The IDA Membership is composed of directors, producers, composers, editors, writers, cinematographers, students and non-fiction 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. 

The General (El General), by filmmaker Natalia Almada, will screen at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 21 and June 24. The poetic film essay looks at the imposing and controversial General Calles, President of Mexico from 1924-1928. Almada, Calles’ great-granddaughter, has made a film that is a rich reflection on memory, family biography and national history.
For more: www.altamurafilms.com/elgeneral

Paul Devlin’s BLAST! had its New York City theatrical premiere. The film played at the IFC Center from June 11-18, 2009. www.blastthemovie.com

A Jihad For Love, produced by by Sandi DuBowski (Trembling Before G-d), is now available on DVD worldwide. Fourteen centuries after the revelation of the holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad, Islam today is the world’s second largest and fastest growing religion. Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels the many worlds of this dynamic faith, discovering the stories of its most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims. The documentary was filmed in 12 countries and 9 languages and comes from the heart of Islam. Looking beyond a hostile and war-torn present, it reclaims the Islamic concept of a greater Jihad, whose true meaning is akin to ‘an inner struggle’ or ‘to strive in the path of God’ - allowing its remarkable subjects to move beyond the narrow concept of Jihad as holy war. The DVD can be purchased at a special discount via the following links:  
-For international, buy the DVD at 
http://tinyurl.com/neoflix
-For US, buy the DVD at 
http://tinyurl.com/firstrunfeatures
-For Canada, buy the DVD at 
http://tinyurl.com/mongrelmedia

ITN Source is launching New Classics, 10,000 hours of new and rarely seen content captured between 1896 and 1970, offering a fresh take on iconic events gone by. Available to customers globally, New Classics covers people places and events that shaped the world we live in. The collection includes clips of royal families from around the globe; social, political and religious leaders; and iconic stars from the silver screen, music, fashion, nature and sport. It also covers pivotal moments in global conflicts throughout the world and advancements in technology and science. Fully digitized, the  footage is available to view and download in broadcast quality from ITNSource.com.
ITN Source has also signed its first deal in China to provide education content to the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP), China’s largest foreign language publisher. The agreement brokered by IPCN will see ITN Source providing footage that enhances FLTRP language products including DVDs, mobile and online products. www.itnsource.com

Producer/director Alexis Krasilovsky reports that International Women's Day celebrations around the world this year included several screenings of her multi-award winning Women Behind the Camera or the new, shorter version, Shooting Women (54 minutes - 2008). The film played in celebrations taking place in locales ranging from India to Canada to Turkey. Recent screenings of Shooting Women include the Filmmor Film Festival, March 9-15 (Istanbul), with a Q&A panel that included Turkish camerawomen; a special event of the DOCNZ Forum in February in Auckland, New Zealand, co-hosted with WIFT; and DOXA in Vancouver on May 23. This makes over 35 festivals, conferences and special events that have featured the film.
Krasilovsky also has news about her latest project. She wrote in an e-mail, “In February, while screening Shooting Women in Auckland, New Zealand for the DOCNZ Forum, I also had the honor of serving on their International Co-Productions panel with the heads of Arte and ITVS, and shared the demo for my next global documentary project, Pastriology. This is a concept-driven documentary which addresses the planetary emergency of too little food and the injustice of its production, while seducing the viewer with the lavish traditions of pastry and cake-making that call us back to the roots of our childhood. So far, we have filmed in Bangladesh, India, Southeastern Turkey and the US. I've been granted a difference-in-pay sabbatical to work on it full-time starting in June, as well as a 2009-2010 CSUN Competition for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Award to film in India next winter, contingent on the funding of the University's budget.” Pastriology is a participant in the IDA’s fiscal sponsorship program.
-More on Women Behind the Camera:  www.womenbehindthecamera.com
-Fiscal sponsorship info on Pastriology

Priscilla J. “Sally” Mattison, of counsel to Bernard M. Resnick, Esq., P.C., spoke on a panel entitled “Navigating the Legal Waters:  Acquiring Story Rights, Music Clearances, Distribution & More” held on May 12, 2009, as part of the 32nd International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.  

Directors Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell are very proud to announce that their documentary on anti-Semitism in Europe today, The Monster Among Us, has received the Special Jury Award at the 42nd annual Worldfest International Film Festival in Houston. The highest honor given in its category, the Special Jury Award recognizes outstanding creative achievement in filmmaking. www.mediaprojects.org

In a preview showing, producer/director Suzanne Taylor’s feature documentary, What on Earth?, tagged “Inside the crop circle mystery” and available for purchase at WhatOnEarthTheMovie.com, received the 2009 EBE Award for best feature documentary from the UFO Congress. She was executive producer for the 2003 EBE winner, CROP CIRCLES: Quest for Truth. This time, she keeps the statue, which looks like Oscar with an alien head! What on Earth? was the only film shown at the 2009 X-Conference, which focused on advocacy of government disclosure of UFO/ET classified material. It will show in July, in England, at the Glastonbury Symposium, a yearly crop circle conference. “Were it ascertained we’re being visited by other intelligence, we would become one humanity in relation to ‘the other,’ and I’ve made these films to encourage that realization. See “A Call for an Investigation of what is Known about Crop Circles”  to sign my petition.