Jehane Noujaim's The Square.

The International Documentary Association (IDA) offered up its favorites for 2013, awarding Jehane Noujaim's The Square its Best Feature Award. The film, which screened at the New York Film Festival this fall, follows a group of Egyptian activists as they battle leaders and regimes, and risk their lives to build a new society of conscience.      

Also honored Friday, IDA’s Career Achievement Award was presented to Oscar-winning director, producer and writer Alex Gibney whose body of work includes Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012), Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010) and Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. This year saw the release of Gibney’s latest films We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks and The Armstrong Lie.

And, filmmaker Laura Poitras received IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, in recognition of “conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth.” Along with Glenn Greenwald, Poitras broke the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealing the PRISM program.  Poitras is working on a trilogy of films about America post 9/11, which includes My Country, My Country (2006) and The Oath (2010). Poitras is currently in Berlin editing the third film of the trilogy, a documentary about NSA surveillance, and accepted the award via live remote.

2013 IDA Award winners:

Best Feature Award – The Square
Director: Jehane Noujaim

Producer: Karim Amer;
Executive Producers: Geralyn Dreyfous, Mike Lerner, Sarah Johnson, Jodie Evans, Lekha Singh, Gavin Dougan, Dan Catullo III, Lisa Nishimura, Adam Del Deo, Khalil Noujaim, Alexandra Johnes, Jeff Skol; Noujaim Films, Netflix Originals



Best Short Award – SLOMO

Director: Josh Izenberg
Producer: Amanda Micheli 
Executive Producer: Neil Izenberg; Big Young Films,
Runaway Films



Best Limited Series Award – Inside Man

Producers: Kristen Vaurio, Lisa Kalikow, Shannon Gibson, Suzanne Hillinger, Lara Benario;
Writers: Jeremy Chilnick, Morgan Spurlock
Executive Producers: Jeremy Chilnick, Matthew Galkin, Morgan Spurlock, CNN



Best Continuing Series Award – Independent Lens

Producer: Lois Vossen
Executive Producers: Sally Jo Fifer
Independent Television Service (ITVS) in association with PBS

Best Cinematography – Pablo's Winter

Cinematographer: Julian Schwanitz
Director: Chico Pereira



Best Editing – Let The Fire Burn

Editor: Nels Bangerter
Director: Jason Osder



Best Music – Narco Cultura

Original Music By: Jeremy Turner

Director: Shaul Schwartz



Best Writing – How to Make Money Selling Drugs

Writer/Director: Matthew Cooke



Career Achievement Award

Alex Gibney



IDA Amicus Award

Geralyn Dreyfous



Courage Under Fire Award

Laura Poitras



David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award – My Sister Sarah

Director/Producer: Elizabeth Chatelain; University of Texas at Austin


Humanitas Documentary Award – Blood Brother

Director: Steve Hoover; Producer: Danny Yourd; Writers: Steve Hoover, Phinehas Hodges, Tyson VanSkiver; Executive Producers: Steve Hoover, Michael Killen, Kathy Dziubek, Jim Kreitzburg, Leigh Blake, John Carlin; Independent Television Service (ITVS)


Pare Lorentz Award – A Place At the Table
Directors/Producers: Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson; Producers: Julie Goldman, Ryan Harrington; Magnolia Pictures


ABC News Videosource Award – The Trials of Muhammad Ali
Director: Bill Siegel; Producers: Bill Siegel, Rachel Pikelny; Executive Producers: Justine Nagan, Gordon Quinn, Leon Gast, Kat White; Sally Jo Fifer (for ITVS); Independent Television Service (ITVS), Kartemquin Films, Kino Lorber

Founded in 1982, the International Documentary Association is dedicated to “building and serving the needs of a thriving documentary culture.”