Yesterday, October 30, documentary filmmaker Giorgi Mrevlishvili was detained by authorities in Georgia. This news was reported in social media posts published by Documentary Association Georgia, one of IDA’s peer organizations.
Advocacy
IDA defends the rights of documentarians to express their ideas and opinions fully (without censorship, threats or intimidation), and the rights of audiences to have access to documentary practice.
To define freedom of expression our frame of reference is the US First Amendment (in the US context) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in the international context). Yet our attention to freedom of expression extends beyond the actions of state actors.
IDA will address issues in the private and commercial sectors in so far as they impact freedom of expression for documentary makers including policies and practices that restrict how documentaries are made and seen.
To make IDA aware of issues that may need to be addresed, email advocacy@documentary.org
IDA Advocacy Work
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Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery jeopardizes the future of documentary filmmaking.
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We received yet another threat to free speech and expression by documentary filmmakers, this time, the call comes from Hungary. Our friends at the Hungarian Documentary Association have published the statement below on May 15.
This article will be updated regularly as the situation unfolds with news and calls to action. July 30, 2025 The recent vote to eliminate federal funding for public media was a significant setback and disheartening for all US residents, and especially our documentary community. Despite the outcome
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The International Documentary Association (IDA) and five other venerable filmmaker support organizations are deeply concerned by the news that DOGE is immediately cutting U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities grant programs. The NEH’s vital support of documentaries in the U.S. includes the NEH Media Projects grant program and documentary funding grants from many U.S. state humanities councils. For decades, they provided meaningful arts programming for general audiences, bridging scholarly research, documentary-making, and the public. Since Wednesday, we have received reports of dozens of grant terminations from filmmakers, affecting their ability to pay contracted crew and deliver quality programs for audiences all over the U.S.
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Earlier today, March 24, No Other Land co-director Hamdan Ballal was violently attacked and kidnapped in the West Bank. This news was reported in social media posts published by Ballal’s No Other Land collaborators Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham.
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As representatives of the Art House Convergence and International Documentary Association (IDA), we find the threat made by the mayor of Miami Beach to pull the funding and lease of O Cinema gravely concerning.
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On January 24, by unanimous vote, documentary filmmakers got a big boost from Congress. The House of Representatives passed the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act (aka the PRESS Act). It’s a journalist-protection bill that could easily have been called the Protect All Documentarians Act. Although the PRESS Act makes no specific mention of documentary filmmakers, federal courts uniformly include documentary filmmakers in their definitions of journalists. In fact, documentarians stand to be one of the bill’s biggest beneficiaries.
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Rebecca Day and Malikkah Rollins speak with Documentary magazine about the ever-present need for mental health resources for documentary filmmakers: “What we are really trying to focus on here is the filmmakers’ key role, rather than the hierarchical structure that puts them in this massive power game.”
As IDA prepares to convene hundreds of documentarians and storytellers from around the world at Getting Real ’24, we must acknowledge the ongoing violence and intimidation aimed at journalists, documentarians, and media workers across numerous world crises.