The International Documentary Association has announced its shortlists for Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary at the 42nd annual IDA Documentary Awards. The 16 features and 12 shorts include top Oscar contenders You Can See Everything, Nuisance Bear, and Rehearsals for a Revolution.
IDA received 650 entries across all categories this year from a record 95 countries.
Members can watch the shortlisted films on IDA Virtual Cinema starting Nov. 3. Five nominees in each category will be announced Nov. 17, when IDA members begin voting. Voting runs through Nov. 27, and the winners will be revealed Dec. 4 at The Ebell in Los Angeles.
Winners in more than a dozen other categories, including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Writing, and Best Music Documentary, will be chosen by a jury of more than 200 documentary professionals from over 60 countries.
See the full shortlists below.
Best Feature Documentary
A Fox Under a Pink Moon (Mehrdad Oskouei, co-director Soraya Akhlaghi; Kino Lorber)
A Life Illuminated (Tasha Van Zandt; Fourth Act Film)
Birds of War (Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak; Dogwoof)
Concrete Land (Asmahan Bkerat)
Do You Love Me (Lana Daher; ICARUS/Rapid Eye Movies)
Filthy (Bàrbara Mestanza, Marc Pujolar)
My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile (Julia Loktev; MUBI)
Nuestra Tierra (Our Land) (Lucrecia Martel; Strand Releasing)
Nuisance Bear (Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden; MUBI)
One in a Million (Itab Azzam, Jack MacInnes; PBS Distribution)
Rehearsals for a Revolution (Pegah Ahangarani; Sony Pictures Classics)
Silver (Natalia Koniarz)
The Eyes of Ghana (Ben Proudfoot)
The Fabulous Time Machine (Eliza Capai; Split Screen)
To Hold a Mountain (Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić; Submarine)
You Can See Everything (Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim; A24)
Best Short Documentary
“A Wolf in the Suburbs” (Amélie Hardy; The New York Times Op-Docs)
“Free Joan Little” (Yoruba Richen; PBS)
“Fruits of Despair” (Nima Nassaj; Raina Film Festival Distribution)
“How to Catch a Butterfly” (Kiriko Mechanicus)
“Lost Songs of Sundari” (Sudarshan Sawant)
“Maybe Tomorrow” (Waad Al-Kateab, Wafa Mustafa; Channel 4)
“Sanyi Kakas (Sanyi the Rooster)” (Lotte Salomons; The New York Times Op-Docs/Amsterdam University of the Arts)
“Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon” (Bill Morrison; The New Yorker)
“Son” (Leona Cauklija; The New York Times Op-Docs)
“Stalin Boys” (Bianca Giaever, Ora DeKornfeld; The New York Times Op-Docs)
“The Hotline” (Ricki Stern, Jesse Sweet; HBO Max)
“They’re Here” (Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller)
Eight of the last 10 IDA champions went on to land Oscar nominations, and two of them, O.J.: Made in America (2016) and No Other Land (2024), took home the Academy Award.
