The 25th annual Hot Docs Festival is just one week away. If you are headed to Toronto, you can catch a whopping 20 IDA-supported films on the big screen. Our Executive Director, Simon Kilmurry, Director of Programming and Policy, Claire Aguilar, and Filmmaker Services Manager, Toni Bell, will also be in attendance, make sure to say hello! 93Queen A group of tenacious women are shattering the glass ceiling in their Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood to create the first all-female volunteer EMS corps in NYC. Tickets Amal Adolescence in the time of post-revolution Egypt that’s shifting around an angry
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Can documentary filmmaking be taught? Like most art forms, it requires more than just technical skill. The curiosity—and in many cases, obsession—that great doc filmmaking requires can’t be outlined on a dry-erase board. And these days, with higher education becoming increasingly unaffordable and the cost of making movies becoming more affordable, the financial commitment of an MFA is not a decision to be taken lightly. More philosophically, does the rigor and focus of a Master of Fine Arts degree outweigh what a filmmaker can learn out in the world (or as a working apprentice on a film set)
On February 18, 2004, I received a phone call from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris informing me that Jean Rouch had died unexpectedly in an automobile accident while filming in Niger. The information was meant to be forwarded on to my boss, John Marshall, Rouch’s dear friend, fellow filmmaker and occasional collaborator. Although Rouch was 85 years old, the news still came as a shock. We had known him to be robust and full of the same creative spirit that produced over 120 films, starting in 1941 when he arrived in Niger as a French hydrology engineer to supervise a construction project. While
Among the early stakeholders in your documentary career are your teachers—whether at the high school level, to provide that crucial early spark of inspiration; or in college, to broaden and deepen your understanding of and appreciation for the genre; or in graduate school, when your career aspirations are more or less solidified but your heart and mind are ever open to transformative work to set your artistic journey in motion. Your teachers—by and large, filmmakers themselves who abide by an essential and evolving canon of work to keep their creative instincts sharp—are your mentors and your
Dear Readers, Since the last education-themed issue that we tackled, back in Fall 2013, we launched a column, Doc University, in which we spotlight documentary education programs across the country, some of which were launched very recently. What’s more, many of these programs have spawned a steady stream of innovations and transformative studies. In addition, media arts nonprofits have continued to expand their educational offerings and partner with these venerable higher places of learning. So, while the costs of pursuing a documentary education can be considerable, the opportunities to
Student interest in college courses focusing on documentary media has never been higher. Why? Certainly, "documenting" their lives via Instagram and Snapchat is a popular social ritual. And streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and SnagFilms have made it easier than ever to watch a wide variety of nonfiction. However, my experience tells me that students' enthusiasm for documentary stems more from a desire to engage with the sociopolitical reality that surrounds them—one filled with great hope and anxiety. A graduate school seminar on Errol Morris first sparked my interest in documentary
Dear IDA Community, In 2015, American University’s Center for Media & Social Impact published, under the leadership of Pat Aufderheide, the landmark report Dangerous Docs: Reducing Risk When Telling Truth to Power. The report was the first comprehensive analysis of the challenges and risks faced by documentary filmmakers when reporting on entrenched powers who might respond by attacking the filmmakers, undermining their credibility, mounting sophisticated disinformation campaigns and threatening lawsuits. It remains a great primer for anyone undertaking a story that might seek to hold the
By Steven Beer, Jake Levy and Neil Rosini To generate income and engage new audiences, documentary producers are increasingly turning to educational institutions to distribute their content. This marketplace is immense and potentially lucrative. It is also diffuse and especially challenging for filmmakers and producers to navigate. Recognizing this, many producers (and some all-rights distribution companies) rely on specialized educational sales agents and distributors to sell, rent or license their films into this distinct arena. Although educational distribution agreements have much in
Documentary Media: History, Theory, Practice by Broderick Fox. Routledge 2018" src="https://www.documentary.org/sites/default/files/images/magazine/Spring18_DocumentaryMedia.jpg" style="width: 250px; float: right; margin: 5px;">An impressive 151 film and media project titles are used by Broderick Fox as source material referenced throughout this textbook for modern documentary media-makers. Since the book targets the educational market, this extensive listing also supplies the distribution sources for each title, a crucial piece of information necessary for educators that many media textbook
In the middle of shooting my first feature documentary, I stole away to Sundance, hoping for a little inspiration. I happened to catch Josh Aronson's Sound and Fury, about an extended family, the Artinians, confronting the decision of whether or not to "cure" their children's hearing impairments with cochlear implants, and the ensuing fury among family members over their respective viewpoints. Sound and Fury will always stick with me because of how it confronted the prevailing wisdom—as well as my own personal preconceptions—about a subject. It had never occurred to me that there would be any