Editor's Note: Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway's Better This World has been nominated in the Best Feature category at this year's IDA Documentary Awards, to be held at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles on Friday, December 2. Below is an interview we conducted with Richardson last August.

Synopsis: How did two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas wind up arrested on terrorism charges at the 2008 Republican National Convention? Better This World follows the journey of David McKay (22) and Bradley Crowder (23) from political neophytes to accused domestic terrorists, with a particular focus on the relationship they develop with a radical activist mentor in the six months leading up to their arrests. A dramatic story of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal, Better This World goes to the heart of the War on Terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.

IDA:  How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Kelly Duane de la Vega: I majored in fine arts, with an emphasis in photography.I was taken with documentary still photographers like Robert Frank, Lee Frielander and Mary Ellen Mark. After I finished school, I worked as a photojournalist for a weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon, and shot several photo essays while traveling through the South. While I was reasonably happy with my still work, I longed to include the conversations I had along the way. I eventually found my way to filmmaking, taking a couple of film classes at a struggling film nonprofit in San Francisco, but mainly learning by doing, and by editing with Nathaniel Dorsky on my film Monumental. Nathaniel helped me understand the cinematic language that I never had a real chance to study.

Katie Galloway: I worked in print and radio before I got into filmmaking. By the time I got interested in making documentaries I already knew I loved working with audio--the ability to weave in atmospheric sound and especially people's voices was, for me, a thrilling additional ingredient in storytelling. During my time in radio--mainly at KPFA /Pacifica--I was also a huge fan of documentaries: Werner Herzog, Barbara Kopple, DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, Errol Morris and Les Blank were all early influences. Discovering the richness of sound led organically to a desire to try my hand at visual storytelling. I did a one-year program in documentary production in New York, learning a bit about shooting, editing and directing. The rest is history. 

IDA: What inspired you to make Better This World?

KDDLV & KG: In January 2009 The New York Times published a story about the controversy around the arrest of two young men from Midland, Texas, for the possession of eight homemade bombs at the Republican National Convention. The story immediately captured our imaginations. With the government claiming that McKay and Crowder were domestic terrorists bent on murdering or maiming cops and Republican delegates, and the defense asserting that the young men had been unduly influenced by a radical activist 10 years their senior and were victims of a overzealous government intent on taking them down as a score for the post 9/11 domestic security apparatus, there was clearly a mystery to unravel. Once we flew to Minneapolis and met several of the amazing cast of characters and the plot thickened, and we knew we had to make a film.

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

KDDLV & KG: While our initial intent had been to cover the case vérité-style, it quickly became clear that a central piece of the story was what had already happened between three men: the accused, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, and the older radical activist, Brandon Darby. They spent a lot of time together in the six months leading up to McKay and Crowder's arrests. Telling a story largely set in the past forced us to re-imagine our cinematic approach. Creating the back-story was a long and arduous process (looking through hundreds of hours of surveillance footage, listening to dozens of hours of jail-house phone calls, seeking out images, documents and audio of FBI interrogations through the Freedom of Information Act...), but it was ultimately incredibly enriching and rewarding.

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

KDDLV & KG: As is so often the case with documentaries, we were following a story that was not yet resolved. Over two years of interviewing FBI agents, attorneys, defendants, family members, jurors and journalists, we were repeatedly surprised by the twists and turns we discovered. At several points we were forced to re-evaluate our perspectives...and debates between us about personal morality and responsibility versus government accountability and meanings of entrapment regularly erupted in the field and the edit room. We wanted to allow audiences to share those experiences, and we committed early on to building the twists, moral ambiguity and big questions we wrestled with into the film. 

IDA: As you've screened Better This World--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?

KDDLV & KG: Better This World has inspired intense discussions around the country and internationally, encouraging people to grapple with what we view as one of the critical tensions of our time: between civil liberties and security in a post 9/11 world.

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

KDDLV: Katie laid out several above; here are several of mine: Brother's Keeper, When We Were Kings, Man on Wire, Hoop Dreams, several from Herzog, and the work of Nathaniel Dorsky and still photographer Robert Frank.

Better This World will be screening August 12 through 18 at the IFC Center in New York City, and August 26 through September 1 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for Better This World in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for Better This World in Los Angeles, click here.

