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@gmail.com. You MUST include your name and the words “Member News” in the subject line.  

Doug Block's new film The Kids Grow Up had its US premiere at Full Frame on April 10, followed by Sarasota and Hot Docs. According to Block, "The film is a follow-up of sorts to 51 Birch Street, only this time I'm the parent and the main subject is my daughter Lucy. While it was 18 years in the making, the focus is on Lucy's last year at home before she left for college. It's about modern-day parenting, but also the difficult, time-honored concept of raising a child only to learn how to let her go. We're close to signing on with a distributor for both theatrical and home video, and looks like we'll start our release in late summer or early fall." Block also produced another personal doc which had its US premiered at Full Frame called The Edge of Dreaming. The Kids Grow Up and The Edge of Dreaming both had their world premieres at IDFA.

Director/producer Camilla Calamandrei's The Tiger Next Door tells the story of one man named Dennis Hill who has been breeding and selling tigers from his home in Flat Rock, Indiana for 15 years. When the film begins Hill has 24 tigers, three bears, six leopards, and a cougar living in his backyard compound. But now, after a surprise government inspection, he's lost the license that allowed him to keep exotic animals, and the State of Indiana is threatening to shut him down. He has just five days to find alternate homes for all but three of his brood and to bring his facilities up to code--or else lose what he considers to be his life's work. A special 43- minute version of the film aired on Animal Planet in March, and the full length DVD is now available from First Run Features. www.thetigernextdoor.com

Cinema Libre Studio is releasing two DVD titles on June 22, 2010. Josh Tickell's eco-doc Fuel won the Sundance Audience Award and includes interviews with a wide range of environmentalists, policy makers and educators, along with such “green” celebrities as Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow and Larry Hagman. The DVD is loaded with "how-to" extras including: "Sustainable Biodiesel Extra with HERObx" about  how agricultural waste can be turned into biofuels; "Building a Green Bottom Line with John Paul Dejoria," the founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems; "How to Get 150MPG from Your Prius"; and "How to Save Thousands Through Energy Efficiency;" plus an e-book written by Tickell: From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. The Children's War, a documentary by Andrew Krakower, sheds a light on the lives of children in North Uganda who must avoid being consigned into Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. www.cinemalibrestudio.com

ITN Productions’ factual arm has hired former Sky One and Discovery commissioner Emma Read to be Creative Director--Factual, Features & Factual Entertainment. Read is tasked with building on ITN Productions’ considerable strengths as a specialist factual producer and growing the business in features and factual entertainment. She will report in to Philip Armstrong-Dampier, Head of Factual, Factual Entertainment & Corporate at ITN Productions. In her most recent role, Read was Commissioning Editor of Factual & Features at Sky One. Prior to working at Sky, Read set up the UK factual commissioning arm of Animal Planet followed by a stint heading up factual commissioning at Discovery Channel UK and EMEA. Throughout her career Read has also produced a variety of cutting edge, award-winning shows for BBC, ITV and Channel 4 including Video Diaries, Adult Lives and Tomorrow’s World.

Director Patrick Shen is having the L.A. premiere/theatrical run of his documentary The Philosopher Kings May 21 through 27 at the Downtown Independent in Downtown L.A. An official selection at the 2009 AFI-Discovery Channel SILVERDOCS Film Festival,The Philosopher Kings interweaves the gripping stories of eight janitors who work for some of America’s top universities (including Pasadena's Cal Tech). This thought-provoking, multiple award-winning documentary shines the spotlight on members of society who are often disregarded and ignored. Fifity percent discount tickets are available to IDA members for the screenings on Sun., May 23 - Wed., May 26. To get the discount, go to www.tinyurl.com/tpktix, select the screening you would like to attend (May 23-May 26) and enter code tpkla10 in the box labeled "Discount Code". The $5 tickets will show up and you can make your purchase! If you want to go low-tech, IDA members can also show a membership card at the box office for the discount. www.philosopherkingsmovie.com

Richard Shpuntoff has been working on Letters for Julio, a documentary that chronicles how the brutal murder of a gay man sparked the political mobilization of a previously closeted gay community, and forever changed the neighborhood in which he grew up. The film is now in its final year of production.

The Perfect Moment, directed by Ondi Timoner and written by Bruce Goodrich, has been selected for the Sundance Institute's annual June Directors Lab, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah June 1 to 19, 2010. A look at the life of notorious New York photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, The Perfect Moment chronicles his extraordinary relationship with singer/songwriter Patti Smith and his complex, tortured sexuality,  and illuminates the impact his singular art made on our culture. Timoner is the only filmmaker to win the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice. Her most recent winner, We Live in Public, has been acquired into the permanent collection of MoMA, joining her critically acclaimed 2004 Sundance-winning documentary Dig! Other credits include the documentaries Join Us and The Nature of the Beast and the short film Recycle, which premiered at Sundance in 2006. The Perfect Moment will mark Timoner's fiction feature directorial debut.

Cass Warner is excited to announce the Warner Home Video release of the DVD of The Brothers Warner. The film is now available at the official Online Store of Warner Bros. Studios. Warner won the "Best Documentary Award" at the International Family Film Festival, which was presented to her by Nancy Cartwright. Says Warner, "I dedicated it to men like my grandfather, who cared not only for his family but for what he could do to make the world a better place with the films he made."  www.WarnerSisters.com