Four years ago, filmmaker Tomasz Śliwiński and his wife, Magda Hueckel, welcomed a baby boy, Leo, into their lives. The moment of joy quickly turned to pain and despair when they were told that Leo was born with a respiratory disease: congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, commonly known as Ondine’s Curse. Over the next six months, Tomasz and Magda decided to film themselves, initially as a coping mechanism and a means to channel their angst into something creative. From the outset, Śliwiński’s intent was to make the film only for his family, to document this particularly trying
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America’s veterans are killing themselves at a rate of nearly one every hour, a shocking reality when you think of the number of younger men and women returning home from recent deployments in our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The realities of combat can be so difficult to bear that veterans often return to their hometowns and their families feeling alone in this world, their problems seemingly comprehendible to no one but themselves. But one call center in Upstate New York is attempting to help these men and women in their times of deep crisis by lending an ear to listen. The
One would never expect a film about a place where cows go to die to be so visually and emotionally beautiful. But the deliberate pacing and slow reveals in the 29 minutes of Gabriel Serra Arguello's The Reaper ( La Parka) make the violence and gore inherent in a documentary about a slaughterhouse surprisingly tolerable. Unlike an advertisement you might see for an animal rights campaign, the visceral parts aren't the most weighty; instead, the film is heavily focused on the realities of death as experienced by Efraín Jiménez García, the film's titular "Reaper—the one who delivers the final
Just as California beckoned Americans westward in the mid-19th century and then the Great Depression, with the promise of a better, more prosperous life, North Dakota, with its burgeoning oil industry, has transformed itself into a mecca for farflung chasers of the American Dream. And while the state has enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in the nation over the past several years, North Dakotans have witnessed a significant disruption in culture and community. Filmmaker J. Christian Jensen, like several documentary makers before him, went to North Dakota in search of a story. He came back
Last Days in Vietnam documents the frenzied, final chapter of a lamentable period in the American narrative. With access to remarkable footage of both the 45 days leading to the fall of Saigon and the 1973 cease-fire treaty that started the slow retreat, and to the key actors in that drama, producer/director Rory Kennedy has crafted a riveting, suspenseful account of history. Last Days in Vietnam, one of the Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature, airs April 28 on the PBS series American Experience. Eschewing a re-examination of the Vietnam War, Kennedy focuses on a day-by-day
In 40 short minutes, Aneta Kopacz's Oscar®-nominated short documentary Joanna invites us in, embraces us unconditionally, and reveals a brief portrait of a woman facing the realities of a terminal illness. The titular Joanna, a woman slight of stature but substantial in wisdom, copes with the reality of her condition by sharing as much as she can with her brilliant son Janek, a boy of roughly 8 years of age who asks questions as deep and important as any learned philosopher. She publishes her thoughts and succinct life lessons on her blog, where thousands of readers join her in the legacy of
Recently, net neutrality has been front and center in an ongoing fight over free and open access to information online. Over the past year, more than 4 million Americans called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to make sure Internet service providers would not throttle the Internet for their own profitable gain or establish fast and slow lanes. And the IDA filed two comments with the FCC urging it to adopt a strong net neutrality rule, continuing work we started in 2010 on this issue. Last week, Wheeler proved that he was listening with a new proposal that promises just
Every Fall, we have the pleasure of hosting the IDA Screening Series, which brings some of the year's best documentary films to the IDA community and members of industry guilds and organizations. Films selected for the Series receive exclusive access to an audience of tastemakers and doc lovers during the important Awards campaigning season. Screenings conclude with a moderated Q&A with the filmmakers, which always produce a lively conversation and reveal extraordinary details about each film and the craft involved in bringing it to life. Back in 2014, the IDA was lucky enough to work with
As part of a new initiative to highlight critical issues in the documentary field and enhance filmmakers' professional development opportunities, IDA is presenting a series of four Doc U's in the Bay Area over the next four months. The kickoff topic in mid-January was "Getting Real About the Doc Career” featuring esteemed filmmaker Dawn Porter ( Gideon’s Army) moderating an all-filmmaker panel, including Kelly Duane de la Vega ( Better This World), Jennifer Maytorena Taylor ( New Muslim Cool), Amanda Micheli ( La Corona), Jesse Moss ( The Overnighters), and Nicole Opper ( Off and Running). The
Among the most fascinating documentaries are those that not only illuminate an individual—a character—but the times in which they live. Robert McNamara in Errol Morris' The Fog of War…Philippe Petit in James Marsh's Man on Wire….Jacqueline Siegel in Lauren Greenfield's The Queen of Versailles: These are some of the more shining examples. In writer-director Gabe Polsky's Red Army, the character is Slava Fetisov, and the times are the twilight of the Cold War. Fetisov, for those unfamiliar with hockey history, is among the greatest players ever, who captained the mighty Soviet national team at