Editor's Note: Peter Richardson's How to Die in Oregon has been nominated in the Best Feature category at this year's IDA Documentary Awards, to be held at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles on Friday, December 2. Below is an interview we conducted with Richardson last May.

How to Die in Oregon, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, follows individuals whose lives have been deeply affected by Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients who request it. It's not an easy film to watch, and at screenings of this heart-wrenching and intimate documentary, filmmaker Peter Richardson admits that the ending of the film is often greeted with silence. This is an understandable reaction to such an emotional and powerful experience; as you become invested in the subjects of the documentary, you can't help but think of how, as Cody Curtis puts it in the film, we are all terminal. There are no easy answers when it comes to how to die, no matter what the state or country, but with How to Die in Oregon, Richardson hopes to at least make asking the questions just a little easier.

I spoke with Richardson before he left for Hot Docs, and we discussed his filmmaking process, how he handled such an intimate and sensitive issue with his subjects, his advice for beginning filmmakers and more.

IDA: What inspired you to make a film about the Death with Dignity Act?

Peter Richardson: Inspiration for the film came to me out of the blue, really. It was 2006, and I'd just finished my first film, Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, and the day I was leaving for Sundance with that film happened to be the day that the Supreme Court ruling upholding Oregon's [Death with Dignity] law was announced. The law had been challenged by the Bush Administration and it went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in a split decision to uphold the law. So I just knew that would be the next film I would make.

IDA: Beyond living in Oregon, do you have any personal connection to the law?

PR: It didn't come from a personal experience I had with the law; it was really just thesynergy of that moment. I realized that this was a film that really needed to be made because it was such an important issue and it hadn't been done yet. And it would not be an easy film to make, just from a practical perspective. It would probably need to be made by someone who lived in the state. Living in Oregon, I felt an almost responsibility as a documentary filmmaker to tell this story, and the way that I wanted to tell it would require a really long-term commitment to following the lives of a number of different people. So it was all of those different pieces coming together.

IDA: What were your goals in how you wanted to approach such a controversial topic?

PR: I knew pretty early on that I didn't want to focus on a political or theoretical conversation about this issue; I really wanted to focus on the personal stories of people who were considering using this law. That was what I was most interested in, and I also felt that there are many other forums and there have been many other expressions of the theoretical aspects. Where I felt there was a real lack was in, "Let's get down to how this actually plays out in people'slives." There was a journalistic sense that that's a story that needs to be told, but also to me as a filmmaker, this is an intensely personal choice that people are making--to get this medication and then to potentially use it--and I thought that would best be explored in a documentary. That was the film I was interested in making--about these personal stories, not about a number of different experts talking about this issue more theoretically or sharing their opinions.

IDA: How did you find your subjects?

PR: When I began researching this issue I discovered pretty early on that most of the people in Oregon who use the law or consider using the law have some contact with an organization called Compassion and Choices. I contacted them and said, This is the film I'd be interested in making; would you be willing to, on my behalf, make introductions to people you have contact with and I can speak to them about participating in the film?  That's pretty common for them. When there's coverage in the US or abroad about the law, because it's an initiative that's popping up in other countries and other states, they're frequently contacted because they do have access to people in the state who are considering it. So they agreed to make the introductions on my behalf. That led to the initial conversations with potential interviewees and subjects of the film that evolved to kind of personal relationships with those people as the filming went on.

IDA: Cody in particular really allowed you incredible access. Was there ever any concern from her or her family or on your end with you filming such intimate moments?

PR: I think that as a filmmaker that would be the biggest challenge of the film--the fact that I was entering into very intimate moments at very sensitive times, maybe even the most sensitive times in people's lives. That was one of the central questions I asked myself, and I think a lot of documentary filmmakers ask themselves going into these situations: I really believe in this film, and this story needs to be told, but what is my presence going to mean for the people I'm filming with, and can that be a constructive process, not only for the film that I believe in, but for them intheir own lives?

I really questioned whether or not it was appropriate for me to ask of these people what I would ultimately need to ask in order to make the film. What I discovered really early on was that they felt very strongly about having their stories told and being able to share their experiences with other people, and they saw the film as their way of getting to do that. That was very reassuring, and that's what I encountered with Cody and her family as well, was that willingness and openness to share.

