CITIZENFOUR

“CITIZENFOUR,” the Edward Snowden documentary, won the International Documentary Association 2014 top award, Best Feature Award. CITIZENFOUR is described as a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name “CITIZENFOUR,” in January 2013.  He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated. When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film.

Best Feature Award

Citizenfour (WINNER)
Director: Laura Poitras
RADiUS-TWC, Participant Media, and
HBO Documentary Films

Best Short Award

Tashi and the Monk (WINNER)
Directors: Andrew Hinton, Johnny Burke
HBO Documentary Films

Best Curated Series Award

Independent Lens (WINNER)
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 (WINNER)
Executive Producers: Cynthia Childs, Dan Cutforth, Casey Kriley, Jane Lipsitz, Alexandra Lipsitz
Co-Executive Producer: Miggi Hood, Sandy Shapiro
Showtime

Best Episodic Series Award

Our America with Lisa Ling (WINNER)
Executive Producers: Amy Bucher, Gregory Henry, Lisa Ling, David Shadrack Smith
OWN

Best Short Form Series Award

Planet Money Makes a T-shirt (WINNER)
Executive Producer: Alex Blumberg
NPR

David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award

This award recognizes exceptional achievement in non-fiction film and video production at the university level and brings greater public and industry awareness to the work of students in the documentary field.

My Dad’s a Rocker (WINNER)
Director: Zuxin Hou
University of Southern California

Humanitas Award

This award is given to a film that explores the hopes and fears of human beings who are very different in culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs in order to break down the walls of ignorance which separate us.

Limited Partnership (WINNER)
Director: Thomas G. Miller
PBS / Independent Lens

Pare Lorentz Award

The Pare Lorentz Award recognizes films that demonstrate exemplary filmmaking while focusing on the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems.

Tashi and the Monk (WINNER)
Directors: Andrew Hinton, Johnny Burke
HBO Documentary Films

ABCNews VideoSource Award

This award is given each year for the best use of news footage as an integral component in a documentary.

1971 (WINNER)
Director: Johanna Hamilton
Independent Lens/ PBS

Creative Recognition Award Winners

The Creative Recognition category recognizes special achievement in cinematography, editing, music and writing in films entered in the Feature Category.

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 & Charlie Siskel

2014 IDA Awards Honorees

Career Achievement Award

Robert Redford
The IDA presents its prestigious Career Achievement Award to Robert Redford, the acclaimed filmmaker and actor, ardent conservationist and environmentalist, and founder of the world-renowned Sundance Institute, dedicated to the support and development of independent film and theatre artists, and its Documentary Film Program, a leading creative and financial resource for contemporary-issue nonfiction filmmakers worldwide.

Pioneer Award

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato
The Pioneer Award is presented to acknowledge extraordinary contributions to advancing the nonfiction form and providing exceptional vision and leadership to the documentary community. This year, the Pioneer Award will be presented to Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, founders of World of Wonder Productions.

Preservation and Scholarship Award

Rithy Panh
Rithy Panh receives IDA’s Preservation and Scholarship award, which recognizes individuals or organizations that have made notable contributions to preserving significant motion picture archives and educating the public and industry about the role nonfiction filmmaking plays in society.

Emerging Documentary Award sponsored by Red Fire Films and Modern VideoFilm

Darius Clark Monroe
Houston native, Darius Clark Monroe is an award-winning filmmaker and MFA graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.