Dear IDA Community, We recognize that we are living in a time of enormous injustice, but also of potentially historic change. The deep injustice on which our society is built and that has been quietly tolerated has been exposed by both a national uprising against systemic racism and a pandemic that has hit communities of color disproportionately. Statements of solidarity are not sufficient. What counts is the commitment to do the hard work of making lasting change over the long haul. To support this change and the demands for racial justice, IDA commits to: Amplifying Black voices. We will
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During this historic time, many of you are using your cameras to witness and capture unfolding events in hostile environments. Reporting in the US on unfolding events, whether COVID or protests, presents an unprecedented amount of physical risk. Citizen journalists, activists and independent media makers are working without institutional support and without the visibility and protection of journalists associated with media organizations. The International Documentary Association (IDA) and WITNESS will be gathering ongoing resources to inform your activities, which are critical to the health of
Dear Readers, This Spring issue comes to you late in the season, with summer, the season, just weeks away, and Summer, the next issue, in progress and on schedule for an early summer release. This has been a tumultuous spring, one defined by, first, a global pandemic and, over the past two weeks, a global uprising in response to three brutal murders of unarmed Black citizens at the hands of white people, culminating the latest in a long, 400-year series of cycles of systemic racism and white supremacy in the US. And this particularly virulent virus persists at all levels—the public sector, the
It was March 12. I remember sitting in my home office looking at the bulletin board filled with the spring/summer tour schedule for my latest documentary, DO NO HARM: Exposing the Hippocratic Hoax. It was fully booked. That's when the first cancelation came in. Then, just like dominoes, over the next two weeks every event across the country canceled. DO NO HARM takes an in-depth look at the medical training process, a toxic cutthroat, bullying environment where doctors, impaired by sleep deprivation, are forced to care for patients. The film exposes the hidden epidemic of physician suicide
Since the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd, Americans have risen up in protest against age-old scourges of police brutality and systemic racism—and cities around the world have taken notice and have staged their own protests in solidarity. We have witnessed arrests of journalists, we have witnessed attacks on protestors by the state—and we have witnessed communities coming together to call for justice and systemic change, all while our national leadership tries to divide us. This week's Screen Time brings you documentations of other civil rights movements in the US, from Ferguson to Los
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! IndieWire's Eric Kohn spoke to filmmaker Stanley Nelson about the need for black filmmakers to tell the story behind the George Floyd protests. It's important for documentary filmmakers at this point to understand that we are the news. There's a lot of reporting that's not news, or slanted. One of the things we believe strongly at our company, Firelight, is that
The current pandemic has accelerated educators into the virtual world. For better or worse, a good number of us have turned to technology to solve the problems inherent with conducting classes and exchanging information without personal proximity or physical contact with our students (not that THAT was encouraged in the first place). We have been forced inward, and in the process of retreating from our students, friends, neighbors and colleagues, the pause button has been pressed as we reexamine how we conduct ourselves, our business, and our involvement with our students and the world around
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Now streaming on PBS' Reel South, Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, from Alexander Glustrom, captures life in Mossville, Louisiana, one of the oldest African-American communities in the nation, which has been devastated by environmental racism at the hands of the petrochemical industry. Glustrom tracks the history of this tragedy and follows the efforts of the few survivors in Mossville to fight the power. COVID: Our Lockdown in Shanghai, premiering May 26 on Smithsonian
On December 3, 2019, it was announced that directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering had collaborated with Oprah Winfrey on a documentary called On The Record, about sexual harassment in the music industry and, specifically, rape allegations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. A little over a month later, Winfrey, who was one of the film's executive producers, dropped out of the project, effectively putting an end to the film's distribution deal with Apple TV+. The media juggernaut withdrew her name from On The Record 15 days before the doc's world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
During the month of May, we celebrate the culture and history of the United States' diverse and expansive Asian-American and Pacific Islander-American communities. The documentary landscape in particular has an incredibly rich offering of stories, many of which can be viewed online. Celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month by checking out these documentaries from current IDA members and past IDA Documentary Awards winners and nominees! Asian Americans PBS' documentary series Asian Americans is a five-episode saga of the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in American