The 36th annual IDA Awards are getting underway now in a virtual ceremony that should help bring clarity to a documentary race crowded with an unprecedented number of Oscar contenders.
Of the 10 nominees vying for the International Documentary Association’s Best Feature, Garrett Bradley’s Time enters as the favorite. The film from Amazon Studios – something of a case study in the problem of mass incarceration – earned top documentary honors from critics groups in Los Angeles and New York and earlier this week tied with A Thousand Cuts for top nonfiction honors at the Gotham Awards.
Bradley is also nominated for Best Director and will receive the IDA’s previously announced Emerging Filmmaker Award.
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Netflix counters Amazon’s Time with a strong contender of its own in Crip Camp, which leads the IDA field with five nominations overall going into tonight including Best Feature and Best Director for the team of Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. The film from Higher Ground Productions, the company founded by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, centers on a summer camp for disabled kids that in the 1970s welcomed many teens who later became leaders in the disability rights movement.
Another top Netflix Oscar contender, Dick Johnson Is Dead, surprisingly didn’t earn an IDA Best Feature nomination, though it’s up for editing and writing awards.
The other Best Feature nominees are Collective, Gunda, MLK/FBI, The Reason I Jump, Reunited, Softie, The Truffle Hunters and Welcome to Chechnya.
The IDA Awards has proven an uncertain predictor of Oscar success. Last time around, For Sama won the IDA’s Best Feature prize, but American Factory went on to claim the Oscar (American Factory directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert did win the IDA’s award for directing). In fact, in the last five years only once has the IDA Best Feature winner gone on to earn Oscar gold: 2016’s O.J.: Made in America.
The IDA will present awards in multiple categories, including shorts, music documentary, curated series, multi-part documentary and craft awards. Keep checking back as we update with the latest winners:
Best Feature
Crip Camp (USA / Netflix. Directors and Producers: Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. Producer: Sara Bolder)
Best Director
Garrett Bradley (Time. USA / Amazon Studios, Concordia Studio, The New York Times)
Best Short
John Was Trying to Contact Aliens (USA / Netflix. Director and Producer: Matthew Killip)
Best Curated Series
American Experience (USA / PBS. Executive Producers: Susan Bellows and Mark Samels)
Best Episodic Series
Last Chance U (USA / Netflix. Director and Executive Producer: Greg Whiteley. Executive Producers: Joe
LaBracio, James D. Stern, Lucas Smith, Andrew Fried, Dane Lillegard)
Best Multi-Part Documentary
Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (USA / HBO. Directors and Executive Producers: Sam Pollard, Maro Chermayeff, Joshua Bennett, Jeff Dupre. Executive Producers: John Legend, Mike Jackson, Ty Stiklorious, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller)
Best Short Form Series
POV Shorts (USA / PBS. Producer: Opal H. Bennett. Executive Producers: Justine Nagan, Chris White)
Best Audio Documentary
Somebody (USA / Topic Studios, The Intercept, the Invisible Institute, and iHeartRadio, in association with Tenderfoot TV. Reporters and Producers: Alison Flowers, Bill Healy and Sarah Geis. Host: Shapearl Wells. Reporters: Sam Stecklow, Annie Nguyen, Kahari Blackburn, Rajiv Sinclair, Henri Adams, Matilda Vojak, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Frances McDonald, Diana Akmajian, Andrew Fan and Maddie Anderson. Associate Producer: Ellen Glover. Executive Producers: Jamie Kalven, Maria Zuckerman, Christy Gressman, Leital Molad)
Best Music Documentary
Universe (USA. Directors: Sam Osborn and Nicholas Capezzera. Producers: Esther Dere and Leah Natasha Thomas)
David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award
People Like Me (USA / University of California Santa Cruz. Director/Producer: Marrok Sedgwick, Co-Editor: Jackson Patrick-Sternin)
Best Cinematography
The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (Ukraine, Lithuania. Cinematographer: Viacheslav Tsvietkov)
Best Editing
Dick Johnson Is Dead (USA / Netflix. Editor: Nels Bangerter)
Best Writing
Dick Johnson is Dead (USA / Netflix. Writers: Nels Bangerter and Kirsten Johnson)
Best Music Score
My Octopus Teacher (USA / Netflix. Composer: Kevin Smuts)
ABC News VideoSource Award
Crip Camp (USA / Netflix. Directors/Producers: Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht. Producer: Sara Bolder)
Pare Lorentz Award
WINNER
My Octopus Teacher (USA / Netflix)
Director: Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed
Producer: Craig Foster
HONORABLE MENTION
Crip Camp (USA / Netflix)
Directors/Producers: Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht
Producer: Sara Bolder
Honorary Awards
Amicus Award
Regina K. Scully
Career Achievement Award
Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI)
Courage Under Fire Award
David France, David Isteev and Olga Baranova (Welcome to Chechnya)
Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award
Garrett Bradley (Time)
Pioneer Award
Firelight Media
Truth to Power Award
Maria Ressa and Rappler (A Thousand Cuts)
This article is auto-generated by Algorithm Source: deadline.com
