The IDA Awards closed out its 2008 edition with a screening of Stefan Forbes' Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story at the new headquarters for GOOD, the media platform that produces a magazine, a website, films and live events-all in the spirit of doing good, in a progressive, innovative way. GOOD December is a nearly monthlong series of happenings from nonprofits throughout the LA community, and IDA helped inaugurate GOOD's new space with the screening and Q&A. Other films coming up include Jason Pollock's The Young Candidate and Aaron Roses' Beautiful Losers.

I recall a screening of The Fog of War, and Errol Morris quoted writer Philip Gourevich, who, in referencing his extensive reports about the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, remarked, "It's easier to condemn evil than it is to understand it." Evil characters are always more interesting, whether in literature or in film, and in Boogie Man, Forbes has created a fascinating figure, informed as much by the rich and troubled history of his native South as by the take-no-prisoners bloodsports that is American politics. Here's an article about the film that appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Documentary.

IDA’s Award weekend kicked off with a luncheon for the award winners and nominees sponsored by Kodak on Friday, December 5th. IDA’s Interim Executive Director/Board President-elect Eddie Schmidt described the intimate, casual gathering as “the Senior Class trip before graduation,” and he urged the nominees and winners to get to know one another.

Attendees of the 2008 IDA Awards Filmmaker Luncheon. Photo by Meg Madison.

Each awardee and nominee present was given the opportunity to say a few words about their project. Tom Dziedzic, director/producer of short film nominee Redemption Stone, kicked off the remarks by telling everyone that he was so surprised when he received the call about his nomination that he actually called back to double-check that the call was indeed meant for him.

Kassim the Dream director/producer Kief Davidson made fun of his own lame response to the news of his nomination. He was on the phone with his wife in Germany, and his response to the IDA’s Peggy Ellithorpe’s call was an apologetic, “Oh shit, let me call you right back.”

Davidson and I chatted for awhile about the recent whirlwind of activity surrounding his film. Kassim won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at AFI Fest, as well as the Doc U Award at IDFA. Davidson had just arrived back in Los Angeles from Santa Fe, where the film screened at the Santa Fe Film Festival as part of AFI’s 20/20 Program, an international initiative designed to enhance cultural understanding and collaboration through films from the US and abroad. Davidson is now waiting to find out where his film will screen internationally with the program, but he told me he’s gunning for South Africa and Paris.

Many of the awardees took a lighthearted approach when expressing their appreciation for their honors. “I’m a virgin – this is my first major award!” joked Remy Burkel. The director was honored with the Limited Series Award for Sin City Law, along with Denis Poncet, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Remy Burkel, Maha Productions, Arte and Sundance Channel. 

Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega, the filmmakers behind La Corona, the winner of the 2008 IDA Documentary Award for Short Documentary. Photo by Meg Madison.

The eternally charming Marina Goldovskaya, winner of the Preservation and Scholarship Award, had the audience laughing with her when she said, “I don’t know if I deserve it, but I got it!”

Like Goldovskaya, Sam Pollard, the recipient of the inaugural Avid Excellence In Editing Award, also took a playful tone when expressing his appreciation for his career honor. He said, “I feel like I’m a little young to be getting a lifetime achievement award, but I’ll take it!”

Laura Waters Hinson from American University is just starting her career. She received the IDA/David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award for As We Forgive and was thrilled when Kodak’s Candace Chatman presented her with a surprise $1000 grant for Kodak film stock.

Several of the nominees and awardees got personal about why they had chosen to work as documentary filmmakers. Short film nominee Jenny Mackenzie (Kick Like a Girl), who was a social worker for 20 years prior to becoming a filmmaker, said that making docs has given her the chance to reach audiences and effect social change in a different way than her previous career.

Pare Lorentz Award Winner David Novack (Burning the Future: Coal in America) said that for him, “Making documentaries is like always being in grad school, just for a different thing each time. You get to learn everything about a topic you’re passionate about.” He cited the ability to meet people with whom your paths would never otherwise cross as an additional bonus.

Filmmakers look on at the 2008 IDA Awards Filmmaker Luncheon. Photo by Meg Madison.

Stefan Forbes, winner of the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award and director of Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, eloquently spoke about the meaning of being recognized with an award. He said, “Documentaries are often treated like the red-headed step-child of the film industry. As documentary filmmakers, we grapple with the problem of how to tell a story. The very story we’re grappling with is often something that society is not yet ready to deal with.”

See tons of photos from the luncheon on the IDA Flickr photostream.

