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IDA's universal documentary and nonfiction grants directory got a refresh and is ready for your perusal, now more up-to-date than ...

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A Fresh 2025 Introduction to Documentary Budgeting and Scheduling (With New Templates!)

by Robert Bahar
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Defend Public Media in the United States

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2025 IDA Grants Cycle Updates
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IDA Announced 2024 Open Call Grant Recipients Receiving a Total of $525,000

Enhancing Accessibility and Support for Disabled Nonfiction Media Makers - NAI 2024 Report

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Meet Logan Elevate 2024 Grantees!

Logan Elevate Grant provides $30,000 each to three emerging women and non-binary filmmakers of color directing feature-length journalistic documentary films.

IDA and DWU/CWA Local 9003 ratifies initial two-year contract

Fall 2025

This issue runs the thematic strand of “Dangerous Territory”—physical danger, political pressure, institutional exploitation. The cover feature on Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics places her in conversation with Bernardo Ruiz, another filmmaker who has also deeply investigated the evolution of an electorate across multiple election cycles. The three other articles in this strand feature other filmmakers under fire. Mstyslav Chernov’s transformation from war reporter to filmmaker is chronicled by Sonya Vseliubska. Lauren Wissot’s profile of the Renaud brothers, Brent and Craig, illuminates the price of their vérité approach to conflict journalism, which is also covered in Craig’s recent mid-length film, Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud. Journalist Steve Brooks investigates how even nonprofits designed to nurture mediamaking can become sites of exploitation. Brooks, the former editor-in-chief of the San Quentin News, also details how the appropriation of two incarcerated filmmakers’ creative labor echoes decades of similar struggles inside California’s prisons.Outside of the thematic strand, Abby Sun interviews David Osit on Predators, his slippery exposé of the crime sting journalism of To Catch a Predator, after finding the film to be a compelling, unexpected critique of true crime— and the limits of personal documentaries.Our recurring segments include two festival dispatches. Natalia Keogan considers independent documentaries amid Tribeca’s rampant commercialization, while Tayler Montague returns to BlackStar, which has become a vital U.S. stop for BIPOC filmmakers. For “Producer’s Diary,” Robin Berghaus gathers the ups and downs of Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk’s In Waves and War. And “Screen Time” continues with capsule-length reviews on notable new releases.Articles featured in the print version will be published online between September and December 2025.
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