Tonight at the 85th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, CA, feature documentary Searching for Sugar Man and short doc Inocente took home statues in their respective categories.
Searching for Sugar Man, the film that won Best Feature at the IDA Documentary Awards in 2012, details the efforts of two Cape Town fans, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom who seek to find out if the rumored death of American musician Rodriguez was true. The film, directed by Malik Bendjelloul, also won the Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award for best international documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Read about Sugar Man's win at the IDA Awards last December.
Inocente, tonight's winner in the Best Short category, is an intensely personal and vibrant coming of age documentary about a young artist’s fierce determination to never surrender to the bleakness of her surroundings. At 15, Inocente refuses to let her dream of becoming an artist be caged by her life as an undocumented immigrant forced to live homeless for the last nine years. Neither sentimental nor sensational, Inocente will immerse you in the very real, day-to-day existence of a young girl who is battling a war that we rarely see. Read IDA's interview with Inocente directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine.
Congratulations to all the winners at tonight's ceremony!