"It's a great night to have a few laughs, drink a vodka mojito and talk about documentary films," said 2008 IDA Documentary Awards host Morgan Spurlock in the lobby of the Directors Guild of America building during a cocktail reception preceding the night's show.

Mingling among the crowd were many of the nominated filmmakers, special presenters Ann Magnuson and Adrian Grenier, and honorees such as Werner Herzog (Career Achievement Award), Stefan Forbes (Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award) and Sam Pollard (Avid Excellence in Editing Award).

While David Novak, the filmmaker behind Burning The Future: Coal In America who had already won the Pare Lorentz Award said, "It's great coming to an award show when you've already got it because all of the pressure's off," others had to wait to see who would take home the Feature Documentary and Short Documentary honors.

Yet Man On Wire co-producer Maureen Ryan remained humble about her film's chances as Oscar. "I think there are a lot of great films out there this year," she said.

The show kicked off with IDA Interim Executive Director Eddie Schmidt playing guitar to introduce Spurlock, who made cracks about the economy, the struggles of doc filmmakers and even the not-so-super-sized success of his latest film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Spurlock, who's been an IDA member since being nominated for a Pare Lorentz Award for Super Size Me in 2004, couldn't turn down the hosting gig. "I love documentary films and I'm a huge supporter of the IDA, so when Eddie called me and asked me if I would do this, how do you say no? You say no by going like this," he joked while nodding his head.

IDA first-ever Audience Award went to Chris Taylor's Food Fight, a look at American agricultural policy and food culture. "I applaud the IDA for having this type of award," Taylor said. "Winning an audience award is exactly the reaction I want. That's what I made the film for. It's a little lighter, it's meant to be entertaining."

Someone who is no stranger to winning, Ira Glass, won the Continuing Series Award for the second year in a row for radio show-turned-Showtime doc series, This American Life. "We're trying to recreate the Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan years of the Chicago Bulls," he said. "If we can do that, we feel that we've achieved all of our goals and we can stop broadcasting forever."

Get links to all sorts of other coverage of the 2008 IDA Documentary Awards in our Announcements and Updates section on that page.

Following its announced competition films for the 2009 edition, the Sundance Film Festival yesterday unveiled additional programming strands in which documentaries will appear, including Premieres, Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and Frontier. Here are the line-ups:

Premieres

Earth Days / USA (Director: Robert Stone)-The history of our environmental undoing through the eyes of nine Americans whose work and actions launched the modern environmental movement. World Premiere. Closing Night Film

Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight

It Might Get Loud / USA (Director: Davis Guggenheim)-The history of the electric guitar from the point of view of three legendary rock musicians--The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White. U.S. Premiere

No Impact Man / USA (Directors: Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein)-The documentary follows the Beavan family as they abandon their high-consumption Fifth Avenue lifestyle in an attempt to make a no-net environmental impact for the course of one year. World Premiere

Passing Strange / USA (Director: Spike Lee; Lyrics: Stew; Music: Stew and Heidi Rodewald)-A musical documentary about the international exploits of a young man from Los Angeles who leaves home to find himself and "the real." A theatrical stage production of the original Tony-Award winning book by Stew. World Premiere

Tyson / USA (Director: James Toback)-An intimate look at the complex life of former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. North American Premiere

Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy / USA (Director: Robert Townsend)-Using rare archival clips along with provocative interviews with many of today's leading comedians and social critics, Why We Laugh celebrates the incredible cultural influence and social impact black comedy has wielded over the past 400 years. Includes appearances by Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Steve Harvey, Dick Gregory. World Premiere

Wounded Knee / USA (Director: Stanley Nelson; Screenwriter: Marcia Smith)-In 1973, American Indian groups took over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota to draw attention to the 1890 massacre. Though the federal government failed to keep many of the promises that ended the siege, the event succeeded in bringing to the world's attention the desperate conditions of Indian reservation life. World Premiere

The Yes Men Fix the World / France/ USA (Directors: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno and Kurt Engfehr)-A pair of notorious troublemakers sneak into corporate events disguised as captains of industry, then use their momentary authority to expose the biggest criminals on the planet. World Premiere

Park City at Midnight

The Carter / USA (Director: Adam Bhala Lough)-An in-depth, intimate look at the artist Dwayne "Lil' Wayne" Carter Jr., proclaimed by many as the "greatest rapper alive" World Premiere

Frontier

Lunch Break/Exit / USA(Director: Sharon Lockhart)-Lunch Break and Exit yield from Lockhart's timely new film and photographic series about the bleak state of US labor. In Lunch Break, a single tracking shot through a long corridor where workers take their lunch hour at the massive shipyard, Bath Iron Works in Maine, reveals how 42 workers spend their lunch break. In Exit, the frame constantly fills with teaming workers each day as they head for home after a long day's work.

