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 Atlantic, Sophie Gilbert outlines the impact that abolishing the NEA would have on rural and underserved communities. [The NEA's] grants are bestowed to all 50 states in the nation, in all congressional districts. Forty percent of the NEA's budget goes directly to states to spend for themselves, with the
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The International Documentary Association expresses profound dismay at the recent proposed federal budget eliminating funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The budget of these three agencies represent a tiny portion of the overall Federal Budget - just over $2 per person per year - yet they have an outsized impact on communities, organizations and artists. Both the NEA and NEH support artists, scholars, historians, arts organizations, and documentary filmmakers - in communities large and small around the country. As such
Since its establishment in 1999, the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival has given voice to those who are struggling to be heard. It has promoted social awareness and defended human rights. In March 2016, French film producer Elise Jalladeau took over as the general manager of the festival, succeeding Dimitris Eipides, who stepped down after a distinguished 24-year tenure. In Jalladeau's inaugural year, the festival showcased 213 films and launched a new International Competition section. The 12 films in the new strand are bold examples of filmmaking, including the international premiere of
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 Film Comment, Eric Hynes considers novel approaches to first-person filmmaking. In these films, the personal isn't just political - it's also pluralized. It's not that these new works are without precedent or breaking essentially new ground. Many of the most important first-person filmmakers have excelled at
The recently concluded Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) in Melbourne featured both cutting-edge and enduring features of the lively Australian documentary business, which depends on government grants to the creative sector, commercial TV's bottomless appetite for reality, international markets and of course, sweat equity. For 30 years, the AIDC has been, as former director Heather Croall puts it, "the annual pilgrimage" for Australian documentary directors and for international programmers, distributors and marketers who work with them. (She was there with a new personal
The opening of Evgeny Afineevsky's Cries from Syria calls to mind a small, sad poem by the late Bill Knott: The only response to a child's grave is to lie down before it and play dead It is a heartfelt poem, one that speaks to the futility one feels when confronted with death, especially one so premature. It also speaks to the interior world of the imagination and the different ways that children and adults confront life's most basic and unavoidable transition. It would be much easier to write about Cries from Syria with this poetic filter in place, but as Afineevsky's latest documentary opens
One of the highlights of this year's FilmGate Interactive Media Festival (February 3-5 at the University of Miami School of Communication) was a panel titled "MIT Open Doc Lab Presents: Interactive and Non Linear Storytelling." It featured Beyza Boyacioglu, project manager at MIT Open Doc Lab (whose latest project, Zeki Müren Hotline, a "participatory telephone hotline and interactive web experience," premiered at IDFA DocLab and was nominated for a Digital Storytelling Award), and Doc Lab fellow Jeff Soyk (who was the UI/UX designer and architect on Elaine Sheldon's 2013 Peabody-winning
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) might not be the obvious place to go in search of documentary filmmaking. Doc-focused cousin International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) takes place only an hour away and less than two months before, meaning IFFR, a festival most renowned for experimental short film, isn't exactly overflowing with nonfiction. Its openness toward the outlier and the unconventional, however, makes it a terrific space for finding exemplary films that revel in the in-between and are fluid and flexible with the definition of documentary and what engaging
The International Documentary Association has announced the appointment of Claire Aguilar as the Director of Programming & Policy. Aguilar will oversee IDA's professional development, education, mentorship and training initiatives.
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! The Guardian reports on a 1991 public information film that reveals how much Shell knew about global warming. Shell's 28-minute film, called Climate of Concern, was made for public viewing, particularly in schools and universities. It warned of extreme weather, floods, famines and climate refugees as fossil fuel