In 1991, Marlon Riggs made history with the POV premiere on PBS of his groundbreaking film Tongues Untied. It was at the height of the culture wars as well as the AIDS pandemic, and Tongues Untied intersected both crises. It became a lightning rod for conservatives who were looking to maintain the old-world order; they denounced the film on the floor of the US Senate. It also became a beacon and a call for action for those communities and voices marginalized and stigmatized by the status quo of white supremacy and homophobia. In this personal and performative documentary, Riggs comes out not
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Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM) started as a secret. It was built to be a safe place for BIPOC women and non-binary filmmakers and industry professionals working in the documentary field, where we could set down our masks, shed our armor, and take a breath in an industry that often felt hostile to communities of color. This was 2015, when the needs of these communities largely weren’t being met by industry initiatives due to a lack of intersectional approaches and a dearth of BIPOC leadership with decision-making or culture-building power at prominent documentary institutions. Over the next six
The founding of FWD-Doc (Filmmakers with Disabilities-Documentary) can be traced to IDA’s 2018 Getting Real conference in Los Angeles. After a panel that highlighted the work of several documentary filmmakers with disabilities, about 40 of us, and our allies, went into an adjacent room for what was more than likely the first-of-its-kind get-together. For many of us, it was the first time that we would meet or talk to another filmmaker who had a similar lived experience of having a disability. A few of us had learned how organizations like A-DOC and Brown Girls Doc Mafia came into being and how
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! As the implications of the January 6th insurrection continue to metastasize over a year later, Deadline’s Matthew Carey talks to filmmakers Malachy Browne, David Botti and Haley Willis about their Academy Award short-listed doc Days of Rage, a painstakingly executed reconstruction of the events of that catastrophic day. "I think there’s a very great value in simply
As IDA celebrates its 40th anniversary, we at the MacArthur Foundation are also reflecting on our 40+ years in the documentary field and how independent creators have shaped our program. We funded our first documentary film in 1979, one year after we were established. During the ’80s, we funded 10 more films, and then between 1990 and 2015, we directly supported 250 independent documentary projects and hundreds more through partner organizations. From the very beginning, and still true today, MacArthur’s investments in documentary films were motivated by an appreciation for the role that
IDA and the Black Documentary Collective go waaaay back. BDC’s founder, filmmaker St. Clair Bourne, was an IDA member and served on its board for many years. He was a prolific filmmaker who told stories that celebrated the accomplishments of Black people and our untold history. He was also a mentor to countless filmmakers—myself included—and an activist and organizer at heart. Part and parcel to his leadership was being a disruptor and agitator. I remember him on many panels—often the only person of color—asking the uncomfortable questions, challenging us to interrogate issues of
The 36th season of PBS’ American Masters premieres today, January 11, with Jamila Wignot’s Ailey, the definitive documentary about the life and works of dancer Alvin Ailey, who founded the influential studio Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958, at age 27. The film is a celebration of the beauty and radicality of the Black body that Ailey centered and wove magic with. As we begin to navigate a world without the legendary Betty White, we are grateful for Steven J. Boettcher’s PBS documentary, Betty White: First Lady of Television, which documents and celebrates the legacy of White, who
Not too long ago, filmmaker/editor Jean Tsien kicked off a meeting of Asian American documentary filmmakers by lighting sage and paying tribute to our ancestors. Alongside immigrants and family elders, we remembered the filmmakers and media activists who came before us. A-Doc (Asian American Documentary Network) is the newest incarnation of that lineage, wielding what filmmaker PJ Raval has named “our collective power” to blast through the gates and create the new. Those ancestors extend as far back as 1916, when Marion Wong and Sessue Hayakawa countered the anti-Asian onslaught of the time
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Variety’s Addie Morfoot speaks to American Experience Executive Producer Cameo George about the show’s new, 34th, season. "I have always thought of American Experience as the single most important history series in the doc world, and the chance to build on the incredible legacy of the series, freshen it up a bit, and open the door to a wider range of filmmakers and