O'er the Land / USA (Director: Deborah Stratman)-A meditation on our national psyche and the milieu of elevated threat, O'er the Land addresses gun culture, national identity, wilderness, consumption, patriotism and the possibility of personal transcendence.

Israeli director Ari Folman can't remember the time he spent as a 20-year-old IDF soldier during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. When a fellow veteran recounts his own haunting by a recurring nightmare from the war, a single vision appears from the mires of Folman's mind: He and two other recruits rise naked from a black sea like some modern myth, clutching machine guns, their somnambulant lurch toward Beirut's Corniche illuminated by flares in the night sky. Are these the Israeli flares that lit the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps? Folman knows he was there during the infamous massacre, when Phalangist militias stacked bodies high in the narrow alleys as Israeli commanders stood watch; the event burns on the edges of his subconscious. So he sets off to retrieve his own memory of the war by tapping the memories of his comrades--and in turn rouses the collective consciousness of a nation.

But memory is a strange beast. At once fallible and persistent, over time it inevitably colludes with imagination to reveal things that might have otherwise remained hidden. Objective truth, while the overt impetus of documentary, proves not only fallacious but less interesting than the subjective, visceral truths elicited from an imaginative retelling. Reality, we find, is only intelligible through imagination.

Thus Folman's journey to reconstruct his personal experience of the massacre, which a comrade agrees "is not stored in my system," takes on a life of its own, moving freely through dreams, memory--and the dynamic spaces in between.

From the beginning, Folman saw Waltz with Bashir as an animated feature, drawing inspiration from graphic novels--many coming out of post-war Bosnia. "If you look at this film," he says, "with [its] lost memory, dreams, war--which is pretty surreal--there is no other way to tell this story."

Funding this vision, and the challenge it poses to documentary stricture, proved more difficult. "The budget for the film was such a tough mission," says Folman. "People [in the industry] couldn't understand how it could be a documentary...and why they should support this kind of film."

Before sending a script to animation, Folman edited original footage of real-time interviews with several comrades whose memories of the war might overlap with his own, on which the drawings were modeled. This footage was then cut with their vivid, sometimes surreal visions of the war--which Folman thought would be best conveyed, "like a bad acid trip," by the artists' renderings.

Some scenes convey the unthinkable beauty of death; elsewhere, death is lyrical, poetic and absurd.

"There is a contradiction in the film," says the director. "It's really beautiful: War is horrific, but the design is romantic. I'm aware of that, and it's one of my main intentions to attract you as an audience."

The unorthodox use of animation makes us keenly aware of the form--and how we experience representations of war, violence and suffering.

In the film, a trauma specialist tells Folman about a soldier who walked through combat "looking at everything through an imaginary camera." Then, confronted with a field of slaughtered horses, his camera breaks. "Watching the war on film protected him." We might ask: does it protect us?

As much as Folman stresses the apolitical nature of his personal journey, it is disingenuous to remove the film from its wider historical context (Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the 17,000 Lebanese casualties that resulted, most of them civilian). Like all films dealing with contested or painful historical events, this one contributes to the social meaning of the event, and determines how we will remember it.

And as all documentary, it implies a responsibility to convey truth about history. Knowledge is subjective, but it is also shared.

In Lebanon, where the film will not be shown, Christians might notice that they are only represented by the Phalangist militiamen--barbaric, bloodthirsty, oafish, inhuman. Palestinians might recognize their victimized ghosts.

In Israel, where a recent surge of government funding has resurrected the national film industry, reception has been positive, with some criticism for leniency in portraying Israel's role in the massacre--or the conflict surrounding it. (At the time, Sabra-Shatila generated enough outrage to force then-defense minister Ariel Sharon to step down).

As it continues to rack up prestigious honors and stir critical acclaim, the film raises difficult questions for Israel, and the world is watching. Asked if he thinks Israel would have received Bashir similarly 10 years ago, Folman replies, "No. Five years ago, even three years ago, it would have been different. The second Lebanese war changed things. Israel was exposed to a lot of embarrassment. And the army was shown in a very embarrassing manner. It was on television, soldiers came back and spoke about the war. Compared to this reality, this is a cartoon movie."

It was also the government's "chance to show that it wasn't the army that did the massacre," he says. "This is a thing that the government couldn't buy in money, this propaganda. They understood that, and they went for it."

