Kentucky-born, LA-residing filmmaker Ashley York ( Tig) has devoted a good chunk of her career to tackling issues of gender inequality and advocating for feminist causes. So in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the choice of supporting a glass-ceiling breaker over a pussy-grabber came as a no-brainer. What she couldn’t quite wrap her head around was the equal MAGA enthusiasm shown by her strong-willed Granny Shelby back home in coal country. Hence the time was right for York and her co-director, Sally Rubin, to pick up the camera, leave the coastal echo chamber, and embark on a six
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Autumn has passed into winter in the San Francisco Bay Area. We notice this when it starts raining, but also when loads of documentaries slow to a trickle despite Oscar consideration season. After the curtains have come down on the Mill Valley and United Nations Association Film Festivals (UNAFF) in October and SFFILM's Doc Stories in November—and the fall semester has ended at my schools—it's time to consider some of the more interesting offerings at the end of 2018. At Mill Valley, Matt Skerritt's Angst is helpful material for anybody who suffers from crippling anxiety, especially teens, and
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering January 7 on Independent Lens and streaming here , Rita Baghdadi and Jeremiah Hammerling’s My Country No More takes viewers to Trenton, North Dakota, a quiet, tight-knit farm town that underwent a radical transformation during the oil boom years between 2011 and 2016. With billions of dollars to be gained, small towns like Trenton became overwhelmed by an influx of workers from across the country and by the repurposing of countless acres of farmland for industrial
After her breast cancer diagnosis in 2015, Emmy Award-winning chef, author and magazine publisher Sandra Lee chose to invite cameras to her medical appointments and consultations, into the operating room where she underwent a double mastectomy, and to witness her recovery process in the hospital and at home. The resulting documentary short, RX: Early Detection, A Cancer Journey with Sandra Lee, directed by Cathy Chermol Schrijver, is a raw, intimate look at her experience with cancer. Lee is now cancer-free and passionate about the importance of early detection for both women and men: “This is
Editor's Note: This article is now out-of-date, and was updated in December 2024. | This revised look at documentary budgeting update the 2006 Documentary article “Don’t Fudge on Your Budget: Toeing the Line Items.” At the center of the documentary "business" is the budget, which offers a map of the filmmaking process, expressing both the film you’re planning to make and how you plan to make it. Ideally, it is also a living document that can help get a film to completion.
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Now that the Shorts Lists for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short Subject are out, Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich looks at the recent history of the race to the final ten nominees. “The unfortunate reality is it is a competitive space,” Martin said. “If you’re not constantly doing screenings and being
From DocuDay in February through Getting Real, the IDA Screening Series, and the IDA Documentary Awards, 2018 has been a remarkable year for IDA and nonfiction storytelling as a whole. The compassion and camaraderie we've seen this year in our documentary community—our documentary family—has truly made this year a special one as we've watched a new generation of storytellers emerge across the globe and be welcomed with open arms by veterans in the field. With so many highlights this year at festivals, community events, and our own IDA events we asked our IDA colleagues to share a few of their
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Premiering December 17 on Independent Lens is Joel Fendelman’s Man on Fire, winner of the 2017 David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award. Fendelman travels to Grand Saline, Texas, the site of a horrific event in 2014, in which a 79-year-old white Methodist minister, Charles Moore, set himself on fire in a local parking lot. His suicide note, found on his car windshield, explained that this act was his final protest against the virulent racism in the community and his country
Essential Doc Reads is a weekly feature in which the IDA staff recommends recent pieces about the documentary form and its processes. Here we feature think pieces and important news items from around the Internet, and articles from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! As the world winds down its year-long reflection on 1968, POV Magazine editor Marc Glassman assesses the documentation--both then and 50 years later--of the epochal events of that year. Marshall McLuhan’s famous assertion that “the medium is the message” may predate 1968 by a year, but that’s alright. We can see
Bill Siegel, the Chicago-based filmmaker best known for The Weather Underground and The Trials of Muhammed Ali, died suddenly on December 10. He was 55. Siegel earned two IDA Documentary Award nominations for The Weather Underground, for Best Feature and for the ABCNews VideoSource Award for best use of archival footage. The film, which he made with Sam Green and Carrie Lozano, went on to earn an Academy Award nomination. Ten years later, Siegel won an ABCNews VideoSource Award for The Trials of Muhammed Ali, which he made under the auspices of Kartemquin Films—his de facto home base since his