But initially, with Cody's family, that only came from her. Her husband and her children were pretty [much] against the idea of participating in the film for the obvious reasons I think most people would be, but Cody felt very strongly about it, so they just went along with it initially.

As the process unfolded and they saw how I would be a presence in their lives and that I could have a minimal footprint while I was filming and would be respectful of their privacy when it was asked of me, ultimately they told me that they found the process of being in the film a very constructive one, not only in the final product of the film itself but also in the actual filmmaking process. Cody's son and daughter referred to our interviews as "free therapy," and I couldn't ask for anything better as a filmmaker to have them say that.

But that was one of the essential challenges any time you make a very personal film likethat.  Frequently these kinds of films are made about someone in your family or are a very personal experience so there's less risk in the way that you're asking less of the people you're filming with, but in this I was a total stranger in these people's lives and that was a real challenge for me. It's a real testament to the courage of these individuals that they would give me such access. Certainly there were times when I was told that I couldn't film and that was always kind of a ground rule thatwas understood, but it's still remarkable the degree to which they were so open.

IDA: How have audiences reacted to your film?

PR: I've found the general audience reaction to be very positive. It is a very difficultfilm and I try to acknowledge that. At the beginning of screenings, I thank people for coming because I know that, one, it's not an easy film, and two, it's not an easy film to watch in a theater with a lot of people. But almost every screening I've been at has been full, so as difficult as this issue is--not only physician-aide in dying but the larger issue of death and dying--as much as people don't want to confront it, and there's this idea that "Oh, well, this isn't something we want to talk about in our society," I also think that this is something people do want to talk about. There is a hunger for a real and genuine conversation about death and dying--not in a morbid way or in a way that is anything but people wanting to have a dialogue about something we're all going to face. As Cody says, "We're all terminal." It's not something we can avoid, and that's scary, but also, it's why this film does need to exist and why we do need to have this conversation--because ultimately we are all terminal. There's very frequently silence at the end of screenings, and that's to be expected. This is a very, very emotional and powerful experience, but I also think it can be a really transformative one, and that's been my experience with touring around at festivals with the film.

IDA: Do you have any political or social goals for the film?

PR: I don't have any really political goals because I wasn't coming from a certain political perspective on the issue. In terms of social goals, one was just to share this story. There's a kind of journalistic mission with that: the idea of sharing a story about a very important social issue and a groundbreaking law that exists in Oregon, and how that might inform a debate in other states or other countries where the law is considered-- like Vermont, for instance, where wedid a screening. So there's that immediate goal that's directly tied to a specific issue.

My larger hope with the film is that it fosters a conversation among those who see it about this larger issue of death and dying that I think is critical for our country to have, no matter where you fall on this specific issue.  You can totally disagree with it, and I hope still find a lot of value in seeing the film and hearing these stories and hopefully feel like you can have this kind of conversation with your own loved ones. I actually get that a lot from people who've seen the film, about the conversations they've then had with family members--not specifically about death with dignity but just about this larger issue of death and dying and what would they want, and what are their views on it, and "We've never talked about this" because nobody does want to talk about it. So I think the film can be a catalyst to that kind of conversation.

IDA: Do you have any ideas for your next film?

PR: I have some ideas but nothing I've landed on. I want to get this one out into theworld and clear my head a bit before I start on the next one.

IDA: Do you have any advice for beginning documentary filmmakers?

PR: Go make documentaries. That's my single piece of advice. You can totally make a documentary or a feature film out of the trunk of your car, which is basically what I did with both of these films, at least initially.

There are incredible stories all around you. If you want to be a filmmaker, go make films. That was the best advice that I received in college. It was on a field trip for part of a sound design class and it was really inspiring, to just go make films. If you want to be a filmmaker, I think that's the best thing you can do.

How to Die in Oregon airs May 26 on HBO.

Katie Bieze is a graduate student in the Film and Video program at American University and works as a graduate fellow at American University's Center for Social Media. She graduated from Duke University in 2009 with a BA in literature and certificates in documentary studies and film/video/digital.

Editor's Note: Tatiana Huezo's The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Mas Pequeno) has been nominated in the Best Feature category at this year's IDA Documentary Awards, to be held at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles on Friday, December 2. Below is an interview we conducted with Huezo last August in conjunction with her him having been included in DocuWeeks 2011.

