In the months leading up to the launch of the IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund, we couldn't have anticipated the national public debate that would emerge about (of all things!) facts. It's been shocking and disturbing to watch US leaders question the value and existence of facts and to put some of their most stalwart guardians—journalists, judges and scientists—on the defense. In the face of an all-out assault on the press, IDA is committed to standing behind the independent storytellers and watchdogs that make up our community—in large part, through the newly created Enterprise Documentary
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Racial unrest at the University of Missouri in Columbia in fall 2015 led to national headlines, a threatened boycott by the football team and the resignation of the system president. It also immersed the inaugural class of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism in the power and potential of long-form journalism. "It was a banner year," says Murray, founder of LA-based Bunim/Murray Productions. "Students convinced the Black Lives Matter group on campus to participate in cinema vérité on what was going on there. I was sitting in the audience when their documentary played at the
With the US Presidential Inauguration only a few days earlier, this year's Realscreen Summit was bound to hit on some related topics. After all, as one participant said, we helped create the reality star who became president. One panel in particular, "America: Getting the Whole Picture," was based on the idea that perhaps the stories between the coasts were being lost, or not explored. And is there a broader audience out there for producers to tap into? Are channels concerned about missing viewers, much like polls miscalculated voters? Participants in the session were from companies all over
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 Indiewire, Steve Greene considers why Richard Linklater, Robert Downey Jr. and documentarian Penny Lane were fascinated by the same historical charlatan. "There's something about this story that speaks to our current moment in ways that I couldn't have anticipated when I started the film," [Lane] said. "I could
Editor's note: Over the past few weeks, we at IDA have been introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see Watani: My Homeland on Saturday, February 25 at 7:50 p.m. at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. As a physician, photojournalist and now filmmaker, the German-born, Barcelona-based director Marcel Mettelsiefen has made over 25 trips to Syria, piecing together an ongoing chronicle of tragedy and resistance in that war-torn country
Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see 4.1 Miles on Saturday, February 25 at 7:50 p.m. at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Daphne Matziaraki's 4.1 Miles, completed as a thesis project for the Documentary Program at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism, premiered last year as part of The New York Times' Op-Docs short film series; it feels as stirring and newsworthy as
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 Hollywood Reporter, Simon Kilmurry argues that "documentary film is essential to a healthy and democratic society." If cinema is our most powerful art form, I would argue that documentary is both its beating heart and its conscience. It holds a mirror to our society and it holds our conscience to account
Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see The White Helmets on Saturday, February 25 at 7:50 p.m. at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Over the past year, we have seen a spate of films that address the continually unfolding tragedy that is Syria. From the refugee crisis to the horrific grip of ISIS to the unrelenting and indiscriminate destruction at the hands of the
Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see Joe’s Violin on Saturday, February 25 at 3:55 at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Following the journey of a donated violin that links nonagenarian Holocaust survivor Joe Feingold to 12-year-old Bronx schoolgirl Brianna Perez, Joe’s Violin is easily the most heartwarming of the documentary shorts nominated for this year’s Oscar
Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see Extremis on Saturday, February 25 at 3:55 at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Filmmaker Dan Krauss followed up his 2013 documentary The Kill Team, about war crimes committed by a US Army platoon in Afghanistan and the impact they had on one whistle-blowing soldier, with a strikingly different film: a short and emotionally