The International Documentary Association (IDA) is a Los Angeles, California-based nonprofit organization that provides educational training and fiscal funding for left-of-center documentary filmmakers. ¹ Founded by Linda Buzzwell in 1982, IDA offers grants to independent documentary filmmakers and engages in social and political advocacy to protect documentarians’ exception to a federal digital copyright law. ^{2 3}

One of IDA’s largest grants, the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund, provides funding for documentaries that explicitly cover left-wing political and social issues, such as environmentalism, race, and gender. ⁴ It also funded No Other Land, the 2025 Oscar winner for Best Documentary that criticized Israel’s actions towards Palestinians and presented an explicitly pro-Palestinian point of view regarding the Israel-Hamas war of 2023-2025. ^{5 6 7}

Initiatives

The International Documentary Association (IDA) hosts a year-round series of seminars, panels, and workshops for its members. ⁸ Its memberships range in cost from $55 to $5,000 per year. ⁹ IDA also hosts documentary screenings where it shows the best documentaries of the year. ¹⁰

IDA maintains a biennial documentary conference called “Getting Real” that brings together documentary makers from across the world to collaborate, strategize, and expand the global documentary network. ¹¹ Notable sponsors of the 2024 Getting Real conference included the Ford Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Golden Globe Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, National Geographic Documentary Films, the Wyncote Foundation, Delta, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). ¹² IDA also gives awards each year to specific documentaries across an array of artistic categories. ¹³

IDA publishes Documentary Magazine, a print and online publication dealing with stories from around the global documentary community. ¹⁴

Fiscal Sponsorships and Grants

The International Documentary Association (IDA) provides grants to several documentary and film projects. In 2024, said grants totaled over $7 million. ¹⁵

Independent filmmakers can apply for funding through several funds, including the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund. This fund provides grants totaling $95,000 per project for the creation of original documentary films that address pertinent left-of-center social issues in the United States, most notably environmentalism, race, and gender. Since the fund’s inception in 2011, IDA has granted $1,285,000 to 69 projects. ^{15 4}

Noteworthy projects that received Pare Lorentz grants include Black Mothers, a documentary on what it considers systemic racism in American policing; Not Going Quietly, a story about health care activism; Hummingbirds, a film about illegal immigration and the Texas-Mexico border; After Sherman, a story about alleged racism in South Carolina; and Crip Camp, a documentary about the nascent disability rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. ^{16 17 18 19 20}

The IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund is an IDA grantmaking program that funds documentary filmmakers committed to cutting edge journalism and what is calls “high-stakes storytelling.” IDA claims this fund is intended to promote and support stories that are no longer “covered [by the] legacy media.” ²¹

The IDA Field-Building Fund is an IDA grant intended to fund projects with little to no operating budgets and independent nonfiction media makers working with limited means. ²²

The Logan Elevate Grant is an IDA grant intended to provide funds to emerging women filmmakers of color and non-binary filmmakers of color directing feature-length journalistic documentary films. ²³

The Nonfiction Access Initiative is an IDA grant program funded by the Ford Foundation that funds nonfiction storytellers and media makers from the disabled community. ²⁴

IDA lists its inactive grants which include the IDA Netflix Global Emerging Filmmaker Award which awarded $25,000 to emerging documentary makers from four different countries. Other inactive IDA grants include the IDA Sarowitz Project Completion Fund and the IDA+XRM Media Incubator, which supported short form documentaries with the help of Academy Award-nominated directors and producers. ¹⁵

In 2025, IDA announced a pause to its grant offerings as it “has been redesigning” and “restructuring” its programs. ¹⁵

Advocacy

The International Documentary Association (IDA) seeks to use its work to advocate for several social and political issues. For example, since 2010, IDA has led a coalition of film organizations in a legal challenge to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which makes it illegal to borrow from DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and other encrypted technologies to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works. The University of Irvine (UCI) Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic, Donaldson + Callif, Film Independent, and Kartemquin Films have joined IDA in its attempt to exempt documentary filmmakers from the DMCA. IDA claims the law blocks documentary filmmakers’ ability to make fair use of footage. ²⁵

In 2024, IDA expressed its support for the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act which it called “a journalist-protection bill.” ²⁶ The bill would prohibit the federal government from compelling journalists to disclose certain protected information. The bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but died in committee in the U.S. Senate. ²⁷

In March 2022, IDA joined over 500 international film professionals and institutions in signing a letter in support of Ukrainian filmmakers’ effort to combat what IDA called “the toxic disinformation war waged by Russia.” IDA encouraged its members and donors to consider donating to several international fundraising campaigns in support of Ukrainian filmmakers during the Russia-Ukraine War. ²⁸

Oscar Recognition

The International Documentary Association (IDA) provided a grant for No Other Land, a pro-Palestinian documentary that received the Oscar for “Best Documentary.” The film, set in the West Bank, was produced by two Palestinians and two Israelis and brought the first ever Oscar for Palestinian filmmakers. The pro-Palestinian film portrays Israel as a colonial oppressor of Palestinians living in the disputed territories. ^{5 7 6}

Leadership

Dominic Asmall Willsdon is the executive director of the International Documentary Association (IDA). Willsdon previously founded the film program at Tate Modern in London with the British Film Institute. He later joined the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as a curator of Education and Public Programs from 2006 to 2018. In 2018, Willsdon became executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University where he founded its film program. Willsdon has worked as a curator international contemporary art biennials in Porto Alegre, Brazil and Liverpool, England. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Visual Culture. Willsdon studied art history and philosophy at the Universities of Edinburgh, Essex, and Paris. ²⁹

Ina Fichman is co-president of the board of directors of IDA. She has been producing creative documentaries, interactive projects and series for more than 25 years. Her company, Intuitive Pictures, is based in Montreal, Quebec. Fichman sits on the board of Hot Docs and chairs the national board of the Documentary Association of Canada. ³⁰

Michael Turner is co-president of the board of directors of IDA. He is senior director and head of Original Documentary Films at Netflix, where he oversees business and legal affairs. Before joining Netflix, Turner was senior vice president and head of business and legal affairs at Discovery’s production studio. He holds degrees in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore College and a law degree from Cardozo. ³⁰

Financials

In 2023, the International Documentary Association (IDA) reported $14,226,333 in total revenue, $14,885,483 in total expenses, and $9,778,720 in total assets. IDA received $238,480 in government grants in 2023. ³¹

Since 2011, IDA and its sponsored projects have received $1,542,000 in grants from the Ford Foundation. ^{32 33}

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2. “About Us – History.” International Documentary Association. Accessed March 10, 2025.  https://www.documentary.org/about-us/history
3. “Advocacy.” International Documentary Association. Accessed March 10, 2025.  https://www.documentary.org/advocacy
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29. “Staff – Dominic Asmall Willsdon.” International Documentary Association. Accessed March 10, 2025.  https://www.documentary.org/staff/dominic-asmall-willsdon
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