Dear IDA Community, A few weeks ago, I decided to write this issue's column about inspiration. But now, as my deadline approaches and I'm facing an empty page, I find it hard to reconnect with that inspiration. Where did the clarity, which felt so tangible in the moment, go? Inspiration is a tricky thing. When we are lucky enough to have a taste of it, it's the most powerful, intoxicating and consuming drug. And then, just as quickly, it evaporates. But often, a small dose can be all we need to push forward. Let's be honest. We all know that there's not much that is glamorous about being a
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I first saw Heddy Honigmann's film Crazy at a retrospective of her work at New York's Museum of Modern Art. I went into the screening expecting a war film, and instead found a deeply affecting meditation on music and memory. Most of us can relate to hearing a certain song that takes us back to a seminal moment in our lives. Honigmann uses this universal experience to peer into the psyche of soldiers. In the film, she asks Dutch United Nations peacekeeping veterans to talk about a piece of music that they relied upon to maintain their sanity in horrific circumstances. Using music to trigger
The Slamdance Film Festival runs concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. As difficult as it may be for a Slamdance staffer to admit, it's safe to say that most of the thousands who converge on Park City over that week are there for two reasons: the Sundance Film Festival and the skiing. Slamdance gets its audience from its scrappy filmmakers hitting the not-so-scrappy streets (and slopes) of the mountain town and hustling people into their screenings. Just being at the top of Main Street is not enough. Empty screenings for mediocre and unfinished movies is not alluring
On the morning of Thursday, January 10, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees for Oscars 2013. The IDA is proud to highlight our strong relationship with several films in the running, including nominees in both the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short categories. In the Feature category, Kirby Dick's The Invisible War is one of the five films to receive this much anticipated nomination. A groundbreaking investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military, The Invisible War is a participant in IDA's Fiscal Sponsorship Program, a
A review of 'Playing to the Camera: Musicians and Musical Performance in Documentary Cinema.'
A review of 'A Critical Cinema 4: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers.'
A review of Betsy A. McLane's 'A New History of Documentary Film, Second Edition.'
Oil on Ice, a multi-faceted media project about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, deals with the ongoing conflict over drilling for oil there. Located in the northeast corner of Alaska, the 19 million-acre refuge is one of America 's greatest wild natural treasures. The film won IDA's 2004 Pare Lorentz Award for representing the "democratic sensibility, activist spirit and lyrical vision of the legendary documentarian." Stunning in its photography and soundscape, clever in its construction, passionate in its environmental concerns, Oil on Ice is much more than a prize-winning film
Each winter 130,000 geeks, gadget freaks and consumer electronics nuts gather at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to peer into the immediate future. Most years there are lots of promises, and a few new products. But this year was very differentand very important for documentary filmmakers and content creators of all kinds. The importance is not in any one technology or box, but in a series of trends that will rock the very foundation of content creation, sales and distribution. High-Definition Video The Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 are game-changer devices. They will