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 The New York Times, William Yardley reflects on the passing of Bill Loud, the patriarch of the Loud family, the stars of the prototypical nonfiction series, An American Family. But the Louds became a cultural touchstone anyway. Decades before characters on reality programs like The Osbournes and Dance Moms
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My name is Cecilia Mejia Morales, but the filmmaking community knows me as Cecilia MeMor. This summer, I am working as an intern for IDA in the Filmmaker Services department through the Los Angeles County Arts Commision (LACAC), Paid Arts Internship Program. During my first week at the IDA, I was invited to attend the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Summit with my supervisor, Toni Bell, Filmmaker Services Manager. While she moderated the “Pitching to Perfection” panel and took meetings with documentary filmmakers, I attended several panels. What follows are my
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Editor's Note: I didn't know Jonathan Gold personally. And I'm not a hardcore foodie. But Jonathan Gold, whose shocking death on Saturday night of pancreatic cancer, was not simply a Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic. Food, to Gold, was the port of entry to a richer appreciation of culture, of which cuisine was as essential an ingredient as language, music, history and folklore. Gold was an amiable populist, more at home sampling taco-truck fare on the sidewalks on East LA
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 TVreal, Sara Alessi talks to gatekeepers about the true crime genre phenomenon. Audiences find true-crime so gripping because the traditional whodunits and longer explorations tap into "universal themes of betrayal, lust, greed, revenge and overcoming adversity," says Laura Fleury, A+E Networks' senior VP
Leah Smith defiantly refuses to believe she needs to be "fixed." A media and entertainment advocate for the Center for Disability Rights, who holds degrees in both public relations and political science (as well as a master’s in public administration), Smith is one of several preconceived notion-upending characters in Emmy Award-winning documentarian Rachel Dretzin’s Far From the Tree. An adaptation of Andrew Solomon’s widely lauded 2012 bestseller Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, the film is a lovingly rendered deep dive into the lives of families with
IDA announced today that it will bring Gimme Truth! to Getting Real ‘18, the only documentary film gathering of its kind in North America. This special edition of the infamous documentary game show is presented in partnership with True/False Film Fest. The wildly entertaining event is a hilarious mashup of filmmaking and investigation, where local filmmakers attempt to stump the panelists with their short doc-style videos that are entirely TRUE or entirely FALSE. The game show will be free and open to the public.
"Show me the money!" was Cuba Gooding Jr.'s rallying cry in Jerry Maguire back in the '90s. Today everyone seems intent on showing you the money; ostentatious displays of wealth seem to be all around us. In her new film, Generation Wealth, veteran photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield ( Thin; Queen of Versailles) takes us on a dizzying journey around the globe, exploring our current obsession with wealth and its trappings. The documentary—part of a multiplatform project that includes a travelling photography exhibition and a photography book—explores our unbridled obsession with
Marina Zenovich is a documentary filmmaker known for her sensitive handling of the life stories of high-profile—some might say, controversial—personalities ( Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired; Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic; Who Is Bernard Tapie?). For her latest documentary, she has taken on the legacy of actor/comic Robin Williams, who took his life in 2014. Nearly four years later, the shock of his loss persists. Documentary recently caught up with Zenovich to discuss Come Inside My Mind, a title as provocative as the man the film explores. What has the public's reaction been to your film
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering tonight on ESPN is Enhanced, a six-episode series that takes viewers inside the secret world of modern sports training, technology, recovery and more, and raises questions about the characters, power struggles, and breakthrough innovations that are driving the greatest performances on the planet. The series, produced by Alex Gibney, features episodes from directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jesse Sweet, Paul Taublieb and Alison Klayman. Opening today and running
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 Mubi, Simran Hans critiques two recent docs about Whitney Houston—Kevin Macdonald's Whitney and Nick Broomfield's Whitney: Can I Be Me?. It's curious that two middle-aged white men from the UK—Macdonald is Scottish, Broomfield English—are the designated authors of a story about a black American woman. Which