IDA also celebrates the Academy Award® nominated films and filmmakers in both the feature and short subject categories with its annual Academy Award® Nominees Reception, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. This tribute to each year's Academy Award® nominees is followed by DocuDay™ an all-day screening of the Academy Award® nominated documentaries.

Academy Doc Nominees have their Night at IDA's
27th Annual Nominees Reception

The filmmakers nominated in the Academy's documentary feature and short categories will come together on Wednesday, February 18th at the IDA's annual Academy Award® Nominees Reception, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. Come meet and mingle with this year's nominees!

Hosted by Lily Tomlin

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

6:30pm Doors Open / Light Hors D'Oeuvres & Wine
8:00pm Film Program
(Please Note: Doors will close promptly when program begins at 8:00pm)

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA, 90211

View Parking Map

Business attire. For Men: You can't go wrong with a suit or jacket and slacks, and some might just go with a sweater. For Women: Cocktail length dresses/skirts or business suits. Some women may wear longer dresses but the style is simple. No ball gowns required. It's a good idea to bring a jacket.

Purchase Admissions at Venue

A limited amount of show admissions will be for sale at the door.
First come, first serve.
$40 IDA members
$65 Non-members (comes with free, 6-month membership)

DocuDay™ Los Angeles:

Saturday, February 21, 2009
DocuDay™ Los Angeles is an all day screening of the Academy Award® nominated documentary feature and short films at the Writers Guild of America Theater.
ALL-DAY Pass - General - BUY NOW!
ALL-Day Pass - IDA, WGA, DGA, Student, Senior - BUY NOW!

DocuDay™ New York:

Saturday, February 21 & Sunday, February 22, 2009
DocuDay™ New York is a two day screening series of the Academy Award® nominated documentary feature and short films at the Paley Center for Media.
View Ticket & Screening Info Now!

Announcements and Updates:

2/27: More videos from the Reception and DocuDay are now live. See our chat with the directors of Trouble the Water and DocuDay Q&A with the filmmakers and subjects of Smile Pinki.
2/20: Video Interviews from the big night: Philippe Petit, Lily Tomlin. Plus, what would nominees do with an Oscar?
2/20: We've got coverage: indieWIRE, Matt Dentler's Blog, Spout, AJ Schnack.
2/19: Read our round-up of the big night and see pics of the attendees.
2/16: Meet The Actual Man On Wire! Breaking News: Philippe Petit to attend IDA's 27th Annual Nominees Reception!
2/14: Press and Coverage! From IndieWIRE, Arts in Los Angeles, Los Angeles.com, The Briefing Room.
1/22: Nominees for the 81st annual Academy Awards announced.

IDA congratulates the Oscars® nominees in the Documentary Categories!

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Director: Ellen Kuras
Co-Director/Editor: Thavisouk Phrasavath
Writers: Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath
Cinematographer: Ellen Kuras
Composer: Howard Shore
Executive Producer: Cara Mertes
Producers: Ellen Kuras, Flora Fernandez-Marengo
Co-Producers: Wilder W. Knight II, Gini Reticker, Chiemi Karasawa, Neda Armian
Associate Producer: Emma Tillinger
Pandinlao Films LLC, Celluloid Dreams, Cinema Guild, Inc., The American Documentary, P.O.V.

Filmed over the course of 23 years, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) is an astonishing tale of perseverance--one family's struggle to survive their journey from war-torn Laos to the streets of New York. Eloquent yet devastating, renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras' directorial debut is a remarkable collaboration with co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath--a documentary that reveals the hidden, human face of war's "collateral damage." DocuWeek™ official selection. * website * trailer * filmmaker Q&A * Documentary magazine article * 

Encounters at the End of the World
Director: Werner Herzog
Cinematographer: Peter Zeitlinger
Editor: Joe Bini
Music: Henery Kaiser, David Lindley
Producer: Henry Kaiser
Executive Producers: Phil Fairclough, Dave Harding, Julian P. Hobbs, Andrea Meditch, Erik Nelson
Creative Differences Productions, ThinkFilm, Image Entertainment, Discovery Channel Productions

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together under unbelievably close quarters in Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science. Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted. In his first documentary since Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his cameraman, traveled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under. Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog’s latest meditation on nature, explores this land of Fire, Ice and corrosive Solitude. website * Documentary magazine article * 

The Garden
Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Editors: Alex Blatt, Tyson Fitzgerald 
Composers: Doug DeAngelis, Gabriel Tenorio
Co-Producers: Vivianne Nacif, Dominique Derrenger
Executive Producers: Stuart Sender, Julie Bergman Sender
Black Valley Films, Katahdin Foundatio

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers. website * trailer * filmmaker Q&A *