At the end of the film, Folman finds his way backwards to the moment he "realized" what had happened inside the camps, and the question arises, "What do these camps most resemble?" Indelibly pressed with the suffering of the six million who died in the other camps, the Israeli consciousness is quick to make the connection: A death camp is a death camp. The guilt, even by association, that weighs on Folman and his comrades (most of whom have parents who survived the Holocaust) reflects their own psychic weight of annihilation, and the wider context of the suffering of the Palestinians--not just at the moment of their execution.

Thus, when 45-year-old Folman is shaken from his coma, seeing his 20-year-old self finally realize why women run screaming from Sabra-Shatila, this ending is also a conception of sorts--a moment designed to cross boundaries. In the last frames of the film, Folman switches to real documentary footage of the aftermath inside the camps. The camera breaks. We awake from our dream, unprotected. The broken bodies and wailing women are no longer faceless, and speak almost as loudly as the silent suffering that still lingers.

Folman remains skeptical.

"I just don't think that films can change the world," he says. "How many Americans know about the massacre in Sabra-Shatila?"

Cautiously, the director will admit that he has opened a door. "If people walk out of the theater, go home and read about it," or if "teenagers see what war really looks like when you're a common soldier, then it's something."

Beige Luciano-Adams is a Los-Angeles-based journalist and former associate editor of Egypt Today and Business Today Egypt magazines in Cairo, Egypt. She is also co-founder and managing editor of EastsideLivingLA.com.

Day 7--Deliberation Day

We wrapped up our screenings and, following a final fantastic lunch and two more screenings, we sat down for two hours of bare-knuckled deliberations. Actually, the process was quite civil, with two films rising to the top of the Wolf pack, and one clear winner emerging among the Cubs. With more discussion, driven by our predominant criteria--does this film push the form forward?--and our subsidiary criteria--what is the best synthesis of subject, story, POV, form, style and relevance/timeliness?--as well as our independent visceral passions about our favorites, we came to a consensus with our third Wolf nomination and the other two Cub nominations. We felt so strongly as a group about the runner-up in the Wolf category that we awarded with a Special Jury Prize.

And who were the nominees? Well, dear readers, you'll have to wait until I present the nominations at the Talkshow on Day 9--which, since it will air locally in Amsterdam and on the web, will be my television and Internet debut!

That's Me in the Corner: The Silver Wolf/Silver Cub Competition Jury, wrapping up deliberations. Left to right: Jeanne Wikler, Tom White, Rik Stallaerts, Jess Search, Nishtha Jain. Photo: Jannie Langbroek.

Day 8--ParaDocs; Capturing Reality

Saddled with writing the Jury Report and prepping for its presentation, I nonetheless took time to explore a couple of the many programs at IDFA--in addition to the 307 docs that were apportioned among the seven competitive strands and ten non-competitive strands, there was The Forum, the pitching session of buyers and sellers; Docs for Sale, an emporium of viewing booths for distributors and festival programmers; and the Documentary Workshop. It's doc-tastic!

I opted for ParaDocs, a program that explores the outer edges of the documentary practice, via hybrid forms-not just fiction and nonfiction, but nonfiction and conceptual art and nonfiction and other artistic disciplines. The ParaDocs installment that I attended-in the ever-versatile Escape club-was an amalgam of ideas: choreography based on actual maneuvers by Israeli soldiers; a short film of a woman sitting at a desk talking about being a Taiwanese immigrant in the United States, while that same woman-the filmmaker-sits in silence at the same desk, situated below the screen...

While some of the pieces fell short of the mark, the most provocative was a reading from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a prelude to an excerpt from Renzo Martens' Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty (See IDFA: Days 2 and 3: Meet The Jurors), followed by a discussion with Martens himself. He lays the irony and postmodern self-reflection on thick; playing himself in the film as a conceptual artist, he visits the Congo, under the premise that poverty is Africa's biggest export, benefitting everyone from NGOs to journalists to photojournalists to, yes, documentary filmmakers, all of whom capture the stories and images for Western consumption. Martens, in the film, prevails upon the Congolese to take ownership of their poverty, that they could earn more from horrific images that they could from photos of weddings and parties. In addition, Martens creates a large neon sculpture that exclaims "Please Enjoy Poverty." In a Kurtz-meets-Fitzcarraldo gesture, he pays the Congolese five euros a day to transport this sign 20 kilometres, which he leaves as a parting gift.

Martens had no qualms about the fact that he himself would be benefitting from his film, and that we all benefit. "We're all complicit," he claimed. "The film is about showing the rule, rather than the exceptions.

In positing his claims of exploitation, Martens has perhaps created for himself a hall of mirrors in which one irony begets another. But perhaps he has also unwittingly entrapped himself in a Chinese box, in which one irony trumps another. Whether a postmodern conceptual documentary or a cynical repurposing of a kindler, gentler Kurtz for the 21^st century, Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty provokes further thinking about the storyteller and the story, and the filmmaker and his subject. Martens' premise is susceptible to many refutations, from the empowering works coming out of Witness and Pangea Day and the myriad of docs that have a difference in confronting poverty, and changing lives.

But if you really want a wry observation of post-colonial Africa from a post-colonial African perspective, why not showcase the works of Jean-Marie Teno instead?

Later that evening, I trekked to the most remote screening facility-at the Bibliotech, a beautiful 21^st-century library reminiscent in its translucence of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus' Seattle Public Library. I saw Pepita Ferrari's Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, which, as the title suggests, is a survey film, featuring over 30 of the greatest names in documentary talking about every aspect of their creative process, punctuated by clips from their films. At once exhaustive and exhausting, Capturing Reality has great value as an educational tool-and as a validation for why we do this in the first place. For more information about the film, click here.

Here's a clip from the film:

Over the next week, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is nominated for IDA Documentary Awards in the Feature Documentaries and Short Documentaries categories. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films-the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Tom Dziedzic, director/producer of Redemption Stone: The Life and Times of Tom Lewis, which is nominated for Best Short Documentary.

Synopsis: Redemption Stone introduces Tom Lewis, a storyteller of quiet power, who recounts the social upheaval and rebirth that shape his unique American journey. A spiritual vision inspires Tom to open an after-school safe haven called The Fishing School and to turn hardship into hope for the children in his community.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Tom Dziedzic: I started as a soundman at the legendary Calvin Studios in Kansas City, Missouri. Director Robert Altman was the most famous filmmaker who once worked at Calvin, and everyone in the Midwest who wanted to work in film seems to have made a stop there at one time or another. I meandered through different film jobs until I ended up working at the post office. There, I began to write scripts and produce industrials, advancing to work at Postal Service Headquarters in Washington, DC. I went independent and started my own company in 1997.

IDA: What inspired you to make Redemption Stone?

TD: Meeting Tom Lewis; it's that simple. In 2002, I was hired to edit a short five-minute video about The Fishing School, and in the course of that edit, I looked at some archival video interviews done with Mr. Lewis as he discussed growing up in North Carolina and the things that happened to him along the way, including the many events that inspired him to start The Fishing School. I became really interested in his backstory and thought it would make a good documentary. I approached him in 2003 about doing an independent film about his life.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

TD: I shot the main interview with Mr. Lewis in June 2003. Immediately after that, he became very ill battling a second bout of cancer. I edited a rough string-out from the interview and then put the tapes on the shelf to wait until Mr. Lewis regained his strength. He was very ill through 2004 and 2005; almost didn't make it. My partner Sue kept encouraging me to go back into the project or else Mr. Lewis' story might never be heard. So at the beginning of 2006, I edited an audio version of the Tom Lewis story that included music and effects. That audio edit turned out to be a good selling point to show Mr. Lewis and his family how I would treat his life story, as well as a good template for the video production to follow.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

TD: My vision didn't change much from the beginning. First, I didn't want other speakers in the film; I just wanted Mr. Lewis to tell his story as he remembered it. It was his memoir. Also, I decided early on to shoot in High Definition, and I worked with two great directors of photography here in the DC area, Steven Holloway and Gonzalo Accame. The design was to stay on wide shots throughout and keep the screen as open as possible.

After a two-year hiatus, we started up production again in 2006 as Mr. Lewis regained his strength. We traveled down to North Carolina together to revisit his past. The beautiful opening shots of the Cape Fear River with morning mist streaming up as Mr. Lewis walks down to the river were a total accident, just serendipity. But I knew that was the opening as soon as we shot it. I edited at my home studio during 2006 and 2007 and completed the final edit in January 2008. The really great thing about the whole process was getting to know Mr. Lewis and his wife, Lucille. Even today, we talk on the phone like old friends and discuss the journey of the film so far. That's been a blessing.

IDA: As you've screened Redemption Stone-whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms-how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

TD: The first large audience was at the Atlanta Film Festival in April 2008, and they really liked the film. About three months later, I was driving around in DC and I got a call from a lady who saw the film in Atlanta. She said she just had to call me to let me know how much the film moved her and meant to her. That was worth a million dollars to me. The film brings many viewers to tears. Tom Lewis is a powerful force on the screen. I know he inspired me as a filmmaker, so I hope the film inspires others to go out and make a difference in their communities.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

TD: Errol Morris. His 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line was such a revelation to me, how documentaries can be created from real footage and reconstructed footage. I watched it many, many times to try to understand his genius.

The winning films in the Feature Documentary and Short Documentary categories will be announced at the IDA Awards on Friday, December 5, at the Directors Guild of America Theater, 7920 Sunset Boulevard, and will be screened the next day, December 6, as part of DocuFest at the Eastman Kodak Screening Room, 6700 Santa Monica Boulevard.

For more information about the IDA Awards, click here. For more information about DocuFest, click here.

Over the next week, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is nominated for IDA Documentary Awards in the Feature Documentaries and Short Documentaries categories. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films-the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Kief Davidson, director/producer of Kassim The Dream, which is nominated for Best Feature Documentary.

Synopsis: This is the story of world champion boxer Kassim "The Dream" Ouma-born in Uganda, kidnapped by the rebel army and trained to be a child soldier at the age of 6. When the rebels took over the government, Kassim became an army soldier who was forced to commit many horrific atrocities, making him both a victim and perpetrator. He soon discovered the army's boxing team and realized the sport was his ticket to freedom. After 12 years of warfare, Kassim defected from Africa and arrived in the United States. Homeless and culture-shocked, he quickly rose through the boxing ranks and became Junior Middleweight Champion of the World.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Kief Davidson: I really had no clue what I wanted to do until my third year of college. Initially I pursued cinematography and somehow talked my way into a second assistant camera gig on a Bad Brains music video. It was a disaster. I couldn't figure out how to close a c-stand, and halfway into the shoot I lost the smart slate and was publicly fired by the DP.

I decided to give editing a try instead. Eager and willing to work for free, I landed an edit gig on a short doc about Sally Mann, the controversial photographer. This was my first real foray into the biz, and I soon discovered that the work was perfect training for filmmaking. Fortunately, I didn't mess the job up, and the film received an Oscar nomination. My editing career took off immediately. Working with many directors and learning from their successes and mistakes ultimately gave me the confidence and desire to start making my own films.

IDA: What inspired you to make Kassim The Dream?

KD: Kathleen Davidson, my co-producer and wife, stumbled upon a short news segment on HBO Real Sports about Kassim. Upon viewing the segment, we were struck by the charm and charisma of this former child soldier-turned-boxing champion of the world. How could a guy who was kidnapped at the age of six and forced to kill walk around with such a smile on his face? There was no doubt that a much bigger story needed to be explored. What is going on in this man's mind? How does he see the world? I instantly wanted to know more.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

KD: I wanted Kassim to tell his own story, but his English was challenging, to say the least. He is a fast talker and difficult to understand. It was an ongoing joke that Kassim didn't even understand Kassim. We would play him back his own phone messages, and he wouldn't have a clue. A lot of time was spent coaxing Kassim to slow down and take his time.

One of the biggest challenges, however, was the fact that our story hinged on Kassim returning to Africa to reunite with his family. The Ugandan military publicly said that if Kassim was to return to Uganda, he would be tried for desertion and, if found guilty, executed. Strategic political pressure was put on the government for Kassim's return, and the closer we came to achieving entry to Uganda, the more terrified Kassim became of the trip.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

KD: I recently read one of my first drafts of a treatment written for the Kassim film, and it was almost identical to what was ultimately captured in the movie. This rarely happens, so I consider myself quite lucky. My greatest fear in the early stages of shooting was that Kassim would not receive a military pardon and make it back to Africa. The film really would not have worked without this element. In contrast, the proposal for my prior film, The Devil's Miner, was nothing like the finished movie, and I couldn't have been happier.

My vision for the film definitely changed significantly during the editing process. We were working with over 200 hours of footage, and the structure of the film was difficult to nail down. The rough cuts had several more characters and heavier political overtones. Early test screenings with wonderfully opinionated colleagues helped steer our course and keep it as personal as possible.

IDA: As you've screened Kassim The Dream-whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms-how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

KD: Audiences overall have been enthusiastic, emotional and inspired. The most interesting Q&A was at SilverDocs, where two Ugandan Army officials showed up. As Kassim and I took questions from the audience, they stood up and denied that the rebel army in 1986 ever kidnapped children. The audience booed them off of the microphones, and the tension made for a great evening.

