October 4, 2020
Getting Real ‘20 ’s Main Stage programming sought to address some timely issues within the documentary community, and sparked nuanced, thought-
Funding
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September 14, 2020Since our founding in 2016, the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA) has grown to include over 300 members from 53 cities, eight countries and counting. Originally founded to advocate for producers whose role was misunderstood and chronically underpaid, the DPA’s work allowed us to realize that the issues we were facing were not due to our professional failures but to systemic ones larger than ourselves. Our goal as an organization is to identify and advocate for best practices for a field that is largely unregulated.
February 5, 2020When IDA launched the Enterprise Documentary Fund at Sundance 2017, the festival coincided with the Women's March and Trump's inauguration. The
November 16, 2019Since its founding in 2006, Cinereach has grown from a foundation formed to support independent filmmakers through grants, to an award-winning funder
July 18, 2019 @In the Grant Writing Master Class, IDA's Program Officer Dana Merwin outlines the multi-faceted grant-writing process for documentary projects. From the Fiscal Sponsorship program, which has supported documentary production and post-production for nearly 30 years, to the specialized funding of...
May 18, 2019Filmmaker Pare Lorentz believed movies held enormous potential for social justice and education. In his 1936 film The Plow That Broke the Plains ,
February 28, 2019IDA announced sixteen grants totaling $245,000 to films through its Enterprise Documentary Fund and Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund.
January 24, 2019Raising money for a film often feels like a Sysyphean task, constantly pushing a boulder up a hill. But as documentaries have become more popular
January 15, 2019Editor’s Note: What follows is a statement from the IDA regarding the Documentary Producers Alliance ’s “ Best Practices in Documentary Crediting.”
January 4, 2019This is a fully revised look at documentary budgeting, and updates the 2006 Documentary article “Don’t Fudge on Your Budget: Toeing the Line Items.” At the center of the documentary "business" is the budget, which offers a map of the filmmaking process, expressing both the film you’re planning to make and how you plan to make it. Ideally, it is also a living document that can help get a film to completion.