The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced top honorary awards for the 2013 IDA Documentary Awards today. The 29th Annual IDA Documentary Awards will be held on Friday, December 6th at the Director’s Guild in Los Angeles.
The IDA will present its prestigious 2013 Career Achievement Award to Academy Award®– and Emmy Award-winning director, producer and writer Alex Gibney. Gibney is prolific filmmaker known for his uncompromising and in-depth profiles of influential public figures and his investigation of critical topics of our times. He premiered two films in 2013, including: “The Armstrong Lie,” an exposition of the myth and reality of Lance Armstrong, and “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” a profile of the controversial media figure Julian Assange. Included in Gibney’s award-winning body of work are feature documentaries: “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” (2012), which recently won three Emmy® Awards including the award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking 2013; “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” (2010), for which Gibney received a DGA Award nomination for Best Director; and “Taxi to the Dark Side” (2007), which won an Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature, an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Research, a Best Director nomination from the DGA and a Writer’s Guild Award for Best Screenplay. Gibney also received an Academy Award® nomination for “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” (2005).
The IDA Career Achievement Award is given to a filmmaker who has made a major impact on the documentary genre through a long and distinguished body of work. In previous years, the IDA has bestowed its Career Achievement Award on documentary luminaries such as Barbara Kopple, Errol Morris, Michael Moore and Werner Herzog.
The organization’s Amicus Award will be presented to Geralyn Dreyfous. Dreyfous’ executive producing and producing credits include the Academy Award®-winning “Born Into Brothels” (2004), the Academy Award®-nominated “The Invisible War” (2012), the Emmy®-nominated “The Day My God Died” (2003) as well as 2013’s “The Square and The Crash Reel.” Dreyfous is the Founder/ Board Chair of the Utah Film Center, a charter member of the Utah Coalition for Film and Media, and co-founder, with Dan Cogan, of Impact Partners Film Fund, an organization that brings financiers and filmmakers together to create documentaries focused on social change. Impact Partners has been involved in the financing of over 30 films, including several Academy Award®-winning documentaries. Dreyfous has a wide background in the arts, long experience in consulting in the philanthropic sector and is active on many boards and initiatives.
The IDA Amicus Award acknowledges friends of the documentary genre who have contributed significantly to our industry. This significant award has been given only three other times in the 29-year history of the IDA Documentary Awards, to Michael Donaldson, John Hendricks and Steven Spielberg.
Laura Poitras will receive 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. Along with Glenn Greenwald, Poitras broke the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealing the PRISM program. Poitras is working on a trilogy of films about America post 9/11. The first film, “My Country,” My Country (2006), was nominated for an Academy Award®, Independent Spirit Award and Emmy® Award. The second film, “The Oath” (2010), received a Gotham Award for Best Documentary, the Sundance Film Festival Award
