Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see Joe’s Violin on Saturday, February 25 at 3:55 at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Following the journey of a donated violin that links nonagenarian Holocaust survivor Joe Feingold to 12-year-old Bronx schoolgirl Brianna Perez, Joe’s Violin is easily the most heartwarming of the documentary shorts nominated for this year’s Oscar
Latest Posts
Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the films that have been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Oscar® nomination in the documentary category. You can see Extremis on Saturday, February 25 at 3:55 at the Writers Guild of America Theater as part of IDA's DocuDay. Filmmaker Dan Krauss followed up his 2013 documentary The Kill Team, about war crimes committed by a US Army platoon in Afghanistan and the impact they had on one whistle-blowing soldier, with a strikingly different film: a short and emotionally
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! At BBC, Stephen Mulvey asks whether Otto Bell's The Eagle Huntress should be considered a documentary. Early publicity for the film did little to inspire confidence, by stating that Aisholpan had fought "an ingrained culture of misogyny to become the first female eagle hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated
When director Justin Schein began making a film about the aging political activist and colorful Greenwich Village mainstay Mayer Vishner, he was primarily hoping to bring attention to an underappreciated Zelig of the left. In the late 1960s, Vishner had served on the front lines of the theatrical, anti-authoritarian Yippie movement, collaborating closely with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin without ever grabbing the spotlight. But after visiting Vishner's filthy, cluttered apartment, Schein recognizes that he's dealing with a lonely, clinically depressed, alcoholic shell of a man. In his
Ken Jacobson recently departed IDA, having served just over three years as its inaugural director of educational programs and strategic partnerships. In that short tenure, he added significant value and visibility to the organization, expanding its programming to include intensive master classes and enhancing the profile of the "Conversations with…" series by securing TCM host Ben Mankiewicz to commandeer the evenings. And then there was Getting Real, the groundbreaking filmmaker-to-filmmaker event--developed and produced by Jacobson, Execeutive Directors Michael Lumpkin and Simon Kilmurry and
Under the leadership of Chief Curator Shari Frilot, this year's New Frontier program at the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival continued to push the boundaries of film, art, media, technology, music and performance and reaffirmed its stature as one of the world's premier showcases of virtual and augmented reality programming. Having only been a part of Sundance since 2007, New Frontier is still a relative newcomer to the creative goings-on in Park City, but this recent edition leaves no doubt that the program is on par with Sundance's celebrated film programming. With its expansion to
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! At Film Comment, Jeff Reichert considers the aesthetics of Stephen Bannon's documentary films. Regardless of your politics, any reasonable viewer should find much to question in Bannon's analyses of recent historical events, which run the gamut from debatable argumentation to wild truth-spinning to sheer
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! At The New York Times, Amy Qin profiles Zhao Liang, whose striking new film tackles the human and environmental costs of coal mining. Mr. Zhao relies on imagery and audio captured over a year and a half of shooting to convey the sheer physicality and scale of Inner Mongolia's coal mines. The biggest challenge, Mr
The IDA and Filmmaker-in-Residence Renee Tajima-Peña are proud to announce a new filmmaker mentorship program. Renee will mentor several emerging filmmakers who are actively working on a documentary. These projects range from those in the development phase to those in the latter stages of post-production. Renee will meet with each filmmaker one-on-one on a regular basis, offering information and advice on their individual projects, as well as on their overall career development in the documentary field. By the end of the mentorship, mentees should emerge with a broader perspective on their
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! At Media Matters, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting calls reported Trump privatization plan "devastating." "The federal investment in public media is vital seed money — especially for stations located in rural America, and those serving underserved populations where the appropriation counts for 40-50% of