I'd like to take a moment to slow things down a bit. In the current political climate, we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. Amid the tectonic shifts underfoot, funding for the arts, including support for the NEA and by extension, Full Frame, may be at risk. Our world has changed - or so it seems. Recently, I have been approached by several organizations about launching "rapid response" documentary teams in the South, and nationwide. Making documentaries suddenly seems more urgent, more needed and more relevant than ever, and a documentary film festival embedded here in the South seems
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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, Michael Cooper reports on a new ballet inspired by Frederick Wiseman's classic documentary Titicut Follies. The ballet — which is to have its premiere this weekend in Minneapolis, where Mr. Sewell's company, James Sewell Ballet, is based — had an unusual genesis. Mr. Wiseman, 87, said he had
URGENT! This week, public broadcasting came under attack from several members of Congress, who criticized a wide range of documentaries on PBS, including Kumu Hina and The New Black - both of which aired on Independent Lens - and Baby Mama High. CPB President/CEO Patricia Harrison came to public broadcasting's defense, citing a wide and diverse range of documentaries, but we still need you to express how vitally important it is to protect public broadcasting. We urge you to call your representatives in Congress and pledge to support the diversity of documentaries on PBS and freedom of
Carrie Lozano recently joined IDA as Director of the Enterprise Documentary Fund, an ambitious new project that supports mid-career filmmakers telling contemporary stories with a journalistic foundation. Earlier this month, Carrie introduced the Fund to our readers, but we wanted to take an opportunity to introduce Carrie herself. A veteran of the documentary film world, Carrie produced the Academy Award-nominated The Weather Underground and directed The Ballad of Fred Hersch. She was recently a senior producer on Al Jazeera America’s Peabody Award-winning Fault Lines series, and is a graduate
CAAMFest 17, which ran March 9-19 in the San Francisco Bay Area, looked back at some of the most powerful documentaries created by Asian Americans. It rightfully patted its parent organization, the Center for Asian American Media ( CAAM), on the back for helping conceive these films as well - creating a legacy of resistance that must inspire us today. Commemorating its 35th year in existence - making it one of the oldest and certainly the most important festival for Asian and Asian American media - CAAMFest screened Curtis Choy's 1983 The Fall of the I-Hotel, a vivid chronicle of the decade
For over 16 years, veteran producers Jedd and Todd Wider have proven their mettle in the documentary film community. Together, the brothers have produced a series of critically acclaimed documentaries tackling weighty topics like environmental contamination cover-ups ( Semper Fi: Always Faithful), torture and interrogation in the US military ( Taxi to the Dark Side), political scandal ( Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer) and child abuse in the Catholic Church ( Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God). The three latter films, directed by famed documentarian Alex Gibney
Launched at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Propellor Film Tech Hub is an ambitious, country-spanning, joint initiative from the IFFR, the Berlinale’s European Film Market (EFM), the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival ( CPH:DOX), and the "innovation studio" Cinemathon (based in Berlin). Basically, the idea behind Propellor is to transfer start-up world ideas to the film industry, upending cinema's barely functioning, stodgy old business models in the process. To learn more, Documentary reached out to Cinemathon's Erwin Schmidt, one of the founders, who
Los Angeles, California - The International Documentary Association (IDA) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) are partnering to support documentary filmmakers funded through IDA’s Enterprise Documentary Fund. Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, IDA's Enterprise Fund will provide grants totalling $1 million annually for four years to support the production and development of documentary films taking on in-depth exploration of contemporary stories through a journalistic lens. The Reporters Committee will provide essential expertise to funded
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 Yorker, Jia Tolentino reflects on an Alabama-set documentary project in which citizens use Walt Whitman's poetry to speak about themselves. Crandall found her subjects slowly, in the course of two years. Friends and acquaintances gave her recommendations; she approached people sitting on their porches
URGENT! If you care about the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you need to do more than click "like" on Facebook. You need to call your representatives in Congress - not just once, but often, even daily. Take five minutes and tell them why these institutions are important to you and your community. Click here to find your representative. Just type in your zip code to get your representative's number. find your representative