It has been deeply troubling to watch our peers in the Ukrainian film community have their lives and work unraveled by the horrors of war. The International Documentary Association (IDA) has joined over 500 film professionals and institutions from around the world in signing a letter in support of
Advocacy
IDA is at the forefront of protecting and advancing the legal rights of documentary artists, activists and journalists. Recent efforts have focused on promoting net neutrality, fair use and government arts funding, as well as defending filmmakers’ first amendment rights.
DMCA Exemption for Documentary Filmmakers
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it unlawful to rip from DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and many other encrypted technologies to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works. The law blocks filmmakers' ability to make fair use of invaluable footage. While fair use allows us to use copyrighted footage, the DMCA restricts our access to such material. Since 2010, IDA and its Board of Directors members from the University of Irvine (UCI) Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic and Donaldson + Callif have represented a coalition of major independent filmmaking organizations in the effort in protecting documentary filmmakers' exemption from the DMCA.
Other work
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Tue, 12/21/2021 - 00:00
Nearly three years after being deported following the world premiere of Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra’s The Infiltrators at Sundance, activist Claudio Rojas, who has a prominent role in the film, has been reunited with his family in South Florida. Rojas’ deportation had been decried as a clear act
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Wed, 11/10/2021 - 00:00
Last June my debut feature film Pray Away premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It is a career milestone I am grateful for, and one I’ll never forget for many reasons. This includes having experienced the majority of said premiere overwhelmed and half-topless in a production trailer behind the big
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Fri, 09/10/2021 - 00:00
For over four weeks, a small team of colleagues from the D-Word online community has been frantically working to help our list of 75 Afghan nationals; some are documentary professionals, some are extremely high-risk young people, some are single women who have worked in TV journalism and women’s
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Wed, 08/18/2021 - 00:00
By Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei We are writing this with sleepless eyes, shaking hands, and knots in our stomachs that grow tighter with each bit of news coming out of Afghanistan, as if an invisible but unbreakable string connects our hearts over continents and oceans. There is an Afghan
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Fri, 08/13/2021 - 17:50
Several of my former 'Angels are Made of Light' are targets for execution by the Taliban because of their work for US-funded projects in Afghanistan. We hope that with your help, we can draw attention to the SIV applications of my friend and bring him to safety.
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Fri, 01/29/2021 - 11:42
Dear Documentary Community:In 2019, many of you joined our call to federal immigration leaders to release Claudio Rojas, the protagonist of the Sundance Award-winning documentary The Infiltrators, from immigration detention in Florida. Claudio had been detained by ICE after the release of the film
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Wed, 05/13/2020 - 16:19
We write today to express deep concern that during this pandemic, millions of freelance and self-employed workers are experiencing unprecedented income loss and have been unable to access the government assistance that they desperately need.
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Tue, 04/21/2020 - 13:39
Letter to Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnellCC: Treasury Secretary Steven MnuchinRe: Replenishing PPP funds to support self-employed workers impacted by COVID-19 pandemicToday we are facing the greatest crisis to the freelance workforce in modern history. Freelancers — including self-employed
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Tue, 03/17/2020 - 06:51
The arrest of Ugandan filmmaker and journalist Bwayo Moses on charges of “unlawful assembly” and “singing [a] song subverting or promoting subversion of the government of Uganda” represents an unwarranted and unjustifiable attack on artistic expression, and charges against him should immediately be dropped, PEN America, the International Documentary Association (IDA), and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) said today.