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Petra Costa

black and white headshot of Petra Costa with the palms of her hands against her cheeks

Petra Costa tells stories in the crossroads between the personal and the political. In 2020, The Edge of Democracy, was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Peabody and Platino Award. In 2012, she directed Elena, which premiered at IDFA and won best film at Havana Film Festival (2013). In 2015, she co-directed Olmo and the Seagull with Lea Glob, winning the young jury prize in Locarno. She was involved in the production of Ecstasy, Babenco and Beba.

Articles

Welsh actor Adam O'Brian is a white male lying on a bed, wearing a hooded jacket—playing Fredric Bourdin. From Bart Layton’s ‘The Imposter.’ Photo by Erik Wilson.
Playback: Bart Layton's 'The Imposter'
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Kelsey Peterson is a white woman seen here lying on her back, wearing a black bandeau. From Peterson’s ‘Move Me.’ Courtesy of Full Frame Film Festival.
Bare Bones Full Frame 2022: The Limits and Benefits of Virtuality
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Shanona is a middle-aged Black woman, seen here holding her son, a Black boy wearing a gold toy crown. From Loira Limbal’s ‘Through the Night.’ Photo by Naiti Gámez. Courtesy of POV.
Screen Time: Week of April 11, 2022
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Members of the film crew—consisting of three white men and two women—of ‘Who We Are’ filming Jeffery Robinson—a Black man in a black blazer and pants—in front of Memphis’ Lorraine Motel. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Essential Doc Reads: Week of April 4, 2022
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A scene from 'Stray,' a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Docs to Watch for National Pet Day
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A black-and-white image of filmmaker Marina Goldovskaya filming at a Community Party convention in Russia. Photo courtesy of Esther Shubinski.
Marina Goldovskaya: A Woman with a Movie Camera and a Big Heart
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A cartoon of Uncle Sam holding a Vietnamese soldier between chopsticks. From Emile de Antonio’s ‘In the Year of the Pig.’ Courtesy of Amazon.
Screen Time: Week of April 4, 2022
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A white door with an exit sign above it and an exit symbol beside it.
IDA Names its Top 4 IDAs
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Jay Rosenblatt is a middle-aged white man seen here taking a selfie with Richard Silberg, a middle-aged white man with darker hair. From Jay Rosenblatt’s ‘When We Were Bullies.’ Courtesy of HBO.
Doc Star of the Month: Jay Rosenblatt, 'When We Were Bullies'
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A white woman with dark hair crouched over holding up a polaroid of a man and a woman. A still from Nira Burstein's 'Charm Circle'. Courtesy of Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Stakes Its Claim on the Regional Circuit
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The International Documentary Association (IDA) logo.
An introduction to the IDA Board
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The late Brent Renaud, wearing a protective helmet and bulletproof vest, films on a rooftop. Photo courtesy of of Jeff Newton
Remembering Brent Renaud: A Reluctant Hero of Humanity
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Michelle Materre is an African-American woman with short gray hair. She is standing in front of the signage of the Toronto International Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Julie Dash.
Always Tilting to Greet the Sun: Remembering Michelle Materre
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Tsanavi Spoonhunter is a Northern Paiute and Northern Arapaho woman with long, curly dark brown hair and eyes smiling into the camera.
IDA Member Spotlight: Tsanavi Spoonhunter
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Shaista is a young Afghan man singing and dancing along with two other male friends in a refugee camp in Kabul. From Elizabeth and Gulistan Mirzaei’s Oscar-nominated short, ‘Three Songs for Benazir.’Courtesy of Netflix.
Essential Documentary Reads: Week of March 14, 2022
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Lusia Harris, a Black woman with short black hair, wearing wearing several Olympic medals. A still from Ben Proudfoot's 'The Queen of Basketball'. Courtesy of NY Times Op-Docs
Documentaries to Watch During March Madness
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A mounted microphone next to a laptop with a red overlay and the IDA and Rev logos centered in white.
Introducing IDA's Official Accessibility Partner, Rev
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A child stands in front of artist Aves Aras’ multi-colored art installation made of paper and glue. From Craig and Brent Renaud’s ‘State of the Art.’ Photo by Thomas Willis. Courtesy of PBS.
Screen Time: Week of March 14, 2022
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Volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft are a white couple seen here wearing blue jackets, against volcanoes emitting smoke. From Sara Dosa’s ‘Fire of Love.’ Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Essential Doc Reads: Week of March 7, 2022
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A black-and-white headshot of filmmaker Reid Davenport, a white man with a beard and curly hair, smiling subtly. Photo by Bret Hartman.
Disability and Film Festivals: The Secret and the Not-So-Secret Complacencies
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Attendees and festival crew take the stage to raise a toast to the 2022 edition of True/False Film Fest.Photo courtesy of True/False Film Fest. Photo by Karl Bussen.
True/False 2022: Revealing Racism
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An animated bird's-eye view through a tree of a family. Still from Amy Bench's 'More Than I Remember'. Courtesy of Amy Bench
IDA-Supported Documentaries at SXSW 2022
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A close up of Angela Davis, an African-American female activist, with an Afro. From Shola Lynch’s ‘Free Angela & All Political Prisoners.’ Courtesy of the film’s Facebook page.
Screen Time: Week of March 7, 2022
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A black-and-white archival photograph of two young Black customers at the Automat. From Lisa Hirwitz’s ‘The Automat.’ Courtesy of Film Forum.
Essential Doc Reads: Week of February 28, 2022
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Blue background with white text that reads fast foreword The Editor's Column.