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

KD: Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, the Maysles brothers. The Staircase, by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, is one of my favorite doc series.

The winning films in the Feature Documentary and Short Documentary categories will be announced at the IDA Awards on Friday, December 5, at the Directors Guild of America Theater, 7920 Sunset Boulevard, and will be screened the next day, December 6, as part of DocuFest at the Eastman Kodak Screening Room, 6700 Santa Monica Boulevard.

For more information about the IDA Awards, click here. For more information about DocuFest, click here.

The Sundance Film Festival announced its competition lineup, including the films selected for the Documentary Competition and the World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Documentary Competition
This year's 16 films were selected from 879 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

Art & Copy (Director: Doug Pray; Screenwriter: Timothy J. Sexton)-Rare interviews with the most influential advertising creative minds of our age illustrate the wide-reaching effect advertising and creativity have on modern culture.

Boy Interrupted (Director: Dana Perry)-An intimate look at the life, mental illness and death of a young man told from the point of view of the filmmaker: his mother.

The Cove (Director: Louie Psihoyos; Screenwriter: Mark Monroe)-Dolphins are dying, whales are disappearing, and the oceans are growing sick. The horrors of a secret cove nestled off a small, coastal village in Japan are revealed by a group of activists led by Ric O'Barry, the man behind Flipper.

Crude (Director: Joe Berlinger)-The inside story of the "Amazon Chernobyl" case in the rainforest of Ecuador, the largest oil-related environmental lawsuit in the world.

Dirt! The Movie (Directors: Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow)-The story of the relationship between humans and dirt, Dirt! The Movie humorously details how humans are rapidly destroying the last natural resource on earth.

El General (Director: Natalia Almada)-As great-granddaughter of Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles, one of Mexico's most controversial revolutionary figures, filmmaker Natalia Almada paints an intimate portrait of Mexico.

Good Hair (Director: Jeff Stilson)-Comedian Chris Rock turns documentary filmmaker when he sets out to examine the culture of African-American hair and hairstyles.

Over the Hills and Far Away (Director: Michel Orion Scott)-Over the Hills and Far Away chronicles the journey of the Isaacson family as they travel through Mongolia in search of a mysterious shaman they believe can heal their autistic son.

The Reckoning (Director: Pamela Yates; Screenwriters: Peter Kinoy, Paco de Onís, Pamela Yates)-A battle of monumental proportions unfolds as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo faces down warlords, genocidal dictators and world superpowers in bringing perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice.

Reporter (Director: Eric Daniel Metzgar)-Set in Africa, this documentary chronicles, in verité fashion, the haunting, physically grueling and shocking voyage of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof.

The September Issue (Director: R.J. Cutler)-With unprecedented access, director R.J. Cutler and his crew shot for nine months as they captured Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and her team preparing the 2007 VogueSeptember issue, widely accepted as the "fashion bible" for the year's trends.

Sergio (Director: Greg Barker)-Sergio examines the role of the United Nations and the international community through the life and experiences of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights, including interviews with those who knew and worked with him over the course of his extraordinary career.

Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech (Director: Liz Garbus)-An exploration of the history and current state of free speech in America narrated by the filmmaker's father, First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus.

We Live in Public (Director and Screenwriter: Ondi Timoner)-We Live in Public is the story of the Internet's revolutionary impact on human interaction as told through the eyes of maverick Web pioneer Josh Harris and his transgressive art project that shocked New York.

When You're Strange (Director and Screenwriter: Tom DiCillo)-The first feature documentary about The Doors, When You're Strange enters the dark and dangerous world of one of America's most influential bands using only footage shot between 1966 and 1971.

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Directors: Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler)-With clients including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Chicago 10, the late civil rights attorney William Kunstler was one of the most famous lawyers of the 20th century. Filmmakers Emily and Sarah Kunstler explore their father's life from movement hero to "the most hated lawyer in America."

World Cinema Documentary

This year's 16 films were selected from 744 submissions.

