We are thrilled to announce that Grammy-nominated comedian Tig Notaro will host the 2015 IDA Documentary Awards ceremony. The subject of Tig, the Netflix Original documentary chronicling her life after it famously fell apart, Notaro has recently teamed up with Diablo Cody, Nicole Holofcener and Louis CK on a semi-autobiographical pilot for Amazon. The comedian and writer also stars in her first HBO stand-up special, Boyish Girl Interrupted, which is out now. The IDA is also excited to announce that in an unprecedented move, the 2015 edition of the Awards will highlight six films in Best
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Abigail Disney comes from a family of filmmakers. Her father was a longtime senior executive at the company that shares their last name. Her great uncle Walt started it all. But Abby's calling was not the world of Hollywood, rather the realm of documentaries with a social theme. As a producer and executive producer, she has worked on award-winning films such as Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and Women, War and Peace. Now, she's moved to the director's chair for her filmmaking debut, The Armor of Light. Disney was "in the trenches" on several of her films: "I wasn't just writing checks," she says
Ten feature-length documentary films have been selected to receive a total of $195,000 from the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund this year. The Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund was created with support from The New York Community Trust to honor the legacy of legendary American documentary filmmaker Pare Lorentz. Grants are made to documentary projects that shed light on critical issues in the United States and focus on Pare Lorentz’s central concerns: the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems. This year the Fund received over 220
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! On the heels of last night's program at the IDA Screening Series, we're featuring the producer, director and editor of The Russian Woodpecker talking about the challenge of editing five stories into one documentary: For months, the attempt to weave these stories together looked hopeless, especially since I wanted
If you've ever needed high-definition footage off of a Blu-ray or DVD, you might be aware that the images you are trying to access are protected by something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Passed in 1998, the DMCA was Congress's attempt to update copyright law to better apply to the digital age. Among other things, this act makes it illegal to "rip" footage off of DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This law blocks a filmmaker's ability to make fair use with copyrighted footage by restricting access to such digital material stored not just on DVDs, but also on Blu-ray discs and
Patricio Guzmán: A Country's Journey, Five FilmsReleased by Icarus Films, September 20158-DVD Boxed Set Includes: Battle of Chile: Part One, 1975, Part Two, 1976, Part Three, 1978, 270 minutes Chile, Obstinate Memory, 1997, 58 minutes The Pinochet Case, 2001, 110 minutes Salvador Allende, 2004, 102 minutes Nostalgia for the Light, 2011, 65 minutes "A country without documentary films is like a family without a photo album." This quote by Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán is the first thing you see when going on his website—not surprising coming from a filmmaker whose work is synonymous with
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! TV critic Hank Stuever of the Washington Post on the pitfalls of making a wonkumentary: Too many times, the film that promises the fullest and most exclusive warts-and-all portrait turns out to be little more than the equivalent of a polite Wikipedia entry. Showtime’s anticlimactic 2013 film about Dick Cheney
Justine Nagan is the new executive director of American Documentary, Inc. and executive producer of PBS's POV series. She comes to PBS from Kartemquin Films in Chicago, where she served as executive director and executive producer for the past nine years. Justine's passion for documentary goes back to her college years, when she worked in public television and at the Wisconsin Film Festival, where she was first introduced to Kartemquin's films. Some years later she had the opportunity to volunteer at Kartemquin, eventually going on to direct her own feature ( Typeface) and short ( Sacred
The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF), which ran September 17-20 in Camden, Maine, was launched a decade ago as a realized dream of founder/executive director Ben Fowlie, a Camden native and a graduate of the Emerson College Film School. First tapping into old Maine money and the rich Boston documentary community four hours to the south, Fowlie has since built a vital documentary showcase that has risen to prominence as must-stop destination on the nonfiction festival circuit. In a month opening with the Toronto/Venice/Telluride triumvirate and concluding with the IFP Market and the
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! IndieWire’s Phillip Lopate interviews artist Laurie Anderson about her new documentary Heart of a Dog: “All of my work is always flowing between about four things: the music, the text, the structure, the images. This film could have been called a few other things. It could have been called How to Feel Sad without