Synopsis: This is a story about mankind's ability to arise, rebuild and reinvent itself after surviving a tragedy. It is also a story of a people that have learned to live with their sorrow; of an annihilated town that re-emerges through the strength and deep love of its inhabitants for the land and the people; of a tiny place nestled in the mountains amidst the humid Salvadorian jungle.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Tatiana Huezo: I started working after I finished school. I collaborated as a cinematographer with an American documentary filmmaker, in the Sierra of Veracruz. I realized that most of the local families there were made up of two women and one man. I was curious about that. I wanted to learn more about a family model so different from mine; I wanted to learn if it was possible to share the love of a man with another woman. Some time later, I went back and started to search for a family to work with. I found two women and a man who had been living together for 40 years; the women were sisters.

It was all about patience. It took a whole week before they started to talk to me; every day I sat waiting in silence while the women were taking corn kernels off the cob. One day they started to talk to me. Then I asked them if I could move into their home for a while. I was accepted and that's how my journey into the lives of others started, a journey that lets me share stories that I care about.

IDA: What inspired you to make The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño)?

TH: I was born in El Salvador and raised in México. The Tiniest Place started the day my grandmother took me for the first time to the village where she was born. That afternoon we reached Cinquera, after driving on a dirt track that gradually became narrower and greener as we approached what I anticipated would be a tiny village behind the mountain. Finally, we arrived at a nearly empty town. While walking, I was approached by an old woman who hugged me, yelling, "Rina, you came back! You don't look a day older than the last time you were here!" But my name is not Rina and I had never seen that gushing lady before.

Then I entered the town church. There were almost no religious images; instead there was a helicopter's tail fitted to one of the walls and a large row of pictures of very young people with their respective candles on the floor. I felt a blow to the stomach. The people in the pictures were all guerrilla fighters killed during the Civil War, and many of those faces mirrored mine. And I thought, "Had I lived this war, where would I be right now?" That moment is still in my head and undoubtedly was the beginning of this project. 

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

TH: One of the challenges was to capture cinematically the enveloping atmosphere of the tropical rainforest that surrounds Cinquera. Sometimes we had to walk for hours at night, in total darkness, to get the ideal shots of certain landscapes at daybreak. More than once we got lost amid the fodder, and the day would break before we were set up.

We also had to gain acceptance from the local people, to have them get used to us. A long stay was the key for things to flow naturally and for me to have enough access to my characters.

During the editing process, the main challenge was keeping a balance between the two main forces contained in the story: light and shadow, life and death. I think I was able to meet my goal.

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

TH: I had plenty of time to think about the way I wanted to tell this story. I knew that I didn't want on-camera interviews. I also knew that I wanted to build up the rainforest as an important element. And I knew that the main discourse of the film was going to be comprised of two independent elements, image and oral speech, although I wasn´t sure if that was going to work.

During shooting I found new characters who enriched the film, like Rosi, "The Messenger." The idea of filming a big storm that would gather all the characters arose as well. There was an important confluence of chance, luck and planning in the production process.

Post-production was one of the most intense stages. First I had to build the oral discourse that forms the core of the movie, then I had to look for the images that would cover it, and finally I had to organize the powerful third discourse that came out. That search has been a great learning experience for me.

IDA: As you've screened The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño)--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?

TH: The audience is surprised that this is a war story told in a different way from what they are used to. They are surprised by how terror and violence are present throughout the movie, but without images to illustrate them.

The screenings always evoke a great emotional response; I'm surprised at how close the audience feels to the characters. I've been told beautiful things about the force of life and the human spirit.

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

TH: I have a lot of influences, not only documentaries but also fiction. The directors I always revisit include the Dardenne brothers, Johan Van der Keuken, David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Werner Herzog, Raymond Depardon, Michael Haneke, José Luis Guerin, Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Dvortsevoy, among many others. 

The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño) will be screening August 19 through 25 at the IFC Center in New York City and September 2 through 8 at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

For the complete DocuWeeks^TM 2011 program, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño) in New York, click here.

To purchase tickets for The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Más Pequeño)in Los Angeles, click here.