211:Anna / Italy (Directors:Paolo Serbandini and Giovanna Massimetti)-The story of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist and human rights activist who risked her life to report the truth about the Chechen conflict and President Vladimir Putin. World Premiere

Afghan Star / Afghanistan/UK (Director: Havana Marking)-After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, Pop Idol has come to television in Afghanistan: millions are watching and voting for their favorite singer. This film follows the dramatic stories of four contestants as they risk their lives to sing. North American Premiere

Big River Man / USA (Director: John Maringouin)-An overweight, wine-swilling Slovenian world-record-holding endurance swimmer resolves to brave the mighty Amazon-in nothing but a Speedo. World Premiere

Burma VJ / Denmark (Director: Anders Ostergaard)-In September 2007, Burmese journalists risking life imprisonment to report from inside their sealed-off country are suddenly thrown onto the global stage as their pocket camera images of the Saffron Revolution make headlines everywhere. US Premiere

The End of the Line / UK (Director: Rupert Murray)-Based on the book by journalist Charles Clover, The End of the Line reveals the devastating effect that global overfishing is having on fish stocks and the health of our oceans. World Premiere

The Glass House / USA (Director: Hamid Rahmanian)-The Glass House follows four teenage girls striving to overcome drug addiction, abandonment and abuse by attending a rehabilitation center in Tehran. North American Premiere

Kimjongilia / France/USA (Director: N.C. Heikin)-Defectors from North Korea finally speak out about the terrifying reality of their lives-and escapes. World Premiere

Let's Make Money /Austria/China/South Africa/Spain/Switzerland/U.S.A. (Director: Erwin Wagenhofer)-From the factories of India, to financial markets in Singapore, to massive housing developments in Spain and offshore banks in Jersey, Let's Make Money reveals complex and shocking workings of global money flow. World Premiere

Nollywood Babylon / Canada (Directors: Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal)-Welcome to the wacky world of Nollywood, Nigeria's bustling home-grown movie industry. US Premiere

Old Partner/ South Korea (Director: Chung-ryoul Lee)-A humble octogenarian farmer lives out his final days with his spitfire wife and his loyal old ox in the Korean countryside. North American Premiere

Prom Night in Mississippi/ Canada (Director: Paul Saltzman)-When a small-town Mississippi high school resolves to hold its first integrated senior prom, strong emotions fly and traditions are challenged to their core. World Premiere

The Queen and I (Drottningen och jag) / Sweden (Director: Nahid Persson Sarvestani)- Swedish filmmaker Sarvestani, an Iranian exile who helped overthrow the Shah's regime in 1979, confronts her own assumptions and complex truths about Iran when she enters the life of the Shah's widow. World Premiere

Quest for Honor/ Kurdistan / USA (Director: Mary Ann Bruni)-A former teacher and tireless activist works with local lawmen, Kurdish government agencies and her colleagues to investigate and eradicate honor killings in the tribal regions of Kurdistan. World Premiere

Rough Aunties/ UK (Director: Kim Longinotto)-Fearless, feisty and unwavering, the "Rough Aunties" protect and care for the abused, neglected and forgotten children of Durban, South Africa. North American Premiere

Thriller in Manila/ UK (Director: John Dower)-A tale of betrayal stoked by the racial politics of 1970s America, Thriller in Manila chronicles the most intense and bitter sporting rivalry ever: the 1975 final match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. North American Premiere

Tibet in Song / USA (Director: Ngawang Choephel)-Through the story of Tibetan music, this film depicts the determined efforts of Tibetan people, both in Tibet and in exile, to preserve their unique cultural identity. Choephel served six years of an 18-year prison sentence for filming in Tibet. World Premiere

End the awards weekend...for Good!

After attending the 2008 IDA Documentary Awards and DocuFest, make sure to catch a free screening of IDA/Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award-winning movie Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, presented by GOOD Magazine and The International Documentary Association.

The screening will take place on Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 7:30 PM at THE GOOD SPACE, 6824 Melrose Ave. (between La Brea & Highland).

A reception will follow the screening featuring a Q&A with filmmaker Stefan Forbes.

This event is free and open to the public. However, you need to RSVP by noon on Sunday, Dec. 7, here: www.goodmagazine.com/events/decboogie

Need some info about Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story? Well, uh, good, because here's some right here plus the trailer (now don't you want to see it?):

This film is a comprehensive look at Lee Atwater, the blues-playing rogue whose rambunctious rise from the South to Chairman of the GOP made him a household name. Atwater mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush while leading the Republican Party to historic victories and writing the Republican Party's winning playbook. In eye-opening interviews with Atwater's closest friends and enemies, the film re-examines Atwater's crucial role in the remaking of the Republican Party. To Democrats offended by his cutthroat style, Atwater was a political assassin dubbed by one Congresswoman "the most evil man in America". But for most Republicans, he remains a hero for his deep understanding of the American heartland and his unapologetic vision of politics as war. Director Stefan Forbes offers a timely documentary for this election year as he examines the charming yet Machiavellian godfather of the modern negative political campaign.