It was meant to be a few days of filming for a 1964 television program for Britain’s ITV that would look at who the future leaders of the year 2000 might be, taking as a premise the Jesuit maxim, “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” But for most of the group of British seven-year-olds identified to take part by their parents and teachers, the participation has turned into a lifelong commitment. Every seven years, a production crew, headed by director Michael Apted, would parachute into their lives for several days for a reflective check-in, before moving on again
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Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering April 12 on Independent Lens, Ursula Liang’s Down a Dark Stairwell tells the story of the tragic shooting in Brooklyn of Akai Gurley, an innocent Black man, and the trial of a Chinese American police officer, Peter Liang, who pulled the trigger. The documentary illuminates the experiences of two marginalized communities and their struggles against the racial imbalances of the criminal justice system. The final episode of Otherly, the Instagram series from POV and
Many filmmakers have a certain anxiety about submitting their films to funders, and with the pandemic shaping our capacities and capabilities in the documentary world, that anxiety has only grown within our communities. How do you ensure that your grant proposal stays strong, clear and focused despite the circumstances? On April 30, IDA Program Officer Dana Merwin sat down with Meena Nanji and Zippy Kimundu, the directors of the IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee film Testament, to discuss how their film successfully secured IDA support and other funding through a strong application. The
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! NPR’s Eric Deggans reports on a letter signed and submitted to PBS executives by the 140-filmmaker group Beyond Inclusion that addresses a disproportionate level of support to white filmmakers at the expense of BIPOC filmmakers. "It's not about Ken Burns, it's about this public television system living up to its mandate," [Grace Lee] adds. "On Asian Americans, we got
Hot Docs is back for its 2021 festival edition, bringing short and feature-length documentaries from around the world to viewer's home screens between April 29 and May 9. Among the 219 films on the lineup this year are plenty of titles from the IDA family, including IDA Enterprise and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund grantees, fiscally sponsored projects and films by IDA members. Check out what's in store and make sure to save your spot at showtimes for each film! Apart IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund Grantee | Systems Down In a Midwestern state caught between the opioid epidemic and surging
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Starting April 4, Eyes on the Prize, the seminal series on the American civil rights movement, will air on WORLD Channel every Sunday. The first six episodes will also be available on-demand for a limited time after broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including WORLDChannel.org, PBS.org and the PBS Video app. When it premiered in 1987, Eyes on the Prize, from the legendary production company Blackside, was acclaimed as the defining series on race in America. Today
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! The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner interviews filmmaker/educator/activist Renée Tajima-Peña about the recent surge—and long history—of anti-Asian Pacific Islander hate. I made the film “Who Killed Vincent Chin” in the eighties. It was the recession. U.S. car manufacturers were still producing gas guzzlers. The Japanese were selling fuel-efficient cars, and this sent
Justine Armen is a documentary film producer based in Oakland, California. She is currently the Executive Coordinator at ITVS and has been working in the documentary field since 2012. Justine is passionate about social equity, criminal legal system reform, prison abolishment, and supporting womxn of color in the arts. IDA: Tell us about yourself: what is your profession (or passion), and what are some of the notable projects you’ve worked on? JUSTINE ARMEN: I’m originally from San Diego, I’m a beach baby. I grew up dreaming of being a writer/editor and I studied English Lit in school. I’m
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! Following last week’s Oscar nominations, The Wrap’s Steve Pond, spoke to Collective director Alexander Nanau about his ambivalence over his film earning the first-ever nominations for his native Romania. “I don’t really have these patriotic feelings,” he told TheWrap on Monday. “We live in an international community, and I think stories have to travel. The pride is
Director/producer Maria Finitzo finished editing The Dilemma of Desire in winter 2019—just before COVID-19 entered our vocabularies. The film uncovers the myths and lies that women are being told about their own bodies. The documentary sheds light on not only what the female clitoris is, but also why women’s sexual desires are often pushed to the wayside. With the #MeToo movement still in full swing, there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to launch a documentary about gender politics and women’s libidos into the world. But the pandemic delayed that launch. The film was scheduled to have its