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Here's What Really Happened

No tweeting. No press. No industry. Filmmakers-only conversations revealing personal insights into the art and business of documentary filmmaking.


“Here’s What Really Happened” are signature sessions from IDA's biennial Getting Real Conference that began as a filmmaker-led solution to combat the lack of transparency that continues to plague the community. These intimate conversations allow filmmakers to speak openly about what actually happened in the production, sales and distribution life of a film. The rules are, everything said in the room, stays in the room. Our goal is to create a safe space for discussion that allows filmmakers to have frank, meaningful discussions without the influence of industry in the room. We believe that one of the greatest resources for a filmmaker is another filmmaker.

In building a more knowledgeable and transparent community together, IDA tours “Here’s What Really Happened” sessions to various festivals and conferences around the world. These private conversations have focused on security/surveillance, sales agents, festival strategies, fact-finding, ethics, work/family life balance, truth-seeking in production, and other themes.

Learn what really happened behind-the-scenes in an upcoming session. It’s personal, it’s intimate, let’s get into it.


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Executive Producer/Director Abigail Disney ( The Armor of Light; Pray the Devil Back to Hell) kicks off IDA’s 2015/16 season of Master Classes with this special session that focuses on the important role of the Executive Producer on docs.
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October’s IDA Conversation Series event spotlights the exceptional films and remarkable career of Davis Guggenheim, director of the Academy Award® winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, one of the most influential films of our time.
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Join us for this special Bay Area edition of the IDA Conversation Series featuring the preeminent documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson in conversation with Orlando Bagwell, Director of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism documentary program.
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IDA’s Summer/Fall Conversation Series continues to dazzle in September with the remarkable Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney in conversation with the engaging Ben Mankiewicz.
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Free for IDA members and one guest on a first come, first served basis. Have your pressing questions answered and get the information you need at this timely session as Simon Kilmurry, IDA’s Executive Director, formerly of POV, holds a wide-ranging conversation and Q&A with Marie Nelson, PBS Vice President, News, Public Affairs & Independent Film and Lois Vossen, Founding and Deputy Executive Producer of Independent Lens.
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Free for IDA members on a first come, first served basis. Find out what the WGAW offers writers working on documentary films and nonfiction projects. The WGAW’s Independent Film Executive Kay S. Wolf and Contracts Administrator Elisabeth Flack will be on hand to answer your questions.
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Join us for the second event in our special Summer/Fall Conversation Series as host Ben Mankiewicz interviews Rory Kennedy, one of the preeminent documentary filmmakers of our time, and shows a selection of riveting clips from her extraordinary career.
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Our premiere event, featuring an onstage interview and clips program, spotlights the remarkable directing/producing team of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering. Their most recent documentary feature The Hunting Ground, a monumental exposé about sexual assault on college campuses, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and has focused national attention on this critical issue.
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Free for IDA members on a first come, first served basis. Are you interested in learning more about the Oscar ®-qualifying process for the Documentary Feature and Short Subject categories? Join us for this free information session. Tom Oyer, Awards Manager at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
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Interviewed by Josh Welsh Join us for a special evening with Ondi Timoner, the most dynamic force in documentary today. Recently bestowed with the honor of opening the 2015 SXSW Film Festival with her latest doc, BRAND: A Second Coming, Ondi has put herself in the upper echelon of doc makers through