The IDA Membership is composed of directors, producers, composers, editors, writers, cinematographers, students and nonfiction enthusiasts, among others. Members News is the place to find out about their accomplishments and activities.

If you are an IDA Member and would like your news to be featured in the Members News column, please send your blurb (150 words max) to Documentary associate editor/content producer Tamara Krinsky at krinskydoc@ca.rr.com. You MUST include your name and the words “Member News” in the subject line.  

"Be a Part of the Solution," a 30-second PSA by Ben Achtenberg and son Jesse, for The Refuge Media Project, was a winner in a competition held by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), based in Denmark. The IRCT jury, including filmmaker Jørgen Flindt Pederson, said the spot, “was uplifting, dignified, and presented the cause of our anti-torture movement very well.” The winning PSAs promoted the United Nations’ International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, held June 26. Ben Achtenberg, a past Oscar nominee, owns distributor Fanlight Productions and directs The Refuge Media Project, currently producing Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture. Jesse Achtenberg is a Washington, DC-based independent filmmaker  specializing in environmental issues, and a producer and editor with New Media Mill.

Global ImageWorks, LLC is now exclusively representing the Soul Train television show (1971-2006) for clip licensing. The deal includes the clip licensing of over 1,100 weekly Soul Train episodes, 20+ Soul Train Award Shows, and all the Specials and Anniversary Shows. Guest performances include Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Run DMC, Elton John, Justin Timberlake and Alicia Keys, among others. The collection is currently is being digitized and will be fully searchable on the Global ImageWorks website. View highlight reels and collection details at www.globalimageworks.com/soultrain.

Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos, from filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum, won the Documentary Audience Award at the recent Chicago Latino Film Festival. This is the only award given out at the festival. The film was produced with support from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, Latino Public Broadcasting and ITVS. It is slated to air on PBS' Independent Lens this September.

David Sauvage's documentary Carissa, about Carissa Phelps, has made it to television. The film played on Current TV on June 17. Carissa won the Jury Prize in its category at eight film festivals before Current picked it up. It was also featured on Good Morning America and in USA Today. The film was executive-produced by Davis Guggenheim, the director of An Inconvenient Truth, and Jamie McCourt, owner and president of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and sponsored by Virgin Mobile and the Los Angeles Dodgers Dream Foundation. It was produced by Sauvage, Chad Troutwine and Carissa Phelps.

Jeff Stimmel's The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale is now available on DVD. Stimmel spent over five years following Connelly, a brilliant, self-destructive painter whose career had seen better days. As he started filming the painter, his life fell apart. His wife left, his patron died, and his small gallery left him. He had been the biggest raising art star in the 1980s. Says Stimmel, "After burning all his bridges, and alienating everyone in the art world with his drinking, bad behavior and uncompromising stance for his art, he could not 'get arrested.' While I was filming him he decides to hire a young, nice, friendly, good-looking (unknown actor) to try to sell his paintings. The work is still great, and now 'the package' is much better. The actor ends up getting a gallery show in New York, and sells some paintings!" The doc played on the festival circuit and aired on HBO. www.theartoffailure.com

Kevin Stirling's Moon Beat, a documentary about news reporters covering Apollo XI, won the 2009 Special Jury Remi Award at the 42 Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival.

Ondi Timoner reports that We Live in Public is getting a theatrical release. The film will be playing in NYC at the IFC center starting August 28, and will debut in LA on September 25, to be followed by dates in other cities. www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com.

IFP/Chicago will be honoring Towers Productions at this year’s 2009 Independent Film Gala on September 25. Towers Productions was chosen as the Honoree for the 2009 Independent Film Gala in celebration of its 20th anniversary and dedication to production in the Midwest.
Towers Productions Inc. has produced over one thousand hours of factual and entertainment programming for networks around the world, such as A&E, Animal Planet, Bio, CNN and Discovery Channel, to name a few. 

TPI is part of the multimedia group Towers Holdings, Inc., whose activities also include branded entertainment, equipment rentals, media services and program distribution.

www.towersproductions.com.


Director David Zeiger announces the launch of his new web series This Is Where We Take Our Stand, which features a behind-the-scenes look at “boots on the ground” testimony from American soldiers and veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March 2008, 250 veterans and active duty soldiers marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by gathering in Washington, DC, to testify from their own experience about the nature of the occupations. The Web series is the inside story of those three days and the men and women who testified. The project is presented by Displaced Films (Sir! No Sir!) and Northern Light Productions (Unfinished Symphony), along with the Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Project. The six-episode series will be posted consecutively, every two weeks, throughout the summer at www.thisiswherewetakeourstand.com.