IDA Announces Newly Formed Advisory Committee for Enterprise Documentary Fund to be Comprised of Eighteen Industry Experts

The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced a newly formed Advisory Committee for the IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund comprised of eighteen industry experts. The committee will include, among others, award winning filmmakers Ted Braun, Katy Chevigny, Shayla Harris and Bernardo Ruiz.

Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, IDA's Enterprise Documentary Fund will provide grants totaling $1 million annually for four years to support the production and development of documentary films taking on in-depth explorations of contemporary stories through a journalistic lens. The Advisory Committee will provide expert guidance and input on the administration of the fund and its related programs.

"The Enterprise Documentary Fund was developed with the input of numerous filmmakers, scholars, journalists and first amendment attorneys," say Carrie Lozano, Director of the Enterprise Fund. "We believe that such input is critical to the success of the fund as we seek to encourage collaboration between journalists and documentarians and to create an ecosystem of experts dedicated to high-stakes documentary storytelling."

Nathalie Applewhite, Managing Director of the Pulitzer Center and a member of the Advisory Committee comments, "the Fund comes at a critical time when we all need access to information we can trust but we also need it to reach audiences in ways that will move them. Both as a documentary filmmaker and now in my role at the Pulitzer Center, I've seen the tension between our definitions of documentary filmmaking and journalism and yet, when done well, both are about using real events, environments and characters to tell a powerful story. So I'm excited to be part of an initiative that strengthens filmmakers' ability to do solid journalistic work–and that recognizes why that journalistic lens is so crucial."

"Original, investigative documentaries have never been easy to produce," adds Advisory Committee member Bernardo Ruiz, whose films include Reportero and Kingdom of Shadows. "But now filmmakers face a host of new challenges and obstacles. IDA's critical support for work that necessarily takes risks could not come at a better or more welcome time."

The complete list of Advisory Committee members is: Reem Akkad, Senior Producer, The Washington Post Original Video; Nathalie Applewhite, Managing Director, Pulitzer Center; Monika Bauerlein, CEO, Mother Jones; Ted Braun, director of Darfur Now, Betting on Zero; Katy Chevigny; director of Hard Earned, E-TEAM, Election Day, Deadline; Margaret Drain, former Vice President of national programs for WGBH/Boston; N'Jeri Eaton, Senior Manager of Programming Acquisitions, National Public Radio; Jon Funabiki, Professor of Journalism at San Francisco State University and Executive Director of Renaissance Journalism and Storytelling Center; Shayla Harris, producer, PBS Frontline, The New York Times, Dateline NBC; Rachel Raney, UNC-TV, Director of Independent Productions; Elspeth Revere, CEO, Ravenswood Consulting Group; Carlos Sandoval, Writer/Director; Bernardo Ruiz, director of Reportero, Kingdom of Shadows; Paul Sturtz, Co-Director of the True/False Film Fest; Trevor Timm, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation; Katie Townsend, Litigation Director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Nina Weinstein, Director of Development for MSNBC Originals; and James Wheaton, President and Legal Director of the Environmental Law Foundation, and Senior Counsel and Founder of the First Amendment Project.

For Advisory Committee member full bios, click here.