Man on Wire
Director: James Marsh
Source Material: Philippe Petit
Cinematographer: Igor Martinovic
Director Of Photography: Igor Martinovic
Production Designer: Sharon Lomofsky
Film Editor: Jinx Godfrey
Composer: J. Ralph
Music: Michael Nyman
Producer: Simon Chinn
Co-Producer: Maureen A. Ryan, Victoria Gregory
Executive Producers: Nick Fraser, Andrea Meditch, Jonathan Hewes, Lenny Crooks
Archival Producer: Liz Fay
Discovery Channel Productions, BBC, U.K. Film Council, Red Box Films, Wall to Wall, Magnolia Pictures

On August 7, 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken in for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Man on Wire brings Petit's extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as "the artistic crime of the century." IDA Awards Feature Winner. * website * trailer * filmmaker Q&A * Documentary magazine article *

Trouble the Water
Directors/Producers: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
Cinematographers: P.J. Raval, Kimberly Roberts, Nadia Hallgren
Editor/Co-Producer: Todd Woody Richman
Composer: Davidge/Del Naja
Original Music: Neil Davidge, Robert Del Naja
Music Supervisor: Barry Cole
Editing: Mary Lampson
Music: Black Kold Madina
Co-Producer: Amir Bar-Lev
Executive Producers: Joslyn Barnes, Danny Glover, Todd Olson, David Alcaro
Consulting Producer: Harold Moss
Louverture Films, Elsewhere Films, Zeitgeist Films, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

Trouble the Water takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. It's a redemptive tale of two self-described street hustlers who become heroes--two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall--24-year-old aspiring rap artist Kimberly Rivers Roberts is turning her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. "It's going to be a day to remember," Kim declares. With no means to leave the city and equipped with just a few supplies and her Hi-8 camera, she and her husband Scott tape their harrowing ordeal as the storm rages, the nearby levee breaches, and floodwaters fill their home and their community. IDA Awards finalist. IDA Fiscal Sponsorship Program member. * website * trailer * Documentary magazine article * filmmakers Q&A*

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM:

The Conscience of Nhem En
Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Steven Okazaki
Associate Producer: Singeli Agnew

From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge rounded up men, women and children, and sent them to a school in Phnom Penh, which had been converted into a prison. The prisoners were registered and photographed, and were then tortured or immediately killed. Of the 17,000 who entered the S-21 facility, only eight are known to have survived. In this documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, three tell their stories, as does Nhem En, a 16-year-old at the time, who photographed thousands of prisoners before they were executed. filmmaker Q&A * 

The Final Inch
Director/Producer: Irene Taylor Brodsky
Cinematographer: Jeff Streich
Editor: Bill Weber
Composers: Courtney Von Drehle, Joe Janiga
Producers: Tom Grant, Sophie Harris
Google.org, Vermilion Films, the MAKERS

Nearly 50 years after a vaccine for Polio was developed in the United States, the Polio virus still finds refuge in some of the world's most vulnerable places. Into India's impoverished neighborhoods, The Final Inch follows the massive -- and yet highly personalized -- mission to eradicate Polio from the planet. One of history's most feared diseases, now largely forgotten, Polio has become a disease of the world's poor. website * trailer * filmmaker Q&A *

Smile Pinki
Director/Producer: Megan Mylan
Cinematographers:Nick Doob, Jon Shenk
Editor: Purcell Carson
Field Producer: Nandini Rajwade, Girish Thakur
Composer: Prasanna
Principe Productions Inc.

Pinki is a five-year-old girl in rural India born desperately poor, and with a cleft lip. The simple surgery that can cure her is a distant dream until she meets Pankaj, a social worker traveling village to village gathering patients for a hospital that provides free surgery to thousands each year. Told in a vibrant, vérité style, rich with nuance and complexity, this real-world fairy tale follows its wide-eyed protagonist on a journey from isolation to embrace. IDA Awards finalist. DocuWeek™ official selection. * website * filmmaker Q&A *

The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306
Director: Adam Pertofsky
Cinematographer: Steve Yedline
Editor: David Brodie
Production Designer: Sarah Bleakley
Composer: Human
Producers: Vicki Tripp, R. Stephen Mohammed
Executive Producer: Margaret Hyde
Rock Paper Scissors, HBO Network, The National Civil Rights Museum

On April 4,1968, the Revered Samuel “Billy” Kyles stood beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee and bore witness to his brutal assassination. Through Rev. Kyles’ recollections of those fateful moments and the days leading up to them, The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 helps us remember why Dr. King made that fateful trip to Memphis, and takes us inside the last hours of his life. With moving testimony from civil rights luminaries such as Maxine Smith and Dr. Benjamin Hooks as well as other contemporaries of Dr. King, The Witness is a poignant retelling of a crucial turning point in the civil rights movement and a vibrant reminder of Dr. King’s impact on the movement and our nation. website * Filmmaker Q&A*

PRESENTING SPONSOR:

BEVERAGE SPONSORS: