On the 2012 IDA Documentary Awards...
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'Reportero' airs January 7 on PBS' 'POV.'
Steve James with social work students at UANL in Monterrey As part of a delegation of the American Film Showcase (AFS), under the auspices of the US State Department and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, I traveled to Mexico in mid-August with my film The Interrupters. The plan was to show the film in several cities in the north, which has seen an escalation of violence over the last few years. Prior to the trip, I joked with friends about how the US State Department was giving me a week to go down there and "solve the Mexican violence problem" with the film. But of course, it's no joke. When
Jeff Swimmer with Chapman University students There's an experiment in documentary film education going on in Orange County, California, and I'm lucky to be part of it. I'm an associate professor of documentary at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. Like many film schools, Dodge offers a range of courses for undergrads and grads in documentary production, documentary history and the like. But we've added an unusual twist: We've been sending students to some of the most challenging environments in the developing world, and getting them to dig deep inside themselves to
Editor's Note: In the month leading up to the Academy Awards, we at IDA will be featuring articles — some new, some from our archives—about each of the nominees in the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject categories. Here is an article from the Winter 2013 issue of Documentary magazine about David France, director/producer of How to Survive a Plague . David France, the recipient of the 2012 Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award, may be new to nonfiction media, but his roots as a journalist run long and deep. He started covering the AIDS epidemic at the very
From Arnold Shapiro’s 1978 film Scared Straight! It's been said that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Not that you'll be unemployed, but work won't seem like work as you lose yourself in pursuit of your passions. In the case of Arnold Shapiro, the 2012 IDA Career Achievement Award winner, he's been doing what he loves — making films and television shows — since 1964. And he's still going strong with a new series about to air: I Forgive You on GMC. To be successful in television, Shapiro says, "It has to be an obsession. It has to be the majority of your life and
And the winner is...'American Masters'!
And the winner is...'On Death Row'!