It was a nice evening at the DGA here in Los Angeles last night for the International Documentary Association's annual awards evening and as I noted in a brief post last night, it was the speediest ceremony I'd yet experienced. And while nothing will likely top the alcohol-soaked evening of a sermonizing Al Gore and a lascivious Jane Fonda two years ago, it was, all and all, a pretty solid affair.
Sure, the new Audience Award didn't come off as planned (does anyone really believe that the collective IDA membership's favorite film of the year is FOOD FIGHT?), but the montage of scenes that preceded the award was a great reminder of the timeless films that weren't considered "award-worthy", including AMERICAN MOVIE and KING OF KONG.
The highlight of the night was undoubtedly the career award for Werner Herzog, who gave a great speech - short, to the point - that challenged the very presumptions of journalistic truth at the heart of some folks' notion of documentary. His end of speech manifesto - "we need to leave the true facts behind" - probably had an equal number of folks smiling and puzzled.
The jury's decision to award the top prize to two films was not a big departure from IDA tradition - awarding dual prizes for Best Doc was long the IDA's practice - but in deciding to give the award to two of the year's most acclaimed and artistic films, MAN ON WIRE and WALTZ WITH BASHIR, the IDA may have even washed away the bitter taste of last year's abusrd winner.
What does this mean in the grand scheme of the year's awards race? Despite the fact that IDA winners almost never go on to win the Oscar (most are never even nominated), the IDA win likely cements (as if it needed it) MAN ON WIRE's frontrunner position. The praise for Herzog certainly does no harm to ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD's Oscar chances. A large contingent from TROUBLE THE WATER, including directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, subjects Kimberly and Scott Roberts and Executive Producer Danny Glover were all present, as were a couple of other Oscar shortlisted films, including I.O.U.S.A.'s Patrick Creadon and BLESSED IS THE MATCH's Roberta Grossman.
Some photos from last night's festivities:
Film publicist Nancy Willen with career achievement recipient Werner Herzog.
TROUBLE THE WATER co-directors Deal and Lessin with Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institure Documentary Film Program.
BLESSED IS THE MATCH director Roberta Grossman with writer and co-producer Sophie Sartain.
Sophie Sartain is my aunt I was named after her Sophie A. Sartain :)
Posted by: Sophie Sartain | April 26, 2010 at 02:30 PM