the US First Amendment (in the US context) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in the international context). Yet our attention to freedom of expression extends beyond the actions of state actors.
IDA will address issues in the private and commercial sectors in so far as they impact freedom of expression for documentary makers including policies and practices that restrict how documentaries are made and seen.
To make IDA aware of issues that may need to be addresed, email advocacy@documentary.org
IDA Advocacy Work
Today, IDA and Doc Society, with support from the Knight First Amendment Institute and the Brennan Center for Justice, filed a lawsuit against the State Department on behalf of documentary filmmakers. New rules issued earlier this year by the State Department as part of the US administration’s
By Bruce D. Brown and Simon Kilmurry In August, as many as 100 officers from the Durham Constabulary in England and the Police Service of Northern Ireland raided the homes and searched one of the offices of two prominent documentary filmmakers in Northern Ireland, seizing scores of documents and
Bakur , which translates to “North” in English, is a documentary made with inside access to the Kurdish separatist group, PKK, who are considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and NATO. This was the first time any film crew had ever accessed these camps. Filmed during the peace process
The Honorable Kevin K. McAleenan Acting Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security Washington, D.C. 20528 Dear Acting Secretary McAleenan: We are a coalition of 103 civil liberties, civil rights, corporate responsibility, faith-based, human rights, immigrant rights, journalism, media, privacy
Today, IDFA and IFFR issue a joint statement that calls for the immediate release of imprisoned Myanmar filmmaker and festival director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi. We urge you to read the statement and sign your name below.
Dear Documentary Community: On the eve of the East Coast premiere of Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra's Sundance Film Festival Award-winning The Infiltrators at the Miami International Film Festival, one of the protagonists from that film, Claudio Rojas, was detained by ICE and is now in the Krome
Editor's Note: Hans-Robert Eisenhauer, the longtime documentary commissioning editor at ZDF-Arte and a documentary producer for Ventana-Film, Germany, is experiencing an unexpectedly long delay in obtaining his visa to travel to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards and IDA’s DocuDay. Eisenhauer
To my friends and compatriots in the documentary community - This is Talal Derki. Over the past few years, I have become very close to this extraordinary Syrian filmmaker. He has won not one but two Grand Jury Prizes for Best Documentary at Sundance -- the first was for the unforgettable RETURN TO
The final chord of "the Blackfish effect" has finally resounded, with a stunning and unprecedented corporate policy announcement from SeaWorld. In January 2013, the documentary Blackfish premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, telling the story "about Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed