EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-nominated producer Julie Goldman, Oscar-contending director Brittany Shyne, and documentary powerhouse Impact Partners will be honored at the 41st IDA Documentary Awards in early December.
Goldman, a two-time Academy Award nominee for Life, Animated and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, will receive the IDA Career Achievement Award. Her first producing credit came with the 1997 crime comedy Free Floaters, but most of her subsequent work has focused on documentary. She has partnered with many of the great talents in the field, including Roger Ross Williams, Steve James, Nanfu Wang, Maite Alberdi, and Ramona S. Diaz.
One of Goldman’s most recent producing projects, Selena y Los Dinos – about late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla and her family – will premiere on Netflix on November 17. It was acquired by the streamer following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
‘Seeds’
Walking Productions
Shyne, who broke out this year with her documentary Seeds, will receive the IDA’s Emerging Filmmaker Award. Her film about Black farmers in the South who work land that’s been in their families for generations won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance.
“Working in the narrative and non-fiction artform, Shyne’s work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation, and cultural modernization,” the IDA writes. “By utilizing observational techniques and poetic language, her films lyrically weave together frameworks of race, class, culture, and family lineage. She has worked as a cinematographer on films such as The Debutantes (Tribeca, ‘24), This Time, This Place (Tribeca, ‘21), and Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s Academy Award-winning film American Factory 美国 工厂(Sundance ‘19).”
Impact Partners staff: (top row L-R) Executive Director Jenny Raskin, co-founder Geralyn Dreyfous, co-founder Dan Cogan. Middle row L-R Chief Operating Officer Amy Augustino, VP of Production Kelsey Koenig, Development Manager Chelsea Williams. (Bottom row L-R) Operations Manager Skye Ward, Director of Development Chris Boeckmann.
The IDA will present the Pioneer Award to Impact Partners, the Brooklyn-based film fund that has supported a legion of independent documentary projects and filmmakers. Founded in 2007, Impact Partners “pioneered a unique model of funding that brings together a community of investors with filmmakers to tell powerful stories about critical issues facing our world,” notes a release. Impact Partners provides crucial financing to work that “entertains audiences, engages with pressing social issues, and propels the art of cinema forward.”
For the first time, the IDA Documentary Awards will unfold over three days – December 4, 5, and 6 – instead of on a single night as in previous years. “This December, IDA will gather the documentary community at multiple events across downtown Los Angeles to celebrate this year’s films and honor with special awards filmmakers Julie Goldman and Brittany Shyne, and the pioneering work of Impact Partners,” commented Dominic Asmall Willsdon, the IDA’s executive director.
IDA
The reconceived and expanded IDA Awards is meant to “enhance the connection between nominees, give them more opportunities to build their networks with fellow nominees, distributors, studios, television networks, press and other constituencies,” the nonprofit noted.
The weekend of activities will kick off with a reception on Thursday, December 4, followed by a daylong “Meet the Nominees” event on Friday, December 5 where 100+ nominees will have different chances to explore each other’s work and connect with the Los Angeles documentary industry.
On the final day, Saturday, December 5, winners will be announced during a brunch at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) in L.A.’s Little Tokyo neighborhood, followed by an open-to-the-public screening of Best Short and Best Feature award winning titles at the Aratani Theater in JACCC.
Last year, No Other Land won Best Feature Documentary at the IDA Awards before going on to win the Academy Award. Instruments of a Beating Heart won the IDA Award for Best Short Documentary on its way to an Oscar nomination. This year, the IDA received more than 550 entries for its awards spanning 15 award categories. Nominees in all categories will be announced on November 18.
IDA members from 85+ countries will have the opportunity to vote for the Best Short and Best Feature category winners between November 18 and December 2; all other category winners will be selected by blue-ribbon jurors consisting of 150 documentary professionals from around
Goldman, this year’s Career Achievement Award honoree, joins an impressive list of previous recipients of that award, including Dawn Porter, Julia Reichert, Werner Herzog, William Greaves, Les Blank, Sheila Nevins, and Errol Morris.
(L-R) ‘Abacus: Small Enough to Jail’ director Steve James, producer Julie Goldman, and producer Mark Mitten attend the 90th Academy Awards on March 4, 2018.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Goldman is an executive producer on Man on the Inside, the Netflix scripted series featuring Ted Danson that’s based on The Mole Agent, the Maite Alberdi documentary that Goldman also executive produced. In the scripted realm, she has also produced Cassandro, the drama starring Gael García Bernal that was directed by Roger Ross Williams. Notable documentary credits, along with those cited above, include The Velvet Underground, directed by Todd Haynes; Darren Foster’s American Pain; Oscar nominee The Eternal Memory, directed by Maite Alberdi; One Child Nation from director Nanfu Wang, and The Final Year, Greg Barker’s 2017 documentary about Pres. Obama’s final year in office.
“Goldman’s current slate,” the IDA notes, “includes the second season of the hit Netflix series A Man on the Inside starring Ted Danson, and new films from directors including Maite Alberdi, Roger Ross Williams, Kathlyn Horan, and Marcus Lindeen.”