Fast Foreword: The Editor's Column, Winter 2022
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The Ukrainian flag flying over a city.
Support Ukrainian Filmmakers and Film Institutions
Advocacy
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A Ukrainian family of five sits in their living room watching a film that they made about life during wartime. From Iryna Tsilyk’s 'The Earth Is Blue as an Orange'. Courtesy of the filmmaker.
Screen Time: Week of February 28, 2022
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Mr. Bachmann is an elderly German school teacher, seen here with two smiling female students. From Maria Speth’s ‘Mr. Bachmann and his Class.’ Courtesy of Madonnen Film
Essential Doc Reads: Week of February 21, 2022
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Close-up of Black trans woman, Gloria Allen, standing at a bus stop, wearing long oval silver earrings. Film still from Luchina Fisher's 'Mama Gloria'.
Docs to Watch for Black History Month
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Two polaroid photos: one with protagonist Miguel and his partner, Robert. Another with his mother. From Cecilia Aldorando’s ‘Memories of a Penitent Heart.’ Courtesy of the filmmaker.
Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award: Cecilia Aldarondo A Validation of Latinx Independence
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A silhouette of a person with a film clapperboard on their head.
Curation Is Not Censorship
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A Black woman with a huge smile and short curly hair is seen wearing a red mask on half of her face in a green and luscious park.
IDA Member Spotlight: Cydney Tucker
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Stunt performer Johnny Knoxville is seen getting hit by a bull in a stunt. From Jeff Tremaine’s ‘Jackass Forever.’ Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Essential Doc Reads: Week of February 14, 2022
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A white woman with shoulder-length red hair talks on a pay phone in a hallway of a correctional facility. From Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger’s ‘Apart,’ which airs February 21 on ‘Independent Lens.’ Courtesy of the filmmakers.
How To Begin a Documentary: Breaking Down the Opening Scene from 'Apart'
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Jean Tsien is a female Asian American filmmaker seen here receiving the Art of Editing Mentorship Award at Sundance, 2018. She is speaking into a mic wearing a black sweater. Photo courtesy of Jean Tsien.
IDA Pioneer Award Honoree Jean Tsien: An Immigrant's Instinct for Finding the Story
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Zachary Drucker appears in 'Framing Agnes' by Chase Joynt, an official selection of the NEXT section at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Ava Benjamin Shorr.
Sundance 2022: Omicron Drives a Virtual Revival
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Ben Mankiewicz is a white male TV personality in conversation with Roger Ross Williams, a Black male filmmaker during IDA's Conversation Series, in 2016. Image courtesy of Conversa.
IDA Career Achievement Award: Roger Ross Williams, Excavator of America's Hidden Truths
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Alex Long of East Baltimore speaks at a community gathering about the need to stop gun violence. Photo courtesy of Andre Lambertson.
Where Are They Now? Pare Lorentz and Enterprise Documentary Fund Grantees
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A collage of stills from 40 IDA supported documentaries with text that reads #40YearsofDocs.
40 for 40: IDA-Supported Docs To Watch For Our Birthday
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Newspaper clipping advertising the first meeting of IDA
IDA Turns 40
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Anthony Bourdain, a white man with white hair, a black short and tattoos on his arms, sits on a sidewalk, eating a bowl of noodles. From Morgan Neville's 'Roadrunner.' Courtesy of CNN / Focus Features
Raising the Dead: Understanding Post-Mortem Rights of Publicity
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An Association of Professional Camerawomen member in the mid-1980s using a 1982 Ikegami HL-79D portable electronic camera.
The Evolution of Documentary Film Cameras from 1982 to 2022
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Lourdes Portillo, a Latinx woman with white hair, glasses and a black top, accepting the IDA Career Achievement Award in 2017; Portillo is the only filmmaker to have earned IDA Documentary Award in four different decades. Photo: Susan Yin
Where Are They Now? IDA Documentary Award Winners
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Two Saudi Arabian men wearing keffiyeh and white thobes sitting in a golf cart on the premises of the Mohammed bin Nayef Counseling and Care Center in Riyadh. From Meg Smaker’s ‘Jihad Rehab.’ Courtesy of Sidestilt Films.
Why Filmmakers Have Had a Problem With 'Jihad Rehab' for Years
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A Saudi Arabian man wearing a keffiyeh walks down a large open courtyard of the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care. From Meg Smaker’s ‘Jihad Rehab.’ Courtesy of Sidestilt Films.
Islamophobia and the Tyranny of Empathy: The Case of 'Jihad Rehab'
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The IDA logo over a blue background.
A Message From IDA Executive Director Rick Perez and The Board
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A view of the Sundance Spaceship clicked right before the premiere of Sam Green’s ‘32 Sounds.’ Image courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Creating a New Familiar: Film Festivals in the COVID Era
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Ady Barkan is a white male American activist seen here sharing an affectionate moment with his child. Image from Nicholas Bruckman’s ‘Not Going Quietly.’ Courtesy of Michael Dwyer/POV.
Screen Time: Week of January 24, 2022
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The filmmaking team of ‘Writing With Fire’ —Karan Thapliyal, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh with protagonists, Shyamkali, Meera, and Suneeta. A BTS still from ‘Writing With Fire.’ Courtesy of Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh.
Courage Under Fire Award: 'Writing With Fire' Team on Finding Hope in the Unlikeliest Place
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A full body shot of a Black woman in a black bodysuit and sheer white cover-up with black high heels and red dangling earrings, sitting on a couch with an afro.
IDA Member Spotlight: De'Onna "Tree" Young-Stephens
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