Making a Production is Documentary ’s strand of in-depth profiles featuring production companies that make critically-acclaimed nonfiction film and media in innovative ways. These pieces probe the creative decisions, financial structures, and talent development that sustain their work—in the process, revealing both infrastructural challenges and industry opportunities that exist for documentarians. One wall of windows feeds light into the Meerkat Media office from the atrium of the Brooklyn Army Terminal, highlighting a prominent black AV equipment cage. The large equipment cage was, early
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Dear Readers, This issue returns Documentary Magazine to print after a 10-month pause. At first, the time off from printing allowed us to begin to reimagine a print periodical with such a strong legacy as this one. But a few months in, we needed the pause to locate a new printer after the closure of the magazine’s former printer, Boss Litho. How do we keep this magazine from becoming obsolete, like so many other print media? It is clear that this magazine must draw upon what makes documentary films so powerful—an inextricable connection to reality that renders truth, clarity, complexity, and
The story of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow , which had its world premiere as part of the U.S. Competition of DOC NYC 2023, started fifteen years ago. In 2008 Martina Radwan, a veteran New York-based cinematographer for films such as Saving Face (2012, which won an Emmy, IDA Documentary Award, and Academy Award for best short documentary), was sent by the United Nations to shoot a short documentary about street children in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In a city where temperatures plunge below -30°F, these kids sought refuge and warmth in the city’s underground sewage system. “Manhole children,” the
Los Angeles, CA –– International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced that Dominic Asmall Willsdon has been appointed as the organization’s new Executive Director, effective January 8, 2024. Willsdon will take over the position from Ken Ikeda, who has served as Interim Executive Director since January 2023. [Click here for images and DAW long biography.] An internationally renowned curator, educator and veteran nonprofit executive, Dominic Asmall Willsdon joins the documentary advocacy organization at a time of unique opportunity and impact unprecedented in its 41-year history
Dear Readers, This month, we’ve been hard at work putting together the next print issue of Documentary Magazine , which will be in the mailboxes of IDA members starting December 11. Some of those pieces are print versions of some of the most impactful pieces from the 11 months print hiatus of the magazine, such as Jane Mote’s clarion call for a code of ethics at documentary labs and training programs, which includes three anonymized first-person accounts of gendered abuse. But most of the Fall 2023 print issue is comprised of new essays. Our subscribers will get exclusive access to the pieces
Launched just under two years ago, L.A. Times Short Docs has quickly established itself as a presence in the industry landscape. Now in its second season, Short Docs is an evolving platform for short-form nonfiction “with a West Coast perspective.” Films selected for the strand stream online on the Los Angeles Times website in conjunction with festival screenings and special events. Highlights from 2023 include Sterling Hampton’s Merman , which debuted at Tribeca, and Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’s The Last Repair Shop , which premiered at Telluride. Nani Sahra Walker, senior commissioning
Directed and produced by Toronto-based filmmaker Nisha Pahuja along with producers David Oppenheim, Anita Lee, Cornelia Principe, Andy Cohen, and executive produced by a group including Mindy Kaling, Dev Patel, and Rupi Kaur, To Kill a Tiger enumerates an electrifying true story of a father–daughter duo from the Indian state of Jharkhand, and their battle to seek justice in the aftermath of a brutal sexual assault. The story also brings forth complex ideas of masculinity in India, entrenched village life, and more. Lauded for its universal yet subtle storytelling, the film recently had a
Victoria is a town in Southern Texas, thirty miles from the Gulf of Mexico, with a population of roughly 70,000. Victoria’s thriving Muslim community, built up over more than thirty years, is centered in the Victoria Islamic Center and the local mosque. Early in the morning after a newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump announced his “Muslim ban” prohibiting travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Omar Rachid, a former mayoral candidate and pillar of Victoria’s Muslim community, received a distraught call from Imam Osama Salah Hassan—the mosque, where they had fostered such a
Amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, one of the IDFA’s most high-profile Palestinian films, Mohamed Jabaly’s Life Is Beautiful documents roughly seven years of the director’s life via a diaristic structure. The film covers his forced separation from his family in Gaza; the support from his second family in Gaza’s sister city, Tromsø, Norway; and the making of his first feature documentary, Ambulance, about his time volunteering in an ambulance unit during the 2014 war on Gaza. The film won the Best Director jury prize in the international competition. After pro-Palestinian demonstrators
This year’s Flaherty NYC Series, MAKA: Many Eyed Vessel , will mark the 25th edition of the Flaherty Seminar’s annual fall program in New York City. Featuring films and multi-media works from artists that include Miko Revereza, João Vieira Torres, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, the creative nonfiction “offerings” examine recalling memories and histories, enduring colonized societies, and developing identities. MAKA: Many Eyed Vessel is curated by filmmakers Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker and Raven Two Feathers and programmers Emily Abi-Kheirs and Isabel Rojas. For the series, the