I have been producing projects with director Dylan Sires since 2017. Our latest project, 'ChiefsAholic: A Wolf in Chiefs Clothing' (2024), is an Amazon Original documentary about Kansas City Chiefs superfan Xaviar Babudar, aka “ChiefsAholic,” who rose to fame with his social media antics. But a secret life came to light when he was arrested, unraveling a series of unsolved bank robberies committed across the Midwest. ChiefsAholic was the first time we were given money to develop something—US$60,000, in fact. That only covered two weeks to capture enough of the story that we could use to sell. It was naive of us to think that having a budget made things any easier. At the time of writing, 'ChiefsAholic' carried a U.S. number one position on Amazon Prime for four days and generated a wild response from true crime fanatics and Chiefs Kingdom.
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Documentary brings you capsule reviews of some highly anticipated films: Intercepted, The Last Republican, Night Is Not Eternal, and Nocturnes.
Cinematographer and director Zac Manuel captures reality without the barriers of bulky equipment.
Dear Readers, I am back at IDA from a semester dedicated to research as a Documentary Film Fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics
I ended my last Notes , back in August of last year, by writing that these are treacherous times for documentary film and all truth-seeking art. It is
Another year, another Sundance. This second edition under festival director Eugene Hernandez doesn’t portend many changes from last year’s. The big
With Film Independent, IDA hosted a work-in-progress DocuClub screening of New Wave in Los Angeles in December of 2022. While the feedback Ai and her team received from the screening was generally favorable, she nevertheless decided to overhaul the doc’s narrative in order to include intimate details from her family’s relationship with music—and each other—opening old wounds in the process, with particular emphasis on the filmmaker’s estrangement from her mother. The final version of the film premiered at last year’s Tribeca Festival, and is still seeking distribution. Documentary spoke with Ai via Zoom to discuss the shift in story subject over the course of seven years of development. This interview has been edited.
Dear Readers, No Other Land is both narratively explosive and achingly personal. In terms of craft, it’s one of the most impressive examples of verité
Dear IDA Community, At the time of writing, there has been a recent spate of momentous elections in the U.S., Taiwan, India, Mexico, France, Georgia
Victor Tadashi Suárez’s essential tools span run-and-gun shoots to intricate sound stages.