31st Annual IDA Awards Nominees
Best Feature Award
Amy
Director: Asif Kapadia
Producer: James Gay-Rees
A24
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Director: Stanley Nelson
Producer: Laurens Grant
PBS Distribution
Listen to Me Marlon
Director: Stevan Riley
Producer: John Battsek
Showtime Documentary Films
The Look of Silence
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen
Drafthouse Films and Participant Media
The Russian Woodpecker
Director: Chad Gracia
Producer: Ram Devineni and Mike Lerner
FilmBuff
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Director: Liz Garbus
Netflix
Best Short Award
Body Team 12
Director: David Darg
Producer: Bryn Mooser
RYOT Films and Vulcan Productions
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
Director: Adam Benzine
HBO
The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul
Director: Kitty Green
Producer: Philippa Campey
KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg (Germany)
Last Day of Freedom
Directors: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
Object
Director: Paulina Skibińska
Munk Studio and Polish Filmmakers Association
Best Curated Series Award
30 for 30
Executive Producers John Dahl and Connor Schell
ESPN
America ReFramed
Executive Producers: Chris Hastings and Simon Kilmurry
WORLD Channel
Independent Lens
Executive Producers: Sally Jo Fifer and Lois Vossen
ITVS/PBS
POV
Executive Producers: Simon Kilmurry and Chris White
POV, PBS
Storyville
Series Editor: Nick Fraser
Executive Producer: Kate Townsend
BBC TV, BBC World News
Best Limited Series Award
Blood Brothers
Executive Producers: Kees Schaap and Anja van Oostrom
Vara Television (The Netherlands)
Hard Earned
Executive Producers: Steve James, Justine Nagan, and Gordon Quinn
Series Producer: Maggie Bowman
Al Jazeera America and Kartemquin Films
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Executive Producer: Jason Blum
Co-Executive Producer: Zac Stuart-Pontier
Produced by: Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling
HBO
Life Story
Executive Producer: Mike Gunton
Discovery
Rebel Architecture
Executive Producer: Fiona Lawson-Baker
Al Jazeera English
Best Episodic Series Award
Chef’s Table
Executive Producers: David Gelb, Andrew Fried, and Brian McGinn
Netflix
Morgan Spurlock Inside Man
Executive Producers: Jeremy Chilnick, Matthew Galkin, and Morgan Spurlock
CNN and Warrior Poets
NOVA
Senior Executive Producer: Paula Apsell
Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Cort
PBS
The Seventies
Executive Producers: Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, and Mark Herzog
CNN, Playtone, and Herzog & Company
This is Life with Lisa Ling
Executive Producers: Amy Bucher, Lisa Ling, and David Shadrack Smith
CNN and part2 pictures
Best Short Form Series Award
Do Not Track
Executive Producer: Hugues Sweeney
National Film Board of Canada, Upian, Arte, and BR
Highrise: Universe Within
Executive Producers: Anita Lee and Silva Basmajian
National Film Board of Canada
The New York Times Op-Docs
Executive Producer: Jason Spingarn-Koff
The New York Times
POV Interactive Documentaries
Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry and Adnaan Wasey
POV and PBS
WE THE ECONOMY: 20 Short Films You Can't Afford to Miss
Executive Producer: Paul G. Allen and Morgan Spurlock
Vulcan Productions and Cinelan
David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award
This award recognizes exceptional achievement in non-fiction film and video production at the university level and brings greater public and industry awareness to the work of students in the documentary field.
The Archipelago
Director: Benjamin Huguet
The National Film and Television School
The Blue Wall
Director: Michael Milano
University of California, Berkeley
El Cacao
Director: Michelle Aguilar
University of California Santa Cruz
In Attla’s Tracks
Director: Catharine Axley
Stanford University
Looking at the Stars
Director: Alexandre Peralta
University of Southern California
Pare Lorentz Award
The Pare Lorentz Award recognizes films that demonstrate exemplary filmmaking while focusing on the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems.
How to Change the World
Director: Jerry Rothwell
ABC News VideoSource Award
This award is given each year for the best use of news footage as an integral component in a documentary.
(T)ERROR
Directors: Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
Independent Lens along with BBC
Best of Enemies
Directors: Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville
Magnolia Pictures and Independent Lens
Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
Director: John Pirozzi
Argot Pictures
Night Will Fall
Director: André Singer
HBO
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Director: Liz Garbus
Netflix
Creative Recognition Award Winners
The Creative Recognition category recognizes special achievement in cinematography, editing, music and writing in films entered in the Feature Category.
Best Cinematography
The Russian Woodpecker
Cinematography by: Artem Ryzhykov
Best Editing
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Edited by: Joe Beshenkovsky and Brett Morgen
Best Writing
Listen to Me Marlon
Written by: Stevan Riley
Co-Writer: Peter Ettedgui
Best Music
Best of Enemies
Original Score by: Jonathan Kirkscey
31st Annual IDA Awards Honorees
Career Achievement Award
Gordon Quinn
The IDA will present its prestigious 2015 Career Achievement Award to Gordon Quinn, Founder and Artistic Director of Kartemquin Films. Quinn was integral to the creation of ITVS, public access television in Chicago, and the Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practice in Fair Use; and in forming the Indie Caucus to support diverse independent voices on Public Television. Over his 50 years at Kartemquin, Quinn has produced, directed, and/or been a cinematographer for over 55 films, and inspired and guided an immeasurable number of media makers whose films have left a lasting impact on millions of viewers.
Pioneer Award
Ted Sarandos
The Pioneer Award is presented to acknowledge extraordinary contributions to advancing the nonfiction form and providing exceptional vision and leadership to the documentary community. This year, the Pioneer Award will be presented to Ted Sarandos, the Chief Content Officer at Netflix, in recognition of his leadership of Netflix’s game-changing and unwavering support of creating and showcasing nonfiction programming, which has greatly broadened its availability and popularity around the world.
Amicus Award
Tony Tabatznik and the Bertha Foundation
Tony Tabatznik and the Bertha Foundation will receive the IDA’s Amicus Award in recognition of their work supporting the essential needs of the non-fiction media landscape. Founded in 2009, the Bertha Foundation’s vision was to connect activists, lawyers and storytellers to fight for fundamental social and economic change. The Bertha Foundation’s Media Program specifically aims to nurture global talent, expose relevant stories and connect them to audiences for powerful, positive social impact.
Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award
Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe, directors of (T)ERROR, will receive IDA's Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award, which recognizes the achievements of a filmmaker who has made a significant impact at the beginning of his or her career in documentary film. (T)ERROR received a grant from IDA’s Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund in 2013.
Courage Under Fire Award
Matthew Heineman
Matthew Heineman will receive the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, in recognition of conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth. This award is presented to documentary filmmakers by their peers for putting freedom of speech – represented in the crafts of documentary filmmaking and journalism – above all else, even their own personal safety. Heineman’s gripping film, Cartel Land, documents two modern-day vigilante movements – Dr. José Mireles’s citizen-led uprising against a violent drug cartel wreaking havoc in Mexico and the Arizona Border Recon led by Tim “Nailer” Foley, which is working to prevent Mexico’s drug wars from crossing into the United States.