International Podcast Day is just around the corner! With more and more people tuning in to podcasts every year—especially as COVID-19 has kept us all at home for perhaps longer than we’d hoped—many of us count on podcast storytelling to stay both informed and entertained while taking our much-needed screen breaks. For this year’s Docs to Listen, we’ve put together a list of podcasts telling true tales of the past that have captured listeners’ attention:Bangalore in Stories (PodMacha Studios)“Made in Bangalore, for the world.” From snakes on the dance floor, to the first Asian heavy metal band

Youth movements have changed the world and revolutionized the way we organize against systems of oppression. From Freedom Summer to the March For Our Lives, young people have been at the forefront of some of the most radical and important activism of nearly every generation. In honor of students returning back to school and all youth who endured one of the most challenging years, this Docs to Watch features nine documentaries that celebrate young activists who look adults in the eye and say “no more.” Changing The Game (Michael Barnett, 2019) This year saw one of the most vicious attacks

This Sunday, August 15th, 2021 India celebrates 74 years of its independence from British imperial rule. It has been an incredibly challenging year for South Asian communities, both within the subcontinent and the diaspora and we thought this would be a good time to come together, even if virtually, to watch some of the best documentaries to come out of the country in recent years, and celebrate the very unique stories that show us the resilience, resistance, and the fascinating lives of its people. This year, we decided to partner with the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) to create

Hot Docs is back for its 2021 festival edition, bringing short and feature-length documentaries from around the world to viewer's home screens between April 29 and May 9. Among the 219 films on the lineup this year are plenty of titles from the IDA family, including IDA Enterprise and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund grantees, fiscally sponsored projects and films by IDA members. Check out what's in store and make sure to save your spot at showtimes for each film!ApartIDA Enterprise Documentary Fund Grantee | Systems DownIn a Midwestern state caught between the opioid epidemic and surging

While the documentary field has only become more and more inclusive over the last few years, the more formative role of women in the documentary artform has been largely ignored, both in academia and mainstream film history. As Cynthia Close writes, in her book review in Documentary magazine of Shilyh Warren’s Subject to Reality: Women and Documentary Film, “[Female filmmakers] continue to be underrepresented and their early contributions to the genre struggle to assume their rightful place in the canon.” Moreover, the films of numerous female pioneers in early cinema, including Japan’s Tazuko

This decade has given us some of the boldest, most informative and timeliest documentaries in film history, and with it coming to an end, many of us here in the IDA staff are looking back on the films that had a special or significant impact on us, not just as documentary professionals, but as documentary lovers. Check out these IDA staff picks and find links to watch some of the best nonfiction storytelling on major streaming platforms, all the way from 2011 to the current moment. And make sure you use a legitimate streaming service to directly support the filmmakers and filmmaking team

There are plenty of films made by creators in the IDA family to catch. Check out the IDA-supported titles at DOC NYC this year, including IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund grantees, fiscally sponsored projects and DocuClub alumnus.

In celebration of International Youth Day on August 12, we’re highlighting five documentaries that showcase the (pre-COVID) lives of youth from the US and around the world.We Are the Radical Monarchs (Linda Goldstein Knowlton)Meet the Radical Monarchs, an Oakland-based alt-troop composed of young girls of color, with members earning badges for completing units on social justice, including being an LGBTQ ally, the environment and disability justice. An IDA-fiscally sponsored project, the film follows the first troop of Radical Monarchs for over three years until they graduate, and documents the

If every documentary tells a story, then one of the most critical issues in our community today is who gets to tell that story, and to whom. IDA has engaged in debates surrounding self-representation and power dynamics in storytelling for a long time–from discussing the pressing need to decolonize docs to “the inequity of unchallenged filmmaker bias and motives, of the chasm between the subject and audience (and) of film as a tool of racialized colonial power and empire.”August 9 is recognized as International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. While documentaries have attempted to

During the month of May, we celebrate the culture and history of the United States' diverse and expansive Asian-American and Pacific Islander-American communities. The documentary landscape in particular has an incredibly rich offering of stories, many of which can be viewed online. Celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month by checking out these documentaries from current IDA members and past IDA Documentary Awards winners and nominees! Asian AmericansPBS' documentary series Asian Americans is a five-episode saga of the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in American history