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Some documentaries instill rage and inspire action. Some reveal and take you behind the scenes. Some speak to you directly and chase an explicitly political agenda to their finish. Some polemicize and educate. Some cut a path through an formerly erased history. And others, like 20 000 Days on Earth, draw you in emotionally and challenge the parameters of documentary-making. Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's film does not reside comfortably within any of the genres you might expect from a Nick Cave music film covering the 20,000th day of the legend's life: rock 'n' roll doc, biopic, indie

'The Roosevelts: An Intimate History' airs September 14-20 on PBS.

Teaching tolerance in a less tolerant land...

What's the time? It's time to GET REAL—with the special Documentary Film Conference edition of Documentary magazine! It's a brand new season—for football fans, television addicts, awards fanatics, election enthusiasts and fashion mavens—and just as they're readying the runways in Milan and Paris, we at IDA are rolling out our brand new look this fall. And that makeover includes Documentary magazine-are you for a brand new beat? In that spirit of new, we celebrate one of the strongest signals of change coming out of IDA: GETTING REAL: Documentary Film Conference 2014, which runs September 30

When filmmakers convene this fall at the GETTING REAL Documentary Film Conference, presented by IDA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, conference producer Allison Berg hopes attendees discover valuable information through the roundtables, sessions, working groups, talks and salons planned for the three-day event. But even more than filmmakers finding solutions, she hopes they find each other. "It's about getting people together," Berg says. "From the new voices we have in the field who feel they may not have had a voice, to the more established who see what the landscape is and

Making a documentary film often requires years of effort, with no certainty of profit upon completion. With the abundance of affordable technology and proliferation of online platforms, anyone can make and share a film, so funding and distribution are more competitive than ever. What's a filmmaker to do? Is a "career" in documentary film even possible? If so, do any proven strategies exist to support the leap from aspirant to professional? The 2014 GETTING REAL Documentary Film Conference will give the community an opportunity to explore these questions together, sharing experiences and

An interview with IDA's Michael Lumpkin and Ken Jacobson

'Levitated Mass' opens September in Los Angeles, through First Run Features.

The 2014 Fall granting cycle is full of opportunities! Several of the major players like NEH, ITVS and Tribeca are open for submissions, offering substantial amounts of funding to documentary filmmakers. Any filmmaker would be happy to work with these esteemed organizations, which is why it’s important to remember that each grant is also quite competitive. Be sure to do your homework to find out if a particular grant is right for your film. If grants are a large part of your fundraising strategy, you might think about branching out from documentary-specific grants to look toward subject

The 38th annual Festival des Films du Monde (Montreal World Film Festival) took place this year from August 21 to September 1 in Canada's second largest city. It offers, as festival president Serge Losique writes in the catalogue, "a rich program based on cultural diversity, innovation, independence and creativity...Without the Montreal World Film Festival and its annual selection of some 400 films from 80 countries, the Montreal film landscape would be drastically reduced." There's certainly no disputing this is a problem plaguing many cities, and is why film festivals are more culturally