IDA was well-represented at this year's Sundance Documentary Film Editing and Story Lab. Editor Kate Amend served as a creative advisor, and director/editor Aaron Matthews was one of eight Fellows (project directors and editors) there with a project. At the Lab, the Fellows explore elements of story and character development in relation to their evolving rough cuts while working with six award-winning documentarians (four editors and two directors) serving as creative advisors. Matthews' project, The Paper, is a revealing glimpse of the pressures and challenges of modern journalism as faced by the staff of a university newspaper embroiled in controversy. Following a year in the life of the campus newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania, this documentary shows what happens when a group of students, many of them considering careers in journalism, come face to face with the tensions inherent in the field: barriers to investigative reporting, circulation and the bottom line of profits, accusations of bias and the quest for the elusive standard of "balance" in reporting. 

Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo have received completion funding from ITVS for their documentary Made in L.A. The film intimately documents the struggle and personal transformation of three Latina garment factory workers. As their lives unfold and change over three years, Made in L.A. artfully reveals the challenges facing immigrant workers and explores the ever-changing impact of globalization on the immigrant workforce. Carracedo is the director and cinematographer and is producing with Robert Bahar, who is also an IDA Board Member. info@madeinla.com.

National Film Board of Canada (NFB) Chairperson and Government Film Commissioner Jacques Bensimon was very busy at the 27th Banff World Television Festival in June. Activities included speaking at the CTV Canadian Documart, where he offered his insights on the state of Canadian documentary and the impact of new digital platforms on documentary filmmaking. He also moderated the session "Spotlight on Brazil: Co-productions with Brazil," which followed on the heels of an international Program of Cooperation signed by the NFB and the Ministry of Culture of Brazil last March, which paved the way for new collaboration in the areas of digital cinema development, co-productions, distribution and outreach, as well as training and R&D. "Breakfast with the NFB: From Bestseller to Box Office Magic--Documentary-Style," hosted by Bensimon, with NFB English Program Director-General Tom Perlmutter as a featured speaker, explored the process of adapting best-selling literary works to the documentary screen.

At press time, filmmaker/journalist Lauren Cardillo's documentary The Mother Road was set to air on PBS stations across the country this summer and fall in celebration of the US Route 66's 80th anniversary. The one-hour film is part travelogue, part human interest and part rock 'n' roll road trip--all wrapped up in a mother-daughter experience taken by Cardillo and her mother, Irene Cardillo. In the film, Lauren explores just how much her aging but very young-at-heart mother has in common with US Route 66 as the pair takes an adventurous trip down America's most famous highway, affectionately called the Mother Road.

IDA Trustee Nancy Dubuc has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Non-Fiction Programming and New Media Content of A&E Television Networks (AETN). In her new position, Dubuc will oversee program development for The History Channel as well as all new media content initiatives for AETN. In addition, she will continue supervising development and creation of all A&E Network's nonfiction programming including the network's signature real-life series, justice franchises, critically-acclaimed documentary series, A&E IndieFilms and Biography.

Mike Garibaldi Frick, who is currently working on his first documentary film, has this update from the field: "I'm producing and directing a documentary about an inspirational public art project I've taken across the country for the past four months called the Dialogue Project. Three friends and I have just completed a driving tour, which took us from San Francisco to New York and back. I hired local crews in many of the 17 cities we have visited, as well as used our own DVX100A package for many locations. Over 150 hours has been captured during the past two years, so now I'm heading into the editing bay with two editors to create a movie focusing on the creative process, how public spaces are controlled, freedom expression and this incredible journey across the United States." www.DialogueProject.net.

Joe and Harry Gantz's new documentary series, Sexual Healing, premiered on Showtime in July. The one-hour vérité show follows couples struggling with intimacy and relationship problems as they go through a week of intensive therapy with renowned therapist Dr. Laura Berman.

Editor Maureen Gosling reports that several projects in which she has been involved are now available on DVD. The award-winning Waiting to Inhale examines the heated debate over marijuana's use as medicine in the United States. California and the American Dream was recently broadcast on PBS nationwide. Gosling edited the first part, California's "Lost" Tribes, a look at the rise of tribal gaming and its effect on California Indians. www.maureengosling.com.

