Joshua Abarbanel and Jeff Swimmer's A Field Guide to Household Bugs: It's a Jungle in Here was published by Penguin/Plume. The Field Guide is a back-pocket park ranger for the wildlife parks that are our homes and bodies. Featuring bold graphics and arresting electron microscope photographs, this highly irreverent but factual Guide proves that we're never really home alone. This book marks the debut collaboration between filmmaker Swimmer and artist Abarbanel, based in Santa Monica as Double J Media.

Simone Pero Audi's new short documentary Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy screened at  the Mill Valley Film Festival this past October. The film was co-produced by Audi and director Alice Elliott (The Collector of Bedford Street, Academy Award nominee, 2002). The film also screened at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival and Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival. Body & Soul is an IDA Award nominee for Short Documentary, and earned a spot on the Academy Award Short List for Best Documentary Short Subject.  forimpactproductions@yahoo.com

The Center for Social Media' Pat Aufderheiede's new book, Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, $9.95), is now available in bookstores(brick-and-mortar and online!) everywhere. The book provides an authoritative overview of the evolution of and controversies around this genre so fundamental to public knowledge and action. Check out www.centerforsocialmedia.org to buy the book and read excerpts, as well as see what people are saying!

Elizabeth Blozan's Rebel Beat: The Story of LA Rockabilly was featured on the Latin life news magazine Latination. The episode aired in 100 cities across the country. Says Blozan, "Thanks to Robert Rose of AIM TV in New York, who has mad hot love for American rockabilly, the entire Latination episode [celebrated] rockabilly, including segments on my doc, Big Sandy, Darla's store My Baby Jo and the great psychobilly band Calavera." To find out when Latination airs in your area, go to www.aimtvgroup.com/ln/wheretowatch.

Bestor Cram of Northern Light Productions reports that he is readying his Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison for a 2008 release. The documentary, based on Michael Streissguth's book Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece, examines the fabled concert and album against the backdrop of 1968 and highlights the dramatic sub-plots that have grown up around them: the life and suicide of Glen Sherley, the Folsom convict whose parole Cash gained; the story of Millard Dedmon, the African-American Folsom convict who has lived Cash's vision of prison reform; the association between Bob Dylan and Cash, which fused the country and rock worlds and brought the masses to the Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison album. Legendary rock and roll photographer Jim Marshall has licensed his iconic photographs of Johnny Cash for the documentary. Cram is producing and directing the film, while Streissguth is credited as co-producer and writer.

Arthur Dong's Hollywood Chinese was invited as an opening night film of the 44th Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan on November 23. It's the first time a documentary has been selected to open this festival. The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and as "Special Presentation" screenings at both the AFI Fest in Los Angeles in November and the Vancouver International Film Festival in October. www.deepfocusproductions.com

Amber Edwards' new documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman will premiere on PBS on Tuesday, January 1, 2008, at 9:30 p.m. The 90-minute film profiles the life and career of the composer/lyricist responsible for some of Broadway's biggest smash hits: Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. Produced for NJN Public Television, the documentary has been given preview screenings by the Actors Fund of America in Los Angeles and Palm Springs; the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio); the 92nd Street Y; Brooklyn Academy of Music; the Kennedy Center; the Sarasota Film Festival; and the Mill Valley Film Festival. 

Rhapsody Films announced the release of a DVD edition of award-winning director/producer Harrison Engle's documentary Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs. The film presents a dynamic portrait of one of the all-time giants of American music. Carter's performing and recording career spanned nine decades, from the 1920s into the New Millennium. His contributions as alto saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, band leader and film score composer are legendary. One of the principal architects of the big band sound, Carter performed and made hundreds of recordings with stars such as Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday. Engle says, "Benny was a distinctive artist whose musical journey from the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the 1920s to Paris, London, Tokyo and Hollywood touched millions." The restored and remastered documentary was produced in 1989 and broadcast nationally. Narrated by Burt Lancaster, the film includes interviews with Carter colleagues Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald and André Previn. For more information, go to www.rhapsodyfilms.com, www.bennycarter.com and www.harrisonengle.com.

The new series WIRED SCIENCE premiered on PBS in October. IDA member Kent Gibson is the sound designer and Documentary Associate Editor Tamara Krinsky is a correspondent. www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience

ITN's technology team was awarded with the prestigious Content Delivery Award at this year's IBC Innovation Awards for developing the NeMeSys (New Media System) system. The IBC Innovation Awards celebrate excellence in the creation of complete technical and operational solutions in the broadcasting arena. ITN's technology team developed NeMeSys to ensure both smooth and fast delivery of nearly 200 video clips to its mobile, broadband, IPTV and commercial archive footage clients on a daily basis.

Aviva Kempner screened her work-in-progress, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, in October at the National Gallery Auditorium in Washington, DC, as part of the MacDowell Colony Film Program. The MacDowell Colony, the oldest creative artists' residency program in the US, celebrated its centennial this past year.

Sheila A. Laffey screened her latest film, South Central Farm: Oasis in a Concrete Desert, at AFI Fest 2007. This doc covers the high profile controversy over the South Central Farm in Los Angeles, the largest urban farm in the country, that fed a community of 350 families in need, as well as many visitors. Farmers were evicted and the land bulldozed last year. The story includes information about the benefits of urban farms, testimonials from celebrity treesitters and citizen supporters, dramatic evictions of farmers, perspectives from developers and updates on farmers' efforts to sustain themselves physically and spiritually. Laffey also produced and co-directed The Last Stand series on the Ballona Wetlands hosted by Ed Asner which won 19 awards, including a Cine Golden Eagle and Telly Award for its episode in the 13 part PBS series, Natural Heroes.  Laffey directed and co-produced South Central Farm with Geoffrey Pepos.