• Better This World
• Bill Cunningham New York
• Hell and Back Again
• The Interrupters
• The Woodmans

If you live anywhere but Southern California, you’re probably starting to feel pretty left out. And with all the great Doc U events we’ve been hosting this past year, we totally get it. That’s why we’re taking Doc U on the road! Doc U on the road is made possible by funding received from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Our next stop is Brooklyn, NY, where our Doc U will again focus on answering the question: Can Your Doc Really Change the World?

If you’re hoping to use the power of film to advocate for solutions to complex social issues and to urge people to take action, how can you make sure that your documentary has the greatest possible impact? What kinds of outreach and marketing campaigns are the most effective? How can you best partner with non-profits to get your message out? What do funders and broadcasters expect from documentary filmmakers? And what’s the best way to build a successful social action campaign? The panel of filmmakers, organizational changemakers, and communication experts we’ve assembled address all of these questions and many more. What they have to say could change the way you think about changing the world.

On December 12, join producer/director, and co-founder of Doculink, Robert Bahar (Made In L.A.), as he moderates a discussion with Diana Barrett, founder of The Fledgling Fund, filmmaker Rachel Libert (Semper Fi: Always Faithful, Boomtown), Cynthia Lopez, Co-Executive Producer of POV, and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Music by Prudence), on the ways and means of producing documentary films with the potential to effect real change.

With her short film Minka, director, producer, and photographer Davina Pardo initially set out to tell a very specific kind of story. What she didn’t take into account was fate’s inevitable intervention: John Roderick, whose memoir about his farmhouse (or minka, in Japanese) was the inspiration for this film, passed away before their first scheduled interview. Instead of throwing out the project, Pardo and her producer, Andrew Blum, turned their attention on Roderick’s adopted son, Yoshihiro Takishita, the man who helped the American journalist realize his dream of setting up permanent residence in a 250-year-old minka.

This quiet story is told primarily through meditative shots of the exteriors and interiors of the minka, accompanied by thoughtful reconstruction of memories from Takishita himself. Flipping through old photographs helps him recall his adopted father who has only recently passed on from this world but whose spirit remains somehow forever etched into the very foundation of this antique, magnificent structure. This brief film ends where it began, leaving the viewer with an ephemeral yet satisfying glimpse into one possible meaning of "home."

Pardo’s short film has been nominated in the Best Short Documentary category at the 2011 IDA Documentary Awards. We sat down with the filmmaker to learn more about her inspiration, how she had to be flexible, and the major obstacles they overcame to get the film where it is today.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Davina Pardo: In college I wanted to be a photographer, but I was always passionate about social issues and wasn’t sure how to reconcile these interests. After graduation, I was very lucky to get a job working as David Cronenberg’s assistant on his film Spider. At the end of each shooting day, we’d watch rushes at the film lab—and I think it was then that I fell in love with moving images. Suddenly it clicked that this was how I could combine my creative and social interests. I applied to the documentary film program at Stanford and started making films there.

IDA: What inspired you to make Minka?

DP: My producer, Andrew Blum (who also happens to be my husband), is a journalist who’s written a lot of about architecture. He received a press copy of John Roderick’s memoir about the house, and I was intrigued by the idea of telling a person’s story through their home, and of this particular house as a vessel of memory. So we contacted John Roderick and asked if he’d be willing to participate in a film based on his book.

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

DP: The biggest obstacle was definitely when John Roderick died at 93. He was excited about the idea of a film, and we had made plans to interview him in Hawaii, where he had retired. But a few weeks before our scheduled shoot, he became quite ill and asked that we come film right away. We were there the next day, but he was too weak to talk. All of his friends had gathered, and of course, Takishita-san, and I was grateful to spend time with everyone as they gathered to celebrate John’s life.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the process from pre- to post-production?

DP: After John died, Takishita-san wanted to continue making the film, and our focus shifted to him as our primary storyteller. We had always thought of it as a film about memory, but the tone changed; it became more of an elegy to John and a story about loss. Otherwise, our sense of the house as a metaphor for a relationship stayed consistent.

IDA: As you've screened Minka, how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been the most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

DP: I think what’s been most satisfying, and definitely surprising, is the way audiences have embraced everything Minka leaves unsaid. It’s a very quiet film, but that hasn’t kept people from really connecting to it emotionally, and letting the mysteries of love, and families, and places, wash over them.

