In this most tumultuous of years, 2020 is also shaping up to be a transformational year for IDA, lockdown notwithstanding. For one, there’s the much-anticipated digital rendition of Getting Real 2020 a month away, and the first of three Getting Real NOW conversation just having been launched. We also added five new staff members—Getting Real Programmers Stephanie Owens, Nat Ruiz Tofano and Christina D. King; Associate Communications Manager Sally Márquez; and Membership & Individual Giving Manager Veronica Monteyro. And last month, we witnessed a transition at the top of the IDA Board, with
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Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Mr SOUL!, the 2018 IDA Documentary Award winner from Melissa Haizlip, premieres virtually on August 28. The film profiles Haizlip’s late uncle, Ellis Haizlip, who produced and hosted the groundbreaking PBS program SOUL! from 1968-1973, at the height of the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements. SOUL! was a landmark celebration of Black American culture, art, life, love and community, that beamed out to households across the nation in their living rooms every week. Pacific
The most nerve-wracking sequence in David France’s Welcome to Chechnya is, without doubt, the rescue of Anya.
Britain’s public service broadcaster Channel 4 took an early lead in commissioning fast- turnaround films about how the coronavirus is impacting the UK. As a publisher broadcaster, Channel 4 solicits all of its content from the independent production community. Channel 4’s Head of Factual Danny Horan notes, “We have been in conversations and pitched great ideas by the best storytellers in the business. It’s been our lifeblood and will continue to be.” Documentary spoke to three production teams about their approach. A Day in the Life of Coronavirus Britain: Inspired by Kevin Macdonald’s Life
With a nation in lockdown, documentaries in every form have never been as important to the UK’s rich public-service broadcasting system. As I wrote in this magazine more than 20 years ago, British television has long focused on the documentary genre. With the ethos of public-service broadcast being to “inform, educate and entertain,” documentary programming has always been at the heart of television schedules. The public has been raised on a diet of factual programming, from the most earnest subject-driven fare to lighthearted lifestyle programming, and everything in between. The last few
Since childhood I’ve known and appreciated Mexican artists like Kahlo, Rivera and Orozco. The music my family listened to, like Vicente Fernandez or Juan Gabriel, brings back memories of different moments in my life. Today I am drawn to actors and filmmakers like Gael Garcia Bernal and Guillermo Del Toro, who are authentic voices in the Latinx community. The language, food, music, colors, books—I feel a strong, clear connection that this is my culture and I’ve always been very proud of this part of me. However, I did not recognize that my life and work have been part of another culture for over half my life.
Read in Spanish Part 1: La Isla Before Maria “Puerto Rico is a small island in a political limbo,” describes Karen Rossi, documentary filmmaker and director of Ser Grande. Having worked in the documentary field for decades, Rossi has experienced the changes in the filmmaking landscape. “When we invite Latin American filmmakers to Puerto Rico, they say, ‘Of course Puerto Rico is part of Latin America.’ But, if they didn’t know us, they might have had the impression that we are part of the United States and that we’re covered by US funding. And then, the US looks at us like, ‘Your first language
With Getting Real '20 quickly approaching, we met with the supporting programming team to see what they have planned for this year’s digital conference. Read more about what changes they’ve made to adapt to this unique moment in time and what exciting events they have in store this year. Stephanie Owens (SO) is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has programmed with Palm Springs ShortFest, Sundance and LA Film Festival. She's also contributed to POV and festival and funding juries. Nat Ruiz Tofano (NRT) is a queer and multiracial documentary filmmaker based in Oakland, California. Nat has
Reclaiming and reshaping narrative around Black women by Black women is liberatory work, and is what Oge Egbuonu executes so carefully and lovingly in her debut documentary, (In)Visible Portraits. The film opens with shots held over polaroids of Black women. We see these images sliced out of their white frames and placed into water. The process is known as an emulsion lift transfer, in which a photo’s positive film layer is removed from its negative and submerged into water. With time, the plastic covering the film lifts and all that is left is the floating positive film layer, which is later
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Making its virtual premiere August 19—the 67th anniversary of the Anglo-American coup in Iran— Coup 53, directed by Taghi Amirani and edited by Walter Murch, tells the story of the four days in which the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown by the UK government, in partnership with the CIA. The Anglo-American partnership installed the corrupt, unpopular Shah—a decision that led to mass unrest and eventually to the bloody Iranian