Laura Poitras’s Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour and former OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network series Our America with Lisa Ling (pictured) took home prizes for best feature doc and episodic series respectively, at the 30th annual IDA Documentary Awards.
Presented during a ceremony at LA’s Paramount Theater on Friday evening (December 5), Poitras’s Oscar-shortlisted doc bested fellow feature doc nominees Finding Vivian Maier, Point and Shoot, The Salt of the Earth and Tales of the Grim Sleeper.
Elsewhere, Andrew Hinton and Johnny Burke’s Tashi and the Monk picked up the best short award, and director Darius Clark Monroe was given the Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award for his film Evolution of a Criminal.
Meanwhile, OWN’s Our America with Lisa Ling - which ended its five-season run on the network this past summer ahead of the host’s move to CNN – took the best episodic series award, beating out HBO’s Vice; OWN and Harpo Studios’ Oprah’s Master Class; CNN and Warrior Poets’ Morgan Spurlock: Inside Man; and CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.
Winning the curated series award was PBS doc strand ‘Independent Lens,’ while the limited series prize went to Showtime’s end-of-life docuseries Time of Death. Rounding out the series awards was NPR’s multi-platform series Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt.
As previously reported, IDA’s Career Achievement Award – presented to a filmmaker who has made a significant impact on the doc genre – was presented by documentarian Barbara Kopple to actor-director and Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford; while Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, founders of prodco World of Wonder, were the recipients of IDA’s Pioneer Award, given to individuals advancing the non-fiction form.
Please see below for a full list of award winners:
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Robert Redford
PIONEER AWARD
Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato
PRESERVATION AND SCHOLARSHIP AWARD
Rithy Panh
EMERGING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER AWARD sponsored by Red Fire Films and Modern VideoFilm
Darius Clark Monroe
BEST FEATURE AWARD
Citizenfour
Director: Laura Poitras
RADiUS-TWC, Participant Media, and HBO Documentary Films
BEST SHORT AWARD
Tashi and the Monk
Directors: Andrew Hinton, Johnny Burke
HBO Documentary Films
BEST CURATED SERIES AWARD
Independent Lens
Executive producer: Sally Jo Fifer
Deputy executive producer: Lois Vossen
Independent Television Service (ITVS) in association with PBS
BEST LIMITED SERIES AWARD
Time of Death
Executive producers: Cynthia Childs, Dan Cutforth, Casey Kriley, Jane Lipsitz, Alexandra Lipsitz
Co-executive producers: Miggi Hood, Sandy Shapiro
Showtime
BEST EPISODIC SERIES AWARD
Our America with Lisa Ling
Executive producers: Amy Bucher, Gregory Henry, Lisa Ling, David Shadrack Smith
OWN
BEST SHORT FORM SERIES AWARD
Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt
Executive producer: Alex Blumberg
NPR
DAVID L. WOLPER STUDENT DOCUMENTARY AWARD
My Dad’s a Rocker
Director: Zuxin Hou
University of Southern California
HUMANITAS DOCUMENTARY AWARD
Limited Partnership
Director: Thomas G. Miller
PBS’ ‘Independent Lens’
PARE LORENTZ AWARD
Tashi and the Monk
Directors: Andrew Hinton, Johnny Burke
HBO Documentary Films
ABC NEWS VIDEOSOURCE AWARD
1971
Director: Johanna Hamilton
PBS’ ‘Independent Lens’
CREATIVE RECOGNITION AWARD WINNERS
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY presented by Canon
Elevator
Cinematography by Hatuey Viveros Lavielle
BEST EDITING
Last Days in Vietnam
Editing by Don Kleszy
BEST MUSIC
Alfred and Jakobine
Music by Nick Urata
BEST WRITING
Finding Vivian Maier
Written by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel