Latest Posts

by Joseph E. Miller and Barbara Leigh Gregson Robert Guenette, Emmy Award-winning writer, producer and director who produced documentaries for CBS, NBC, ABC, HBO, PBS and Showtime, passed away on October 31, 2003, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 68. Guenette, one of the IDA's co-founders and the first recipient of the IDA's Pioneer Award, was fond of saying that documentarians' work "mustn't end with making films about social causes. They must live social causes and answer the call for social service with the same passion and commitment that they bring to their films." It was a

A review of Bill Nichols' 'Introduction to Documentary.'

In My Father's House is a fascinating film because filmmaker Fatima Jebli Ouazzani shows us all her confusions, dreams and regrets, while remaining clear about the life from which she ran away. She had left her family as a young girl to avoid sharing the same fate as her mother and grandmother, who both had been married against their will and, although they struggled desperately, were powerless to change the plans that had been made for them. Fatima's film is a meditation on her life as she returns to her family in Morocco after 16 years' absence. Normally, I don't like dramatic inserts in

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission has provided a generous grant enabling the IDA to recruit two promising undergraduate students for paid summer 2014 internships. During their time with us, these two bright individuals will gain expertise in event and educational program management. The first to join the fold is Niala Charles, our new Program and Events Intern. Niala will be embarking on her senior year at Pepperdine University in the Fall, where she is studying Broadcast Journalism and Economics. Hailing from Temecula, California, Niala has traveled extensively throughout the UK and

This week the world commemorates the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches, but audiences at this year's Cannes Film Festival have already been immersed in reflections on war. So many films in and out of competition dropped us onto the battlefields and frontlines of Syria, Chechnya, Ukraine, Iraq, Russia, Mali, Sarajevo, Ivory Coast and Burkino Faso. The French newspaper Le Monde referred to the 67th edition of the festival as "Le Grand débarquement." The festival's tone, mood and atmosphere felt different this year: the world projected on the screen inside the Palais

Midway through Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. My chin was in my hand and my mouth was slightly open. Also, I actually realized it. There was a moment during the film when I consciously thought, "How did I get in this position?" This film had hypnotized me. That was SilverDocs 2010. I was privileged enough to be at the film festival just to watch films. I spent a lot of that year going to festivals to study and prepare to cut my first feature doc. I'd been to school for documentary and I had the support of the university where I teach production. I was in a

IDA sponsor and generous supporter of the documentary film community, FirstCom Music, has something new for documentary filmmakers - the BBC Orchestral Toolkit! Exclusively from FirstCom Music, the BBC Orchestral Toolkit is a new editing option that's for documentary score alternatives and beyond. It's an exciting scoring tool that is not delivering "stems" but something much more flexible and easier to use in many ways. Filmmakers can easily build a custom music score with a simple drag and drop of the audio files from the toolkit directly into your editing software alongside your visual edit

Dear IDA Community: Thirty years ago, the International Documentary Association broke new ground by presenting the first IDA Awards for distinguished documentary achievement. The goal was to raise the profile of documentary film as an art form, and bring its greatest practitioners the recognition they deserved. IDA continues to pursue these goals today, though the times and the awards have definitely changed. The year 1985 saw the presentation of just seven awards: five for Distinguished Documentary Achievement, one for Preservation and Scholarship, and one for Career Achievement. That set the

'The Case Against 8' is currently showing in theaters, and will air June 23 on HBO.

'112 Weddings' airs June 30 on HBO.