One of the more prestigious precursors for the Documentary Oscar are the IDA Documentary Awards. While the International Documentary Association’s choices don’t always line up with the Academy’s, they can provide a snapshot of where the Doc race is a few months out. This morning, the IDA announced their shortlist for their 2021 awards and it provided good news for acclaimed docs such as “Summer of Soul,” “Ailey,” “Convergence: Courage in Crisis,” “In The Same Breath,” “Who Are You Charlie Brown?” and“Flee.”
READ MORE: “CODA,” “Summer of Soul” dominate 2021 Sundance Film Festival Awards
Up to ten nominees in each of the feature and short documentary categories will be selected from the shortlists. IDA members will then vote for Best Feature and Best Short starting Monday, December 13, 2021. This year there were over 748 submissions from 33 countries.
In a statement, Rick Pérez, Executive Director of IDA, noted, “These shortlists embody a range of cinematic styles, topics, themes and perspectives that reflect the best nonfiction filmmaking from throughout the world. From the urgent, to the poetic and profound, these films capture the unique way the documentary film is in dialogue with the national and global cultural landscape.”
As usual, the IDA giveth and the IDA also taketh way. The organization is notorious for their snubs and this year they include a biggie, NatGeo’s “The Rescue,” which is currently one of the best reviewed films (narrative or documentary) of the year. Two other NatGeo titles, “Fauci” and “Becoming Cousteau,” were also snubbed.
The IDA Awards will be handed out on Feb 5, 2022.
Here’s a complete list of this year’s shortlist selections for both the feature and short film categories.
IDA Documentary Awards 2021 Features Shortlist:
Ailey (USA / NEON. Director: Jamila Wignot. Producer: Lauren DeFilippo.)
Apenas el sol (Nothing but the Sun) (Switzerland, Paraguay/ Film republic. Director/Producer: Arami Ullón. Producer: Pascal Trächslin.)
Ascension (USA. Director/Producer: Jessica Kingdon. Producers: Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nathan Truesdell.)
Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (United Kingdom / Amazon Studios. Director: George Amponsah. Producer: Helen Bart.)
Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters (USA / Kino Lorber. Director: Tom Hurwitz. Director/Producer: Rosalynde LeBlanc. Producer: Duana C. Butler.)
Charm Circle (USA. Director/Producer: Nira Burstein. Producer: Betsy Laikin.)
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis (USA / Netflix. Director/Producer: Orlando von Einsiedel. Producers: Dan Cogan, Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby, Laura McNaught.)
Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground (USA / HBO Max. Director: Sophia Nahli Allison.)
Faya Dayi (Ethiopia, USA, Qatar / Janus Films. Director/Producer: Jessica Beshir.)
FLEE (Denmark, France, Norway / NEON. Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Producers: Monica Hellstrӧm,Signe Byrge Sørensen.)
FRUITS OF LABOR (USA / Grasshopper Films, POV. Director/Producer: Emily Cohen Ibañez.)
In the Same Breath (USA, China / HBO, HBO Max. Director/Producer: Nanfu Wang. Producers: Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn.)
Jacinta (USA / Hulu, ABC News. Director: Jessica Earnshaw. Producers: Jessica Earnshaw, Holly Meehl, Nimisha Mukerji.)
Life of Crime 1984-2020 (USA / HBO, HBO Max. Director/Producer: Jon Alpert. Producers: Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller.)
Miguel’s War (Lebanon, Germany, Spain. Director/Producer: Eliane Raheb.)
North By Current (USA / POV. Director/Producer: Angelo Madsen Minax. Producer: Felix Endara.)
Not Going Quietly (USA / Greenwich Entertainment. Director: Nicholas Bruckman. Producer: Amanda Roddy.)
President (Denmark, USA, Norway. Director: Camilla Nielsson. Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen, Joslyn Barnes.)
Rebel Hearts (USA / discovery+. Director: Pedro Kos. Producers: Kira Carstensen, Shawnee Isaac-Smith, Judy Korin.)
So Late So Soon (USA / Oscilloscope Laboratories. Director: Daniel Hymanson. Producers: Trace Henderson, Josh Penn, Kellen Quinn, Noah Stahl.)
Storm Lake (USA / Independent Lens. Director: Beth Levison, Jerry Risius. Producer: Beth Levison.)
Summer of Soul (USA / Hulu, Searchlight Pictures. Director: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Producers: Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent, David Dinerstein.)
Taming the Garden (Switzerland, Germany, Georgia. Director/Producer: Salomé Jashi. Producers: Vadim Jendreyko, Erik Winker, Martin Roelly.)
This Stained Dawn (Pakistan, Canada. Director/Producer: Anam Abbas.)
Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (USA / History. Director/Producers: Stanley Nelson, Marco Williams. Producer: Julie Sisson.)
Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (USA / Apple TV+. Director: Michael Bonfiglio. Producers: Kimberly Small, Marcella Steingart.)
Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker (USA / Kino Lorber. Director: Chris McKim. Producers: Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey.)
Writing With Fire (India / ITVS, Music Box. Director/Producers: Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh.)
Wuhan Wuhan (USA / Starlight Media Inc., SA Inc., Kartemquin Films. Director: Yung Chang. Producers: Peter Luo, Donna Gigliotti, Diane Quon.)
IDA Documentary Awards 2021 Shorts Shortlist:
A Broken House (USA, Lebanon / Condé Nast Entertainment, The New Yorker, POV. Director/Producer: Jimmy Goldblum. Producers: Matt Weaver, Harrison Nalevansky.)
Águilas (USA / The New Yorker. Director/Producers: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Maite Zubiaurre.)
Ain’t No Time For Women (Canada / Travelling. Director: Sarra El Abed. Producer: Isabelle Grignon-Francke)
Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol (USA / The New York Times. Directors: Malachy Browne, David Botti. Producers: Haley Willis, Christiaan Triebert, Evan Hill, Cora Engelbrecht, Stella Cooper.)
E14 (United Kingdom / Fifth Season LTD. Director: Peiman Zekavat. Producer: Sanam Jehanfard.)
Joe Buffalo (Canada / Condé Nast Entertainment, The New Yorker. Director/Producer: Amar Chebib. Producers: Hayley Morin, Mack Stannard)
Joychild (USA / The New Yorker, Stanford University. Director/Producer: Aurora Brachman)
Kalsubai (India / Film and Television Institute of India. Director: Yudhajit Basu)
Open Shutters (USA, Republic of Korea / Field of Vision. Director/Producer: Do Youjin.)
Red Taxi (USA, Hong Kong / Field of Vision. Director/Producer: Anonymous)
same/different/both/neither (Brazil / Photogram Films Distribution. Director/Producer: Adriana Barbosa, Fernanda Pessoa.)
Senior Prom (USA / PBS, Independent Lens. Director/Producer: Luisa Conlon. Producer: Jessica Chermayeff.)
Since you arrived, my heart stopped belonging to me (Desde que llegaste, mi corazón dejó de pertenecerme) (USA / The New Yorker. Director/Producer: Erin Semine Kökdil)
Status Pending (USA / Al Jazeera English – Witness. Director: Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz. Producer: Laura Reich.)
Takeover (USA. Director: Emma Francis-Snyder. Producer: Tony Gerber.)
The Last Cruise (USA / HBO Max. Director/Producer: Hannah Olson. Producers: Shane Boris, Joe Beshenkovsky, James A Smith.)
The Seeker (USA / Topic. Director: Lance Edmands. Producers: Kyle Martin, Sarah Tihany.)
