While a building cannot technically be construed an IDA member, 1551 S. Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles was home to IDA for well over a decade. Well, the vagaries of the real estate market have precipitated the end of an era, and the building, in which such former IDA Presidents as the late Robert Guenette, Chuck Workman, Harrison Engle and Mel Stuart were also headquartered, has been sold. Ben Bennett, the  longtime, self-proclaimed "slumlord"--and one of the earliest IDA members--threw a farewell party on March 31, attended by a host of IDA alums, including former Executive Director Betsy McLane and former Associate Director Grace Ouchida.

The Andrew J. Kuehn Foundation has presented the Academy Film Archive with $100,000 for film preservation, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' President Sid Ganis announced in March. The grant will be used to preserve two feature films by Academy Award-nominated director Otto Preminger--the 1953 Oscar-nominated film The Moon Is Blue and the 1962 drama Advise & Consent. Andrew J. Kuehn, who died in 2004, was a director/producer and advertising executive whose pioneering work included the trailers for such films as Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Star Wars.

In a mix of traditional and self-distribution, Ralph Arlyk's Following Sean has been slowly rolling out across the country after opening first in Paris. Filmmaker Arlyck first met precocious four-year-old Sean while living as a graduate student in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood at the height of the 1960s. Sean lived in the same building as Arlyk, in a free-lovin' apartment upstairs from the filmmaker, and Arlyk eventually turned his camera on the child. Sean's casual commentary on everything from smoking pot to living with speed freaks was delivered in simple sincerity throughout the soon-to-be famous 15-minute film. Thirty years, three generations and a lifetime later, Arlyck returned to San Francisco in search of whom the adult Sean might have become. The new film took 10 years to make and was entirely shot on 16mm. It was edited first on a Steenbeck, then on a Final Cut Pro system, finished in HD and then transferred to 35mm. Following Sean is a project of IDA's fiscal sponsorship program. 

Julie Bayer, producer/co-director of Time & Tide, reports that the film won the Best Documentary honors at the Big Muddy Film Festival. Time & Tide explores the impact of globalization and global warming on the tiny South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, as witnessed through the eyes of a group of expatriates returning home for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Pedro Carvajal's highly anticipated feature doc POPaganda: The Art & Crimes of Ron English was released on DVD in March. www.popaganda.com. 

Cinematographer Tom Curran reports that Little People Big World started airing in March on The Learning Channel. The 20-episode documentary series tells the story about an unusual family of dwarfs. Curran's wife, Karin, was one of the main editors of the show.

Martin Doblmeier (Bonhoeffer) is finishing production on a film about Albert Schweitzer for Hallmark, a major film on "Forgiveness" and a film about the Washington National Cathedral. www.journeyfilms.com.

Producer/Director Steven Fischer received two statuettes at the 27th Annual Telly Awards. Houdini, a magical, effects-heavy music video for popular indie rock artist Jim Camacho, won in the Music Video category. Camp Med, a creative, theatrically-produced promotional video produced for Virginia Hospital Center and NVCC Medical Education Campus, won in the Film/Video: Information category. The Telly Awards are a major competition in the national advertising, television and video production fields. Fischer is currently at work on a documentary called Freedom Dance with award-winning animator/producer Craig Herron. The story follows the dramatic escape of a cartoonist from Hungary to the United States during the violent 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Last year the IDA selected Freedom Dance for fiscal sponsorship.

At the Cinequest Film Festival, which was held in March in San Jose, Calif., a Special Directors Award was given to Angeliki Giannakopoulos' My Child: Mothers of War, which showed a spectrum of mothers of American soldiers in Iraq, from former Vietnam protestors to staunch Republicans who believe their sons are patriots fighting for a noble cause.

True/False West is pleased to announce that Doug Hawes-Davis and Drury Gunn Carr received the first annual True/West Visionary Award, given to a filmmaker that has placed an indelible mark on the world of documentary filmmaking. Hawes-Davis and Carr founded High Plains Films in 1992, and have produced and distributed their own nonfiction films for more than a decade. They have co-directed or co-produced, and edited more than 20 films, including features such as Varmints (1998), This Is Nowhere (2002), and Libby, Montana (2004). In addition, Hawes-Davis founded the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (http://highplainsfilms.org/festival) in 2003. He is also a faculty affiliate with the University of Montana.

Forgiving Dr. Mengele, a feature documentary co-produced and co-directed by Cheri Pugh and Bob Hercules, won the Special Jury Prize for documentary features at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival in January. The film tells the remarkable story of Auschwitz survivor and former "Mengele twin" Eva Mozes Kor, the transformation that led her to forgive the Nazi perpetrators as an act of self-healing, and the firestorm of controversy that it sparked. The film is being distributed domestically by First Run Features and internationally by CS Associates.

