The Honorable Kevin K. McAleenan Acting Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security Washington, D.C. 20528 Dear Acting Secretary McAleenan: We are a coalition of 103 civil liberties, civil rights, corporate responsibility, faith-based, human rights, immigrant rights, journalism, media, privacy, and government transparency organizations, legal service providers, and trade associations. We write to express our deep concern with reports of surveillance and targeting of activists, journalists, and lawyers by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Those reports indicate that Customs and
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Roman philosopher Seneca once said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Apparently, Rachel Lears was listening. Her self-created luck began in 2016. Having directed two feature documentary films ( Birds of Passage and The Hand That Feeds), she had the preparation. She took the opportunity after the 2016 presidential election to contact the political action committees Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats to propose a documentary project about their plan to forge a new path to Congress for ordinary working people. Through the PACs, she met four women who had decided to
IDA invites your participation in our survey designed for documentary filmmakers to share insights about their favorite equipment, user experiences, and biggest challenges.
Since IDA's DocuClub was relaunched in 2016 as a forum for sharing and soliciting feedback about works-in-progress, many DocuClub alums have since premiered their works on the festival circuit and beyond. In an effort to both monitor and celebrate the evolution of these films to premiere-ready status, we reached out to the filmmakers as they were either winding their way through the festival circuit, or gearing up for it. In this edition of "The Feedback," we spotlight Lily Zepeda’s Mr Toilet: The World’s #2 Man. We caught up with Zepeda via email as was readying her film for its world
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! Nina Sachdev of Media Impact Funders talks to Roll Red Roll director Nancy Schwartzman about her ongoing impact campaign addressing and confronting rape culture. “Additionally, for many people, ‘rape culture’ is a new concept. Instead of explaining it with talking heads or experts as an abstract concept, in the
Editor’s Note: Filmmaker Jason DaSilva premieres his latest work, When We Walk , an IDA Pare Lorentz Doc Fund grantee, at the Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival this week. He shares his thoughts here on the making of, and his hopes for, the film. As his health declines due to Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, DaSilva has crafted this article in the form of a letter to his son—as he has done in the making of When We Walk . To my son, Jase DaSilva, for whom this film is dedicated. My son, I think about you all the time. I want you to grow up with me. I want you to know me. I want
Back in 2010, filmmaker Sam Green staked out new territory in the documentary space with Utopia in Four Movements, in which he explored the history of the utopian impulse and how it relates to the convulsions of the 21st century. This was a live documentary, with musicians accompanying Green on stage as they took audiences on this cerebral metaphysical journey. Up to that point, Green had demonstrated his documentary bona fides with, among others, The Weather Underground, which he made with IDA’s own Carrie Lozano and the late Bill Siegel; the film earned an Academy Award nomination and a DGA
Editor’s Note: Filmmakers/partners Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert have been racking up the career kudos over the past few months, starting in December, when Reichert received the IDA Career Achievement Award. April has been the coolest month for the duo, with the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival bestowing its annual Tribute to them with a retrospective of their work, and Hot Docs feting Reichert this week with the Outstanding Achievement Award. Accepting the Full Frame Tribute award, Bognar read the following: To work in documentary is to feel a lack of confidence in your abilities, to
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Filmed over three tumultuous years covering the lead up to, and aftermath of, Freddie Gray’s death in police custody in Baltimore, Marilyn Ness’ critically-acclaimed Charm City, an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee, is an intimate cinema verité portrait of those surviving in, and working to improve, the vibrant city they call home. The film airs April 22 on Independent Lens and streams through April. Stanley Nelson’s latest film, Boss: The Black Experience in Business
Today, IDFA and IFFR issue a joint statement that calls for the immediate release of imprisoned Myanmar filmmaker and festival director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi. We urge you to read the statement and sign your name below.