Burgeoning young dancers, from The Juilliard School, leave their New York City lives to teach students in the Philippine Islands.
Sponsored Projects
Since 1998, IDA's fiscal sponsorship program has been helping independent documentary projects of all types get funded, finished and seen.
A Soviet gem sculptor endures persecution, censorship and self-imposed exile for the sake of his art.
Beloved Land, Beloved Country. A story of Love, Hope and Healing.
How do you heal from social trauma?
Kidnapped and taken to Guantánamo Bay by the US military, Lakhdar Boumediène was wrongfully detained and tortured at the notorious prison for seven long years.
Last Note: A Dialogue Between Kaneto Shindo and Benicio Deltoro was created to present Kaneto Shindo to the American film world. Kaneto Shindo is the 2nd oldest living filmmaker in the world.
Two gay ex-mormon missionaries travel across the United States to confront their past and explore their futures while discussing with other gay mormons about the rejection, oppression and the reali
The leading structural engineer of the World Trade Center oversees the construction of the world’s tallest building, haunted by its fall ever since.
Left Behind, currently in production, examines the issue of undiagnosed dyslexia, one of the leading causes of illiteracy in the United States.
Let Me Get There is a compelling visual journey through one of the most significant periods of mass migration in history, told through beautiful 100-year-old photographs and personal stories that h
A high-achieving elementary school just south of downtown Chicago is a lifeline for Black children – until gentrification threatens its closure.
In 1950, two young African-American boys risked their lives to play on a segregated golf course in Austin, Texas, not knowing the impact they would have on civil rights in the south.
'Let Us Read' explores various personal stories of living in a world full of misconceptions and systemic barriers toward dyslexia and other learning differences. However, thanks to decades of research, today, there is an effective teaching approach that empowers students with dyslexia and benefits all other students as well. This documentary pushes the conversation to the next step. How can we bring this solution to where the problem is and allow a fair education opportunity for everyone?
"License to Tell" traces the history of this explosion of writing through one of its most colorful and wildest creators.
Years after K's classmates were massacred in his school, he records the lives of Machid, who attends the same school, and Khatima, who works in the cemetery where the dead students are buried.
Life Underground is a transmedia project that invites visitors on a journey through the subways of the world and into the personal stories of their passengers.
At the beginning of the 90's, in San Francisco, Sylvie sets up Ti Couz, an utopian creperie, made of self-management, ecological concerns, social rights for the employees.
Throughout the span of twenty five years, from 1970 to 1995 and beyond, the cultural environment in the rural town of Ada, Oklahoma (population 17,000) produced an extraordinary number of nationall
The Little Tokyo Social Club was where members of the Japanese Community met to have social dances, singing, current events and meeting halls to gather the newly established Japanese community in 1
THE RISE, FALL, AND REBIRTH OF A ROCK-AND-ROLL CATHEDRAL: In the 1970s, the Agora Ballroom concert clubs brought rock-and-roll to the heartland of America and became a springboard for some of the m
Looking for Rosey tells the untold story of Roosevelt Thompson, a Rhodes Scholar, who became a symbolic representative of scholarship that underscored the success of the historic actions of the Lit
As the Western frontier closed, America sought to forcibly re-educate Native Americans at Indian Boarding Schools. Their motto was “Kill The Indian To Save The Man.” In 1892, the Pueblo
In the remote reaches of Chilean Patagonia, a dwindling group of gauchos known as puesteros continue to live an isolated and traditional life, resisting the pull of the modern world.
From 1967 until her untimely death in 1994, Arlene Carmen was the administrator of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich village.
Lumpkin, GA is a poetic, multifaceted examination of the moral dilemmas of immigration and poverty in America.
Lyuba’s Hope follows lawyer-activist-political candidate Lyubov Sobol, formerly the head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
A 31-year-old Mexican immigrant, trapped in daily conflict with his limbs due to cerebral palsy, strives to become a samurai.
Mabon “Teenie” Hodges- A Portrait of a Memphis Soul Original, is my way of painting a portrait through film of my close friend Mabon “Teenie” Hodges. Teenie made a major contribution to Memph
MAGIC & MONSTERS uncovers the long-buried story of widespread sexual abuse at America’s preeminent children’s theater and the survivors’ fight to hold their abusers and the institution that har
For nearly 90 summers a tiny village in rural Michigan, dubbed “The Magic Capital of the World,” has attracted thousands of magicians for an annual magic convention.
"Sound is 50% of the cinematic experience" is a frequent expression of top filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, David Lynch, and Steven Spielberg.
Zoologist Desmond Morris once wrote, “What Joy Adamson was to lions, Dian Fossey was to gorillas, and Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees, Anna Merz is to rhinos.” This is the untold story of pioneering
When history fails to preserve stories from our past and present, it's up to us to correct the record.
Marcella Hazan changed how we cook and experience Italian food. MARCELLA is a new documentary that tells her dramatic, delicious story.
This is the story of the life and impact of Rabbi Marshall Meyer, a human rights hero in Argentina during the Dirty War there between 1976 and 1983.