A School of Their Own, filmmaker Debra Kaufman's inspiring documentary about a school for low-caste children in rural Nepal, made its West Coast premiere in March at the Other Venice Film Festival 2006, and also played at the Reel Women International Film Festival in Hollywood, Calif.  A School of Their Own poses the question, "What is the power of education to create democracy?" by looking at The Riverside School, a unique institution in remote Nepal that educates low-caste and tribal children, half of whom are girls. There, children flourish in an environment free of the gender prejudice, oppression of the caste system, and abusive teachers found in government schools-and in their society. But the school--and children in Nepal--are threatened by a bloody seven-year civil war in which they are caught in the middle. A School of Their Own follows the children's struggle to learn and the struggle of the country to find its way to democracy.

John Keltonic scored Exploring Space: The Quest for Life, a two-hour documentary that aired nationally on PBS in March. "The score is primarily ethereal sounds and textures, more along the lines of musical sound effects," says Keltonic. "OK, I admit it--this one was a lot of fun to do." www.jdkmusic.com.

Vivian Kleiman served as executive producer on Maquilapolis: City of Factories with co-directors Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre. Recently completed with funds from ITVS, Sundance and Creative Capital Fund, among others, the documentary tells the story of a group of women who work in the multinational factories along the US-Mexican border. After its world premiere at Rotterdam International Film Festival, the film was described in Variety as "the rare docu that really does empower the individual women at the heart of its story." Other festival screenings include Tribeca, Hot Docs, Seattle and Guadalajara. At the same time, Kleiman is executive producer of The Key of G with co-producers Robert Arnold and Lindsay Sablosky. This documentary chronicles the struggle of two young men, one living with severe disabilities, to form a life and a household together that transcends their roles as caregiver and client. This film is Kleiman's seventh project funded by ITVS.

Producer and actress Klaudia Kovacs reports that her documentary Torn from the Flag, about the far-reaching international effects of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was recently recognized as one of the "Most Important Cultural Events of 2004" by Magyar Nemzet, one of the most prestigious daily newspapers in Hungary. The project was also invited to be presented to the US Congress. Torn from the Flag is directed by award-winning director/producer/writer Jonathan Halperin. It has been honored with 25 grants and six corporate sponsorships so far. The most recent interview, filmed by cinematography legend Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider; What's Up, Doc?; Paper Moon), was with Archduke Otto von Habsburg of Austria. Shooting has been completed and the project is now in post-production.

Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's documentary feature Plagues & Pleasures on theSalton Sea was screened at the Silverlake Film Festival in March. Said Metzler in an e-mail, "After lots of re-cutting, endless negotiating with the lawyers of John Waters to do the voiceover narration, 18 awards for Best Documentary, and 100 film festivals worldwide, we are finally screening in our semi-hometown of LA." Plagues & Pleasures tells the story of a desert resort wonderland that has turned into America's worst ecological disaster. Amid the flooded towns, empty cities and beaches of dead fish are a group of hardy eccentrics that continue hang on to hope. Through their perceptions and misperceptions, the strange history and unexpected beauty of the Salton Sea is revealed.

Lila Place's Under the Roller Coaster won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival. The film is about Mae Timpano, who lived under the famed Thunderbolt Roller Coaster at Coney Island.

Tom Putnam's feature documentary Red White Black & Blue premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in April. The film, about a secret Japanese invasion of Alaska during World War II in which 4,000 people died, was fiscally sponsored by the IDA.

Heather Rae's documentary Trudell opened in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Theatres in March. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Seattle Film Festival; and having screened at Sundance, Tribeca, Mill Valley, Full Frame and numerous other festivals, the film follows the life work of Native American poet/activist John Trudell. Rae spent more than a decade chronicling his travels, spoken word and politics in a poetic and naturally stylized manner. The film combines archival, concert and interview footage with abstract imagery mirroring the coyote nature of Trudell himself. Trudell is being distributed by Balcony Releasing.     

Barbara Rick's documentary In Good Conscience is now available on DVD. The film is about Sister Jeannine Gramick, a funny and unusual rebel, who battled with the Vatican over the rights of gay and lesbian Catholics.

Josh Slates' self-published journal Travels Through Elsewhere Cinema #3, "a continuing journal of below-radar, sub-hipster foreign and cult cinema," is now available on www.atomicbooks.com.

Russell Sparkman announces the launch of the inaugural "beta" version of www.iDocumentary.com, a website dedicated to providing quality documentaries for the video iPod and other portable video players. For a limited time, the film Ice Island is available on the site for free download. iDocumentary.com encourages documentarians who might be interested in this distribution platform to get in touch.

Women Make Movies is pleased to announce the national broadcast premiere of Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, a moving new documentary by acclaimed filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein. The film portrays the innovative Girl Scout program that brings young girls into prison to meet with their inmate moms. Troop 1500 premiered on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, Independent Lens on March 21.

Eva Wunderman is the recipient of the Individual Achievement Award for Outstanding Director, ­News (Series or Special) for her documentary Crystal Fear, Crystal Clear. The award is bestowed by American Women in Radio and Television and will be presented at the 31st annual Gracie Allen Awards on June 20 in New York City. The show documents a year in the life of three families in a small Canadian town who have kids affected by crystal meth. The Gracies recognize exemplary programming created for women, by women and about women in all facets of electronic  media. Crystal Fear, Crystal Clear premiered October 20, 2005, and was produced for CBC's The Passionate Eye. www.jenevafilm.com.