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! At D avidBordwell.net, film scholar Kristin Thompson offers an extended commentary on Bill Morrison's archival doc Dawson City: Frozen Time. The subtitle "Frozen Time" is a bit misleading. The reels of nitrate sealed away in the permafrost were no doubt frozen, and the temporal fictional and newsreel images they
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In 2010, a charismatic, Minnesota-based Iraq War veteran named David Crowley began work on his debut film project, a paranoid action film about a United States taken over by martial law. He called the project Gray State, and when he posted a dystopian, high-production-value concept trailer for the film in 2012, it struck a chord among libertarians and anti-government activists. It has since been viewed nearly three million times. Despite copious crowdfunding support and a hungry fanbase, the film was not completed. During Christmas week of 2014, Crowley killed himself, his wife and their young
Strong Island is Yance Ford's cinematic nonfiction exploration of racial injustice in the Long Island suburbs, told through the murder of the filmmaker's 24-year-old brother at the hands of a 19-year-old white mechanic 25 years ago. Nabbing the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at Sundance this past January, the film is as unconventionally riveting as it is emotionally searing. It's also been long in the making, having been on the indie film radar for over half a decade (or at least since Ford made Filmmaker magazine’s annual " 25 New Faces of Independent Film" back in 2011). Nonetheless
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering tonight, Monday, November 6 on Independent Lens is John Scheinfeld's Chasing Trane, which aims to be the definitive look at the boundary-shattering jazz saxophonist whose influence continues to this day. Premiering on Hulu November 11 is James Moll's Obey Giant, which goes deep into the underground world of street art, profiling the rise of artist Shepard Fairey from his roots in punk rock and skateboarding, to presidential politics—through his iconic Obama "HOPE"
Part production company, part philanthropic enterprise, the Seattle-based Vulcan Productions seeks to catalyze global activism through engaging storytelling. Founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and Jody Allen, Vulcan specializes in creating impact campaigns that drive meaningful change on a number of global issues, including wildlife conservation, climate change and educational inequality. Vulcan works with projects from the early development stage through the end of a long-tail impact campaign. Recent Vulcan features include Amanda Liptiz's STEP, Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani's
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! At The New York Times, comedian W. Kamau Bell argues that net neutrality is crucial for both artists and activists. The exchange of information and ideas that takes place on the internet is more important now than ever. To protect it, we need to keep the current net neutrality rules in places. We need them to
Merely a week after 9/11, San Franciscans Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi teamed up to address the national crisis, putting out a call to 150 of their fellow filmmakers to create short films or videos as a response to the mainstream media coverage. The result, Underground Zero, a feature-length omnibus consisting of 11 short works, went on to play on both HBO and the Sundance Channel (and with the participating filmmakers receiving an honorarium, along with $10K of the proceeds going to charity). Now, over a decade and a half later, a new national crisis has emerged in the form of "a real
Editor's Note: Sara Taksler was working as a senior producer at The Daily Show when her best friend unexpectedly died. She found her laughter again by making Tickling Giants , a documentary about people creating satire in the heart of the Arab Spring. Six years ago this week, I'd never heard of "the Egyptian Jon Stewart" and I had no idea who Bassem Youssef was. But a devastating turn was about to lead me to spend years of my life making a movie about him. "I hope you feel better soon," a little Superhero called out to me. It was late afternoon on Halloween. In the midst of his candy
November 1, 2017 (Los Angeles, CA)—The International Documentary Association has announced the Best Feature and Best Short nominees, as well as the recipients of Creative Recognition awards, for the 2017 IDA Documentary Awards. The 33rd edition of the annual ceremony will take place Saturday, December 9 at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles. All other nominees were announced on October 16. In the competition categories, the nominees for Best Feature include City of Ghosts, Matthew Heineman’s urgent account of ground-level resistance in Syria, Dina, Antonio Santini & Dan Sickles’ intimate and
It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the incisive filmmaking of Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady ( Jesus Camp; 12th & Delaware; The Education of Mohammed Hussein) that the focus of their latest film is a fervent religious group. In One of Us, which premiered October 20 on Netflix, the filmmakers have turned their lens on a conservative Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, one that will go to great lengths to keep its members within the fold and away from the modern world. What truly sets their new film apart from their previous work is its central question: When you want out, what