IDA: What documentary films or documentary filmmakers have served as inspirations for you?

DP: So many, including Heddy Honigman, Nicholas Philibert, James Longley, Deborah Shaffer and Anne Aghion.

Want to learn more about the 2011 IDA Documentary Awards? Visit the Awards page for a full list of nominees, honorary award winners, and more.

Buy tickets to this year's Awards ceremony and fundraising event.

Editor's Note: Barbara Hammer's Maya Deren's Sink has been nominated in the Best Short category at this years IDA Documentary Awards, to be held at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles on Friday, December 2. Below is an interview we conducted with Hammer last August in conjunction with her him having been included in DocuWeeks 2011. 

Synopsis: Maya Deren's Sink is an evocative tribute to the mother of avant garde American film, as recounted by those who knew her. Teiji Ito's family, Carolee Schneemann and Judith Malvina float through the homes recalling in tiny bits and pieces words of Deren's architectural and personal interior space. Clips from Deren's films are projected back into the spaces where they were originally filmed, appearing on the floorboard, furniture and in the bowl of her former sink. Fluid light projections of intimate space provide an elusive agency for a filmmaker most of us will never know, as film with its imaginary nature evokes a former time and space.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

Barbara Hammer: There was no lesbian cinema to study when I was in film school in the '70s, and so I decided to document my own life. Later I made essay documentaries on invisible histories, looking at who makes history and who is left out. Finally, in Maya Deren's Sink, my 80th-something film, I return full circle to my mentor, the filmmaker who inspired me to make films, Maya Deren.

IDA: What inspired you to make Maya Deren's Sink?

BH: I decided for sure I should be a filmmaker when I saw Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon in a film history class. It was the only film by a woman screened during an entire semester, but I saw a different viewpoint, a new way of making film. I saw a woman's cinema.

Nearly 40 years later I was sitting in the Anthology Film Archive lobby when I hear that the sink that used to be in Maya Deren's home was picked up for the archive. I couldn't wait to see the sink, and as soon as I saw it I wanted to project an image of Maya Deren in it, and then back in her homes in both New York City and Los Angeles. Perhaps I could bring her to life again in some new way and pay tribute to my mentor.

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

BH: The biggest challenge was finding the people who knew Deren and who would give me an interview. There is always detective work with documentary filmmaking, and when you choose as your subject a major figure who is well known and who already is an established historic figure, people are protective and often not forthcoming. That just meant I had to look further afield.

I feel especially indebted to Tavia Ito, the daughter of Teiji Ito (composer and Deren's second husband) and Gail Ito (Teiji's second wife after Deren), who told me wonderful stories and who brought Deren to life with details about her daily life. When Tavia played her flute I couldn't help but hear refrains from her father, who composed the soundtrack for Meshes of the Afternoon.

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

BH: My vision radically changed twice. I realized that projections of Deren's films on the walls, ceilings and floors of her homes were not enough to bring back her presence. I needed an actor. By chance, at a party, I met a young woman who looked like Maya Deren and loved her work. Deren also was a theoretician of film, and with the actor Bekka Lindstrom I could populate her former homes with Deren's words. I needed a sense of a presence, of Maya Deren, not a person playing her, so with the help of the wonderful editor, Stephanie Testa, we were able to abstract the actor. 

Secondly, I wanted to avoid the static depiction of the "talking head" documentary.  The creative breakthrough came when I thought, If the walls of Maya Deren's homes could talk, the people who knew her could speak as memories from the past. I positioned these voices within picture frames that hung from the walls, and overlaid the lips or faces with an aged parchment paper. Voila! 

IDA:  As you've screened Maya Deren's Sink--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?

BH: Audience members who know Maya Deren's films are thrilled with this intimate portrait. Those who haven't yet seen her work are motivated to seek them out.  I was delighted when Maya Deren's Sink won the Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the 2010 Berlinale.

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

BH: Trin T. Minh-ha, Agnès Varda, Ziga Vertov and Chris Marker have all made milestone films that have illuminated my path as a documentary filmmaker.

Want to learn more about the 2011 IDA Documentary Awards? Visit the Awards page for a full list of nominees, honorary award winners, and more.

Buy tickets to this year's Awards ceremony and fundraising event.