International Documentary Association (IDA)

What’s Being Lost in the Documentary Space As Congress Defunds Public Media "We may have lost our funding, but unlike Congress, we have not lost our way," writes ITVS boss Carrie Lozano as she assesses a less vibrant documentary landscape without the $9 million her organizati...

"We may have lost our funding, but unlike Congress, we have not lost our way."

An important read from Carrie Lozano, ITVS CEO and former IDA Funds Director. Thank you, Carrie!

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The time is now! ⏰ Share your work by 11:59 PM PT today for IDA Documentary Awards consideration at documentary.org/awards/enter

Sheffield DocFest 2025: Tender Shoots “Always balance, everything in balance,” intones Raul Niño Zambrano, all smiles and relaxed on the last morning of his fourth year as creative director of Sheffield DocFest. It’s an aspirational mantr...

For @documentary.org, I took the measure of last month's @sheffdocfest.bsky.social, its platforming of deplatformed political filmmakers, visions of Palestine and more from Ukraine, and four great finds (including my favourites, A Simple Soldier and The Gas Station Attendant)

Sheffield DocFest 2025: Tender Shoots “Always balance, everything in balance,” intones Raul Niño Zambrano, all smiles and relaxed on the last morning of his fourth year as creative director of Sheffield DocFest. It’s an aspirational mantr...

Longtime Sheffield DocFest attendee Nick Bradshaw reported on the UK festival’s steady hold within a rapidly changing world for #DocumentaryMag!

www.documentary.org/online-featu...

“You Can Cheat on Reality”: Emeline Courcier on Her Immersive Artwork ‘Burn From Absence’ For her immersive artwork Burn From Absence, artist Emeline Courcier creates an archive where there was none. Using artificial intelligence, she recreates a family album, visualizing and verifying a h...

“You Can Cheat on Reality”: Emeline Courcier on Her Immersive Artwork ‘Burn From Absence’. Read on #DocumentaryMag!

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This week’s #DocOfTheWeek is ‘The Space Less Traveled’ by co-directors/producers Antares Davis and Cameron Jutte.

Learn more about the project and show support at www.documentary.org/project/spac...

The Explainer: Why Is Calm Content Taking Over TV and Digital Platforms? Slowness has been an established mode of cinema for many decades, but the commercial demands of television meant it took longer for that medium to adopt such a form, thanks to the medium’s mass-market...

For @documentary.org I explored the growing sphere of "ambient entertainment." Read it in the most calming, soothing voice you can imagine documentary.org/column/expla...

Text reads: We're live! Introducing...Disability Media Alliance. DisabilityMedia.org. Image description: A red square image features a Black person with no hair and over-the-ear headphones. They are sitting in a wheelchair pulled up to a desk with a microphone on it. There is a dark red shutter icon in the background, and Disability Media Alliance's colorful logo in the corner.

We’re live! Introducing Disability Media Alliance, a global nonprofit building infrastructure to resource disabled nonfiction media makers!Learn more about our work to support disabled perspectives in nonfiction media making: disabilitymedia.org
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#DisabilityMedia #DisabilityJustice

Disability Media Alliance Launches to Serve Disabled Nonfiction Storytellers Around the World Documentary is pleased to announce that the Disability Media Alliance, or DMA, has launched today. Incubated through IDA’s own Nonfiction Access Initiative (NAI), DMA came about after research to addr...

Incubated through IDA’s Nonfiction Access Initiative (NAI), the Disability Media Alliance (DMA) came about after research to address enduring inequities in the documentary community. @disabilitymedia.bsky.social

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“Thinking About Cinema Here Is a Revolutionary Act”: Giffoni Programmer Rosario Minervini Discusses Nurturing Young Audiences Through Doc Storytelling Since its founding in 1971 in the small town of Giffoni Valle Piana in southern Italy, the Giffoni Film Festival has grown into a global reference point for cinema made for—and with—young people. In t...

“Of all the film festivals, Giffoni is the most necessary.” - François Truffaut

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Legal FAQ: AI Tips for U.S. Documentary Filmmakers It seems like the world wakes up to new information about artificial intelligence technology every day. From the lawsuits over the use of unlicensed works to train AI models, to the controversies that...

Legal FAQ: AI Tips for U.S. Documentary Filmmakers, read on #DocumentaryMag!

www.documentary.org/column/legal...

This week's #DocOfTheWeek is 'Prayer Horse' by co-directors Tom Laffay and Josh Dini, and producer Juan Devis.

Learn more about the project and show support at www.documentary.org/project/pray...

Probing Prosperity: Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan Discuss ‘Made in Ethiopia’ In Made in Ethiopia, filmmakers Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan tackle a topical behemoth through the intimate lens of three women on the precipice of change. Made in Ethiopia explores the complexities of th...

Probing Prosperity: Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan Discuss ‘Made in Ethiopia’

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Remembering Joel DeMott Joel DeMott, renowned cinema vérité filmmaker, died on June 13, 2025. DeMott is best known for her films Seventeen (1983), which she co-directed with Jeff Kreines, and Demon Lover Diary (1980).  Along...

Joel DeMott, best known for her films Seventeen (1983), which she co-directed with Jeff Kreines, and Demon Lover Diary (1980), died on June 13. Alongside Kreines, DeMott created a model of intimate cinema vérité filmmaking that has inspired countless filmmakers.

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“Their Story Deserved a Film”: Bipuljit Basu Discusses Collaboration in ‘Red Light to Limelight’ Red Light to Limelight strikes a fine balance between the tragic stories of individual sex workers in Kolkata’s Kalighat red light neighborhood and the joyous community activity of filmmaking. Bipulji...

