Dear Readers, Over the past decade and a half, an increasing number of American filmmakers have ventured abroad, often to dangerous and volatile regions, to seek out and follow stories that might not otherwise get told. Indeed, with the consolidation of the news media infrastructure and a concurrent scaling back of long-form, on-the-ground journalism over the past decade, documentary makers have worked hard to fill that void. With the advantage of cost-efficient equipment and skeletal crews of one or two people, docmakers can be both nimbler and less conspicuous, and more inclined to commit to
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'Freedom Summer' airs June 24 on PBS' 'American Experience.'
Dear IDA Community: Thirty years ago, the International Documentary Association broke new ground by presenting the first IDA Awards for distinguished documentary achievement. The goal was to raise the profile of documentary film as an art form, and bring its greatest practitioners the recognition they deserved. IDA continues to pursue these goals today, though the times and the awards have definitely changed. The year 1985 saw the presentation of just seven awards: five for Distinguished Documentary Achievement, one for Preservation and Scholarship, and one for Career Achievement. That set the
Have you ever wished for a direct line to a funder? IDA is launching a new initiative called #FunderFriday that makes your wish come true. Our members contact us everyday with questions regarding the complexity and variation of the many grants available to documentary filmmakers. #FunderFriday taps into IDA's long-standing relationships with prominent granting organizations so you can ask them the questions that are important to you. We're excited to kick off this new initiative with NEH Senior Program Officer Jeff Hardwick. Our members asked Jeff questions via our Twitter feed using the
Jeff Blitz and Sean Welch created new fans for the National Spelling Bee with their thrilling documentary Spellbound, which now ranks fifth on the list of all-time documentary theatrical box office grosses. The filmmakers recently announced plans to form The Spellbound Foundation, which will provide educational scholarships to the students profiled in the film. A large part of the doc's success comes from the connection the audience feels with the eight spellers and their stories. The audience roots and cheers, holds its breath when a child gets a particularly challenging word and cringes when
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AWARD Balseros Directors: Carlos Bosch, Josep M. Domenech Producer: Loris Omedes Writers: David Trueba, Carlos Bosch Cinematographer: Josep M. Domenech Editor: Ernerst Blasi Composer: Lucrecia HBO/Cinema Documentary Films, Seventh Art Releasing, Televisio Catalunya, Bausan Films In the summer of 1994, Fidel Castro sanctioned the opening of Cuba's coastal borders, allowing a mass exodus of 50,000 balseros—rafters—to set sail from Havana on dangerous makeshift rafts for Miami, Florida. This epic story of Cuban castaways caught between two worlds finds richness in real-life
Sitting at the annual dinner of the Committee to Protect Journalists, you get a world perspective on free speech that's hard to understand as an American citizen. Here, the newspaper comes every morning, the TV news is on eight channels, Amazon.com has a billion books and ideas flow freely—or at least so it seems. Around the world storytellers are risking their lives—and dying—exploring corruption, crime and governments that operate without any fear of repercussions. Why do they do it? Why do they risk their lives? Why do they die? When I took on the challenge of trying to understand why so