Director Sam Green's Lot 63, Grave C took home the Grand Jury Prize, Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival this past June.

NewFest, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Film Festival awarded Larry Grimaldi and Kirk Marcolina the Showtime Vanguard Award for their film Camp Out. The doc, which premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival, spotlights the first overnight camp for gay Christian youth, following the campers as they experience the "requisite gossip, crushes, and interpersonal conflicts of summer camp, as well as more serious discussions with camp staff on how to be true to both one's spirituality and one's sexuality." The film also won the best documentary award at NewFest. Camp Out was edited by IDA Board Member Thomas G. Miller.

Tom Jones was honored as "Producer of the Year" by the jury of the 2006 Beverly Hills Film Festival for his film The Real Deal. The film documents the efforts of theater artist John Malpede and his work with the homeless community of Los Angeles' Skid Row through his troupe the Los Angeles Poverty Department, the first performance group in the nation made up principally of homeless people. Sixteen years in the making, The Real Deal uses a one-man performance by Malpede as the basis for the film. Intertwined throughout Malpede's multi-dimensional recounting of L.A.P.D.'s story are conversations with past L.A.P.D. participants, clips from 20 years of performances and in-depth interviews with homeless activists, government officials and longtime supporters of the theater group, including acclaimed theater director Peter Sellars. The Real Deal had its European debut in Amsterdam this past June at the theater festival RIGHTABOUTNOW.NU.

Congratulations to IDA Trustee Susan Lacy, executive producer of American Masters. The series earned a Peabody and a Grammy this year for No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.

Filmmaker Tod Lending of Nomadic Pictures was recently awarded an ITVS grant and Annie E. Casey Foundation grant to complete Aimee's Crossing, the three-year study of a female juvenile offender who battles her demons as she goes in and out of prison. His other film that examines the painful realities of prison release, Omar & Pete, aired on P.O.V. last year and was recently awarded a Cine Gold Eagle. Docurama picked up home video rights and released the film in June along with Lending's Oscar-nominated film, Legacy. In addition, his award-winning documentary short, Roosevelt's America (produced with Roger Weisberg), was recently screened at the Museum of Modern Art.

Director Nilesh Patel and Roaming Pictures is pleased to announce that their feature film Brocket 99 - Rockin' the Country won first place in the documentary category at the First Peoples' Festival of Montreal. Shot in the summer of 2004, the film is shot in the style of a road movie. The film takes you through the beauty of Western Canada amidst the discussion of racism that exists between aboriginal and non-aboriginal society there. The film is an action-packed and emotional journey into the psyche of Canada and the world as we attempt to understand where we are "now" when it comes to relationships between cultures. www.brocket99themovie.com.

The Feature Audience Award at SilverDocs went to Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore? by first-time feature filmmaker Frank Popper. Sarah Jo Marks is the producer's rep on the film.

The award for Best Family and Youth Program at the Banff World Television Festival went to The Hobart Shakespeareans, a co-production of Mel Stuart Productions, P.O.V./American Documentary and Thirteen/WNET New York for PBS.

For the World Peace Forum held in Vancouver in June (www.worldpeaceforum.ca), Michelle Mason and the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) organized "Reel Peace," a day of documentaries and post-screening discussions following the format of Open Cinema, a micro-cinema movement from Victoria, BC. Profiled films included Helen's War by Anna Broinowski, The Camden 28 by Anthony Giacchino, La Sierra by Scott Dalson and Margarita Martinez, The Genocide in Me by Araz Artinian and Desobier (To Disobey) by Patricio Henriquez. Afterwards, Mason's own award-winning documentary, The Friendship Village (2002), opened the World Peace Forum's two-day film festival.

William Susman (co-producer/composer) and Steve Bilich (co-producer/director/writer/ editor/cinematographer) won Best Documentary Short at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival for the film Native New Yorker. Filmed with a 1924 hand-crank Cine-Kodak camera, Native New Yorker follows Shaman Trail Scout Terry "Coyote" Murphy on a journey through the island of Manhattan that transcends time--from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a native trail (now Broadway), into lower Manhattan (a sacred burial ground for Native Americans and former slaves).