MacGillivray Freeman Films' classic ocean film The Living Sea was inducted into the IMAX Hall of Fame at the 2007 annual Giant Screen Cinema Association conference in Vancouver on September 22. The award caps 12 years of outstanding critical acclaim and record-breaking box office performance for The Living Sea, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1995. The Living Sea is MacGillivray Freeman's second film to be inducted into the IMAX Hall of Fame, following To Fly! in 2001.

Filmmaker Aaron Matthews' new documentary The Paper had its national broadcast premiere on Independent Lens this past December. The film takes an inside look at the pressures and problems of modern journalism as faced by the staff of a university newspaper embroiled in controversy. www.ThePaperDocumentary.com

National Geographic has created a new Global Media Group encompassing its magazine, book publishing, television, film, music, radio, digital media and maps units. Tim Kelly, president and CEO of National Geographic Ventures, has been named president, Global Media. This new media group will aid in enhancing coordination among National Geographic's editorial divisions.

Bob Niemack's This Old Spouse aired on WE TV, aka Women's Entertainment Television, this past September. The program looks at how to get the zing back into your marriage. According to Niemack, "It's been a fascinating and rewarding production, documenting one couple's ‘marriage make-over,' accomplished with the expert guidance of wedding planner Laurie Bailey and therapist Dr. Jay Wagener." www.wetv.com/shows/WeddingCentral/episodes/860193  

Director/producer Michèle Ohayon (Colors Straight Up -1997 Academy Award Nomination, DGA Directorial Outstanding Achievement Award and IFP Spirit Award; It Was a Wonderful Life -IDA Award nomination; Cowboy del Amor -WGA and IDA Awards nominations) received the Chairman of Yad Vashem Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival for her new feature documentary Steal a Pencil for Me.

New IDA member Faith Pennick recently completed a 60-minute documentary film entitled Silent Choices. The film examines the issue of abortion from the perspective of African-Americans. Silent Choices was awarded the 2007 Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking by the Roxbury Film Festival, and is now available for purchase as an educational DVD from New Day Films (www.newday.com). Pennick is also directing and producing a new feature documentary titled Weightless, following the lives of two dynamic plus-size women who are happy with their lives and their bodies. Fundraising for the film is underway; expected completion date is January 2009. For more information on Silent Choices, go to www.silentchoices.com. For details on Weightless and other film/video projects, go to www.orgchaos.com

Peter Raymont's documentary feature Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire received the 2007 Emmy Award for Best Documentary, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The film shares the award with the documentary God Sleeps in Rwanda. Raymont's latest feature documentary, A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, screened as part of IDA's DocuWeek and DocuWeek Multi-City Theatrical Roll-Out to selected American cities to qualify for Oscar consideration. A Sundance Documentary Fund recipient and Toronto Film Festival premiere, A Promise to the Dead deals with memory, exile and the politics of personal responsibility, through playwright and writer Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden) as he makes sense of the two September 11ths - Chile in 1973 during the Pinochet coup that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende, and the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC in 2001. www.promisetothedead.com

Producer/director Isadore Rosemarin and co-writer/co-producer Jeff Helmreich's Blood and Tears: The Arab-Israeli Conflict is now available on DVD from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Blockbuster, Netflix and many other online retailers. The film is about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The filmmakers interviewed officials and laypeople from both sides, from Benjamin Netanyahu to the leaders of Hamas, to create a pastiche of opinions and viewpoints that weds the real and the perceived, the concrete and the emotional. In addition to Rosemarin and Helmreich, the film is executive produced by Michael Dan and Robert Topol and co-produced by Brenda Sassoon-Rosmarin. Original music is composed by Erran Baron Cohen and Andrew Kremer. The film is distributed by THINKFilm. www.concordmedia.com/bloodandtearsmovie

Producer/director Jeffrey Schwarz's feature-length documentary Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story had its world premiere at the 2007 AFI Fest. Spine Tingler! is the story of horror movie director William Castle, the last great American showman. Castle was a master of ballyhoo who, in the 1950s and '60s, became a brand name with his outrageous audience participation gimmicks--buzzing seats, flying skeletons, luminescent ghosts and life insurance policies. The film stars John Waters, John Landis, Diane Baker, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Stuart Gordon, John Badham, the late Marcel Marceau, Leonard Maltin, daughter Terry Castle and many more. www.spinetinglermovie.com

At the 28th Annual News and Documentary Emmy, held in New York on Sept. 24, IDA member Gail Willumsen won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing for The Mummy Who Would Be King. Willumsen wrote, directed and produced this one-hour documentary for WGBH/NOVA. The film chronicles the discovery of the long lost mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh. This is Willumsen's third Emmy win. The film also screened in competition in November at the 7th International Festival of Archaeological Films in Brussels, Belgium.

Andrei Zagdansky's Orange Winter has been released on DVD. This reflective documentary tells the ultimate story of a rigged presidential election in Ukraine with a poisoned opposition candidate, massive fraud, streets flooded with millions of protesters and a nation waiting for a Supreme Court decision. The doc was screened at San Francisco Doc Fest and Kiev International Documentary Film Festival, and it received a Special Mention Award at the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival in  Pamplona, Spain. Director/producer Zagdansky is currently based in the United States. This was his first film shot in his native Ukraine since his Interpretation of Dreams. The Orange Winter DVD, an AZ Films LLC release, runs 72 minutes.  www.azfilms.us/orange-winter.html