Meet passionate teenage innovators from around the globe who are creating cutting-edge solutions to confront the world’s environmental threats – found right in their own backyards – while navigatin
Sponsored Projects
For over 30 years, IDA's fiscal sponsorship program has been helping independent documentary projects of all types get funded, finished and seen.
Bruce Langhorne was a child prodigy studying violin at Juilliard when an accident with a homemade rocket claimed three of his fingers.
Standing before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "St. Elmo's Fire" screenwriter Carl Kurlander recounts how his Grandpa Jack, in the middle of the Great Depression, bet everything on a coin-operated phonograph — realizing that while no one had money for records, everyone had a nickel to play their favorite song. Jack helped kickstart the careers of stars like Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte and, along with his fellow Cleveland coin men, promoted the music of Black artists that radio stations refused to play — music that first became known there as "rock and roll." But as the jukebox became a symbol of America's twin evils — juvenile delinquency and organized crime — a young Robert F. Kennedy, working for the Senate hearings on organized crime, targeted Jack and his associates as a front for the mob. Today, as AI algorithms pick songs for young people to listen to, "Jack and the Jukebox" reminds us of the community this forgotten marvel of art and technology — the "Spotify of its day" — once built, and how it changed the way Americans listened to music and the music we listened to.
The women of the Jordanian national football team share one dream: to qualify for the World Cup. For the first time in the team’s 13-year history, this dream is within their reach.
The feature documentary Josh’s Wedding explores an often abstract subject (AI and the arts) through the story of two old friends with colliding worldviews: Simon Rich, a New Yorker humorist and TV
The story of four migrants who take action into their own hands to support the families of other migrants who went missing while attempting to cross the Arizona desert.
In 1907, Sam’s great grandfather, a Jewish immigrant named Nathan Radutzky, started Joyva, a Jewish candy company that became ubiquitous in Jewish Americana and touched the lives of millions.
Jr. Bull spends a year in the lives of America's top youth bull riders as they train for and compete in the World Finals in Forth Worth, Texas.
From Texas to Tokyo, this five-part docuseries shows how politicians and corporate avarice weakened our most critical network — and why we need fission to fix it.
In 1943 Johnny Bragg was sentenced to a life sentence for rape at Nashville’s Tennessee State Penitentiary.
Following the death of a trans Afro-Latina on Rikers Island, a family’s loss blew up into a movement that shined a light on the injustices of the criminal legal system.
Kamayan explores the cultural and culinary history of the Philippine archipelago—and the evolution of the practices and ingredients from the pre-colonial Philippines through Spanish and American co
Nestled in India’s northeastern Assam district, Kaziranga National Park contains the world’s highest density of the endangered Asian One-Horned rhino.
In the 1980’s, one man’s progressive vision turned Amnesty International into a household name. How did he get there, and where is he now?
Morrie Turner, the pioneering African American cartoonist whose newspaper comic strip and television show reached millions of Americans with a powerful message of tolerance from the Civil Rights er
Kent Rising is a feature length observational documentary which follows the extraordinary Josephine Buchan who has committed her life to helping young people who are not, in her words ”school shape
Set in Kenya’s tea highlands, Kikuyu Land follows Mr. Mungai, a local land claimant pursuing justice for land taken from his family.
The inspiring story of an accomplished open water swimmer’s attempt to become the first woman to swim 30 miles through a stretch of cold, rough and shark-inhabited waters near the San Francisco coa
KITÁ is a true story about elite Juilliard students from New York City who cross the world to the Philippine Islands—where their plan to teach dance one summer shatters everything they thought they
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.