Filmmakers Dawn Porter, Shiori Ito And ‘No Other Land’ Collective To Receive Major Recognition At 40th IDA Documentary Awards

Documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter, whose acclaimed body of work includes John Lewis: Good Trouble, Trapped, The Lady Bird Diaries, and Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, will be honored with the Career Achievement Award at the upcoming IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles.

Porter’s latest documentary feature, Luther: Never Too Much, about the late singer-songwriter Luther Vandross, hits theaters on November 1, before premiering on CNN, OWN, and Max. Her documentary series The Sing Sing Chronicles, which follows “the bond between journalist Tom Robbins and Jon-Adrian ‘JJ’ Velazquez as they work to uncover justice in four unrelated homicide cases,” premieres on MSNBC on November 23 and 24.

The 40th IDA Documentary Awards will be held on December 5 at the historic Orpheum Theater in downtown L.A. In addition to the career award for Porter, director Shiori Ito will receive the IDA’s Emerging Filmmaker Award. Ito’s documentary Black Box Diaries, winner of awards at CPH:DOX and other international film festivals, documents her efforts to seek accountability and justice after she was sexually assaulted by a prominent Japanese journalist.

The Israeli-Palestinian filmmaking collective of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham – directors of the award-winning documentary No Other Land — will receive the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award. That honor, chosen by the IDA’s board of directors, “is presented to documentarians displaying conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth.”

Dominic Asmall Willsdon, executive director of IDA, said in a statement, “We are delighted to gather the documentary community and friends at the beautiful Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles to celebrate the best work we have seen this year and to honor with special awards the incredible Dawn Porter, Shiorio Ito, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham.”

At the ceremony, competitive awards will be presented in 18 categories, including Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Music Documentary and Best Multi-Part Documentary. Bobi Wine: The People’s President won the IDA Award for Best Feature Documentary last year; the year before, All That Breathes took that award. Both Bobi Wine and All That Breathes went on to earn Oscar nominations.

This year, more than 700 documentaries – hailing from 77 countries — have been submitted for awards consideration.

The shortlists for Best Feature and Best Short categories will be announced on October 22 and nominees in all categories will be announced on November 19. “Thousands of IDA members from 80+ countries will view and vote for the Best Short and Best Feature category winners between November 19 and December 1,” the IDA notes, “whereas all other category winners will be selected by blue-ribbon jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from 40+ countries.”

The last two IDA Documentary Awards were held virtually. In addition to the in-person ceremony this year, the show will be streamed live on IDA’s social media channels.