‘A Walk to Beautiful’ wins IDA’s top doc award
Spike Lee, Michael Moore and Christiane Amanpour honored by International Documentary Association.
Staff Report
A documentary about young Ethiopian women who walk miles in seek of medical attention after traumatic childbirth injuries won the feature length competition at the 2007 International Documentary Association awards on Friday night.
Directed and produced by Mary Olive Smith, “A Walk to Beautiful,” focuses on five women who have been shunned by their family and villages but find assistance in a distant women’s hospital.
The doc’s filmmakers accepted the honor at the IDA annual awards gala at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles.
Smith’s film beat out Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” Dan Klores’ “Crazy Love,” Richard Robbins’ “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience” and Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side.”
In the short doc competition “A Son’s Sacrifice,” from director Yoni Brook, won the top prize. The film follows Imran, a young American Muslim who confronts his roots at his father’s slaughterhouse in New York City.
The inaugural Alan Ett Music documentary award for exemplary creative use of music was given to director-producer Paul Taylor for “We Are Together.”
Previously announced honors included the presentation of the IDA career achievement award to Michael Moore who did not plan to attend the ceremony.
The Pare Lorentz award, given to the film that best represents the activist spirit went to director-producer Spike Lee for “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.”
The IDA outstanding documentary cinematography award went to Ken Burns’ longtime cameraman Buddy Squires.
Other honorees included CNN’s Christiane Amanpour who received the ‘Courage Under Fire’ award, reserved for individuals who put themselves in harm’s way in order to bring important stories to the public.
The the preservation and scholarship award was presented to National Geographic Digital Motion; “Darfur Now” director Ted Braun received the Jacqueline Donnet ‘Emerging Documentary Filmmaker’ award.
Showtime’s “This American Life,” created by Ira Glass, captured the IDA Award for a continuing series. The limited series winner went to the PBS program “The Supreme Court,” directed by Thomas Lennon.