In 2005, Judith Helfand, Julie Parker Benello and Wendy Ettinger co-founded Chicken & Egg Pictures to support women documentary filmmakers, and what began with one "I Believe in You Grant" has expanded over the past decade to include new programs like the Accelerator Lab, which provides grants and mentorship to a diverse group of first- and second-time filmmakers, and the Breakthrough Award, intended to recognize and provide mentorship and funding to mid-career filmmakers. As Helfand explains to Documentary, the goal is to support the creation of bodies of work from diverse voices, "not just
Latest Posts
IDA is thrilled to be co-presenting "Archival & Survival," a daylong series of panel discussions at DOC NYC on Nov 17th that spotlights a number of issues critical to doc filmmakers in the areas of archival footage and preservation. Co-presented by the Association of Commercial Stock Image Licensors (ACSIL), the events will be sparked by a morning keynote from filmmaker and Schomburg Center motion picture curator Shola Lynch ( Free Angela and All Political Prisoners) followed by four panel discussions featuring members of ACSIL, veteran doc filmmakers and other experts in the field. Panel
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! From Foreign Policy, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer recently talked with writer and analyst David Rieff about whether society is desensitized to the realities of genocide and why it's important to examine its perpetrators: Most nonfiction films dealing with human rights abuse tend to tell us that things are well in
Despite being one of the oldest documentary film festivals in the US, the recently concluded United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) was a new experience for this old San Francisco Bay Area film festival hand. Now in its 18th year, UNAFF presented 60 documentaries, all representing the festival's stated themes of "human rights, the environment, protection of refugees, famine, homelessness, racism, disease control, women's issues, children, universal education, war and peace." The ten days of the festival organized the films into 25 sessions held in Palo Alto (half at city venues, half
We are thrilled to announce that Grammy-nominated comedian Tig Notaro will host the 2015 IDA Documentary Awards ceremony. The subject of Tig, the Netflix Original documentary chronicling her life after it famously fell apart, Notaro has recently teamed up with Diablo Cody, Nicole Holofcener and Louis CK on a semi-autobiographical pilot for Amazon. The comedian and writer also stars in her first HBO stand-up special, Boyish Girl Interrupted, which is out now. The IDA is also excited to announce that in an unprecedented move, the 2015 edition of the Awards will highlight six films in Best
Abigail Disney comes from a family of filmmakers. Her father was a longtime senior executive at the company that shares their last name. Her great uncle Walt started it all. But Abby's calling was not the world of Hollywood, rather the realm of documentaries with a social theme. As a producer and executive producer, she has worked on award-winning films such as Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and Women, War and Peace. Now, she's moved to the director's chair for her filmmaking debut, The Armor of Light. Disney was "in the trenches" on several of her films: "I wasn't just writing checks," she says
Ten feature-length documentary films have been selected to receive a total of $195,000 from the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund this year. The Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund was created with support from The New York Community Trust to honor the legacy of legendary American documentary filmmaker Pare Lorentz. Grants are made to documentary projects that shed light on critical issues in the United States and focus on Pare Lorentz’s central concerns: the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems. This year the Fund received over 220
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! On the heels of last night's program at the IDA Screening Series, we're featuring the producer, director and editor of The Russian Woodpecker talking about the challenge of editing five stories into one documentary: For months, the attempt to weave these stories together looked hopeless, especially since I wanted
If you've ever needed high-definition footage off of a Blu-ray or DVD, you might be aware that the images you are trying to access are protected by something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Passed in 1998, the DMCA was Congress's attempt to update copyright law to better apply to the digital age. Among other things, this act makes it illegal to "rip" footage off of DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This law blocks a filmmaker's ability to make fair use with copyrighted footage by restricting access to such digital material stored not just on DVDs, but also on Blu-ray discs and
Patricio Guzmán: A Country's Journey, Five FilmsReleased by Icarus Films, September 20158-DVD Boxed Set Includes: Battle of Chile: Part One, 1975, Part Two, 1976, Part Three, 1978, 270 minutes Chile, Obstinate Memory, 1997, 58 minutes The Pinochet Case, 2001, 110 minutes Salvador Allende, 2004, 102 minutes Nostalgia for the Light, 2011, 65 minutes "A country without documentary films is like a family without a photo album." This quote by Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán is the first thing you see when going on his website—not surprising coming from a filmmaker whose work is synonymous with