“Their Story Deserved a Film”: Bipuljit Basu Discusses Collaboration in ‘Red Light to Limelight’

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Tomorrow is the regular deadline for the 2025 #IDADocAwards Call for Entries. To take advantage of lower entry fees, share your work for consideration by July 15 at 11:59 PM PT. IDA members get discounts on entry fees! Final Deadline: August 1, 2025. Enter now at documentary.org/awards/enter

This week's #DocOfTheWeek is 'Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man' by director/producer Trisha Ziff, producer Ross McDonnell, cinematographers Seamus McGarvey & Jeronimo Goded, editor Jorge Sanchez and EP Bahman Naraghi.

Learn more about the project & show support at www.documentary.org/project/adam...

“I Will Become My Own Institution”: Alaa Minawi Discusses His Immersive Installation ‘The Liminal’ Alaa Minawi’s The Liminal gives an alternative definition of “immersive” from the typical technological, digital one. In his practice, the Palestinian-Lebanese-Dutch interdisciplinary artist explores ...

Artist Alaa Minawi's work bridges installation & performance, engaging the audience in an immersive way.

I talked to him about The Liminal, which recieved an award at IDFA's @doclab.bsky.social in its wip form, and his #arabfuturism series, for @documentary.org

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'Forever We Are Young,' co-directed by IDA member Grace Lee and Patty Ahn is a love letter to ARMY, created by ARMY. The documentary reflects real stories of connection and shared meaning, honoring the unique and powerful bond between BTS and ARMY. In Cinemas Worldwide from July 30! btsarmymovie.com

Brown Girls Doc Mafia Announces Three 2025 Sustainable Artist Fellows Brown Girls Doc Mafia, commonly referred to as BGDM, has officially announced the 2025 cohort of the Sustainable Artist Fellowship. The fellowship—which is supported this year by the Michael Latt Lega...

Brown Girls Doc Mafia Announces Three 2025 Sustainable Artist Fellows

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Exclusive: Clip of Doctors Without Borders Mission From Sam Abbas’s ‘Europe’s New Faces’ Documentary is proud to debut a clip from Europe’s New Faces, directed by Sam Abbas. The film is an empathetic, unfiltered depiction of both the challenges and triumphs faced by migrants—-from the har...

Exclusive on #DocumentaryMag: Clip of Doctors Without Borders Mission From Sam Abbas’s ‘Europe’s New Faces’

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Three Great Documentaries to Stream In this month’s picks, a look back at a city in France during the Nazi occupation, an assessment of a renowned gay politician and an exploration of press freedoms in sovereign tribal nations.

@nytimes.com featured "Bad Press" — chronicling a battle for #pressfreedom in the Muscogee Nation — as a great documentary to stream this month!

Through our partnership with @documentary.org, @rcfp.org attorneys provided free legal support for the film.

This week's #DocOfTheWeek is 'Dear Sirs' by director/producer Mark Pedri and producer Carrie McCarthy.

Learn more about the project and show support at www.documentary.org/project/dear...

Window Dressing: ‘The United States of America’ at 50 On the brink of America’s bicentennial, two filmmakers, a then-couple, filmed their cross-country road trips from the backseat of a car. The United States of America (1975) is the 27-minute product of...

On the brink of America’s bicentennial, two filmmakers, a then-couple, filmed their cross-country road trips from the backseat of a car. Read more on #DocumentaryMag!

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How to Best Describe Your GenAI Materials in Documentary Proposals: Four Approaches, From a Grant Reviewer As a reviewer for a couple of documentary grants, the process is a lovely way to learn more about what stories my peers are exploring, what styles and forms are standing out from the pack, and to make...

How to Best Describe Your GenAI Materials in Documentary Proposals: Four Approaches, From a Grant Reviewer

documentary.org/online-featu...

Exclusive: Trailer From Dmytro Hreshko’s Karlovy Vary-Premiering ‘Divia’ Documentary is thrilled to debut the trailer of Divia, the latest film by Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Hreshko (Snow Leopard of the Carpathians, King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War), set to...

Exclusive on #DocumentaryMag: Trailer From Dmytro Hreshko’s Karlovy Vary-Premiering ‘Divia’

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Tribeca Immersive 2025: Better Off Together It’s only us; there’s no them. That’s the provocation at Tribeca’s 2025 Immersive exhibition, titled In Search of Us, mounted in partnership with Onassis ONX and Agog. The exhibit seeks to challenge t...

It’s only us; there’s no them. That’s the provocation at Tribeca’s 2025 #Immersive exhibition, titled 'In Search of Us', seeks to challenge the act of othering that is so entrenched in media landscapes with “us vs. them” ideologies.

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Exclusive: Trailer from Garry Keane’s Doc Edge-Premiering ‘A Quiet Love’ Documentary is proud to unveil the trailer of A Quiet Love, a powerful new feature from acclaimed Irish filmmaker Garry Keane (GAZA, In the Shadow of Beirut), which will have its world premiere later ...

Exclusive on #DocumentaryMag: Trailer from Garry Keane’s Doc Edge-Premiering ‘A Quiet Love’

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This week's #DocOfTheWeek is 'Inquiry of Shadows' by director Rayah Ali.

Learn more about the project and show support at www.documentary.org/project/inqu...

Getting Real ’26 Mixer Join us at IDA’s office on Monday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m. PT and be amongst the first to preview Getting Real ‘26!

Join us at IDA’s office Today, Monday, June 30, at 6-8
PM PT and be amongst the first to preview Getting Real ’26! #DocsGetReal

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