The Distant Barking of Dogs has received an impressive number of international awards—including two IDA Documentary Award nominations and an honorable mention for the Pare Lorentz Award—as well as resounding praise from film critics around the world. Documentary sat down with the film’s producer, Monica Hellström, to discuss the creative collaboration behind the film, the different co-production structures involved and the management of European and North American funding. “It has been such a wonderful process to co-produce The Distant Barking of Dogs with international partners,” says
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At IDA’s 2018 Getting Real Conference, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Firelight Media and A-Docs collaborated on a series of panels entitled #Decolonize Docs. The three panels focused on the industry, the filmmakers and the audience, and the discussions yielded an action plan designed to think beyond diversity and visibility; foster inclusion and equity; and create access, within the film community, for marginalized communities. In her book The Undocumented Everyday: Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility , Rebecca M. Schreiber, an American Studies professor at University of New Mexico, does an
Dear Documentary Community, Over the past few months we’ve witnessed an alarming uptick of filmmakers and their protagonists under a range of threats, both here in the US and around the world. In Myanmar, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, a filmmaker and co-founder of the Human Rights Human Dignity Film Festival in Yangon, is being held in detention for “insulting and defaming the Army.” In Turkey, filmmakers Çayan Demirel and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu are being tried for producing “propaganda for an illegal group” in the film Bakur, which follows guerrilla fighters residing in the mountains of northern Kurdistan
By Steven Beer, Jake Levy and Neil Rosini Foreign production and distribution of a documentary raise a variety of distinct legal issues. Here are frequently asked questions about three of those issues, and our responses. Before filming in a foreign country, what basic legal considerations should be addressed? Just as production in the US is subject to federal law as well as laws of the state and local jurisdiction where it occurs, production abroad, as well as traveling there with crew and equipment, is governed by the applicable laws of that jurisdiction. Depending on factors such as the
Sometimes I feel like I never unpack. As a documentary cinematographer, I’m so grateful for all of my travels and am humbled by the incredible stories I’ve been privileged to shoot. Though I try to have some sort of standard gear bag packed and at the ready, there’s no single bag that does the trick every time. I find myself adapting the bag or case or backpack I choose to the current job, the travel schedule, the logistics, the gear, etc. That said, one of the bags I ALWAYS have with me is my beloved CineSaddle—the “Marsupial” version. I’ve had to refill it four times in the past 10+ years
Dear Readers, The Documentary Space…is vast and global and diffuse and interconnected. And while we at the IDA and Documentary magazine have made great strides in recent years to be true to the “International” side of our name, we are always looking to improve our global service, with our active presence at festivals and markets around the world, the global representation at the past two Getting Real conferences, and a significant growth in editorial coverage of the Pacific Rim, Latin America and Europe, So, think of this issue as a promissory note to keep our eyes on the “I” in IDA, with an
Described by The Guardian as “the world’s best film school,” the UK’s National Film and Television School runs more than 30 MA, Diploma and Certificate courses from its base in Beaconsfield, 25 miles west of London. The Directing Documentary strand is a veritable who’s who of British-authored documentary; its alumni include Kim Longinotto, Nick Broomfield, Molly Dineen and Sean McAllister. The Directing Documentary graduation films are always top notch, and dominate the student documentary awards landscape: when I was a judge for the student award for the Griersons recently, nearly every
Investigative documentary filmmaking is at its best when it’s telling difficult, controversial and even dangerous stories that push boundaries and audiences beyond their comfort zone. But that kind of filmmaking can present legal challenges and risks for filmmakers. Among those legal risks is litigation. If a subject (or even a minor character) in your film believes that she or he is shown in a false, unfair or unfavorable light, you may find yourself on the receiving end of a civil complaint alleging, for example, defamation or invasion of privacy. And as a result, you could find yourself
On July 20, 2019 at 2:56 p.m. UTC, it will be 50 years to the minute from when a human being stepped onto the moon for the first time. NASA’s successful Apollo 11 mission will have—at a time of uncertainty the world over—brought an entire planet’s population together, even if just for a moment. Over half a century later, the world might still be as uncertain, especially when the advance of climate change is brought into the fold, and peoples’ collective consciousness is decidedly fractured. But there is a group of three women—each with distinctive talents—who have had one goal of bringing us
Dear IDA Community, The theme of the Spring 2019 Documentary focused on “international” storytelling. We covered the innovate work of The Why Foundation and the impact that DocMontevideo and CCDoc are having in Latin America, as well a number of films from outside the US. In an effort to graphically illustrate that “international” theme on the cover and celebrate the global nature of this art form, we used translations of the word “documentary” in multiple languages. To our chagrin, we screwed up on the cover. The Arabic translation was wrong—thank you, Mustafa Zeno, Talal Derki and others