Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo's feature documentary Made in LA screened at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills in August. The film follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer. In intimate vérité style, Made in L.A. reveals the impact of the struggle on each woman's life as they are gradually transformed by the experience. Compelling, humorous, deeply human, Made in L.A. is a story about immigration, the power of unity and the courage it takes to find your voice. The film was broadcast on PBS' P.O.V. in September. www.madeinla.com.

David Becker recently announced that Small Steps: Creating the High School for Contemporary Arts, a documentary that he made with Barbara Kopple and Bob Eisenhardt, premiered on PBS September 6 and was released on DVD September 20.  Small Steps: Creating the High School for Contemporary Arts tells the story of a new "small school" created inside one of New York City's most dangerous high schools.  Through the stories of students, teachers and parents, this intimate film takes audiences into the heart of public education in America. For more information, go to www.pbs.org/previews/smallsteps.

The Believers, a documentary about the world's first transgender gospel choir, won the audience award for best doc in the Frameline Festival in San Francisco and screened at OutFest in Los Angeles this past summer. The film, directed by Todd Holland, portrays the choir's dilemma-how to reconcile its gender identity with the widespread belief that changing one's gender goes against the word of God. The film screened at the IFP Market in 2004 and aired on LOGO in August.

Director Alexis Krasilovsky's Women Behind the Camera premiered at the Globians Film Festival in Potsdam, Germany, in August 2007, with subsequent plays at the Moondance International Film Festival. The film is the first documentary to examine the lives, work and challenges of camerawomen around the globe, including camerawomen who survive the odds in Hollywood, Bollywood, Afghanistan, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Senegal, the US and other countries. The film has won the Insight Award for Excellence in Documentary Editing and the Accolade Competition Award for Excellence in Contemporary Issues/Awareness-Raising. After six years of production around the world, the new feature-length documentary is being launched by Breakthrough Distribution.  www.womenbehindthecamera.com.

MacGillivray Freeman Films' original giant screen production The Alps was nominated as one of three finalists to compete for the Best Theatrical Program Award at the prestigious 2007 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. The nomination follows a string of nominations received by The Alps for the Giant Screen Cinema Association Achievement Awards announced in June. The Alps was nominated for the Best Film Award, Best Cinematography Award and the Best Soundtrack Award. Award winners had not yet been announced at press time. Narrated by Michael Gambon and featuring songs and music by rock legends Queen, The Alps follows the inspirational quest of mountaineer John Harlin to climb the Eiger's sheer North Face in honor of his father, who died climbing the same peak 40 years earlier.

Fridays at the Farm, represented by At Risk Films' Sarah Jo Marks, played as part of Sundance Channel's GREEN programming this past July. In the short documentary, filmmaker Richard Hoffmann serves up an intimate and poetic cinematic diary about his experience as a member of a community-supported organic farm in suburban Philadelphia.

Claire Missanelli and Paul Devlin, the producers of BLAST, have just been awarded an 2007 Individual Artists Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for $25,000 through IFP fiscal sponsorship. They have also entered into co-production partnerships with BBC Storyville, Discovery Canada, SVT Sweden and YLE Finland. With extraordinary access to a new generation of young astrophysicists, BLAST puts a human face on groundbreaking scientific research. The story follows a close-knit team of international scientists as they attempt to launch a multi-million-dollar telescope on a NASA high-altitude balloon, taking them on a dramatic journey from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Their risky scientific adventure seeks to help answer humankind's most basic question--How did we get here? Devlin has just returned from remote, northern Chile, where he shot the last chapter of the story. www.blastthemovie.com.

Richard Pearce has replaced Freida Lee Mock as one of the three governors of the AMPAS Documentary Branch. The chairman of the Documentary Branch of Governors is Michael Apted, and the third governor is Rob Epstein.

Director/producer Ben Selkow's feature-length documentary A Summer in the Cage, edited by John Mims, premiered on Sundance Channel in October as a DocDay Premiere. The film was executive-produced by Paola Freccero, and was funded through IDA's fiscal sponsorship program. A Summer in the Cage chronicles Selkow's friend Sam's battle with manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder. The film follows Sam for seven years as he suffers delusional manic episodes, battles paralyzing depressions, and tries to escape the legacy of his bipolar father, who committed suicide when Sam was eight years old. By showing the difficult emotional impact of being bipolar on Sam, his family, all those who care about him and the filmmaker, the film hopes to put a human face on an illness that affects millions of American families. But as this dramatic story unfolds and heads to an explosive standoff, it also becomes a unique tale about friendship and the ethical responsibilities of a documentary filmmaker. Sam and Ben are forced to ask themselves, When do you turn off the camera? www.cagethemovie.com.