IDA Awards: ‘Flee’ Wins Top Honor, ‘Summer Of Soul’ Nabs Three Awards, Teeing Up Oscar Showdown [Full Winners List]

IDA Awards: ‘Flee’ Wins Top Honor, ‘Summer Of Soul’ Nabs Three Awards, Teeing Up Oscar Showdown [Full Winners List]

Flee and Summer of Soul divided honors at the 37th Annual IDA Awards tonight, with Flee claiming Best Feature Documentary, and Summer of Soul capturing three awards, including best director for Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson [full winners list below].


Flee, the animated story of a gay Afghan youth who fled his homeland for life in the West, bested nine other contenders for Best Feature, including rivals Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and fellow Oscar nominee Writing With Fire (the latter title earned the Courage Under Fire Award for directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh).

Flee director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, who first met the subject of his film, Amin Nawabi, when they were teenagers in Denmark, accepted the night’s top award.

'Summer of Soul' ‘Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’ © Searchlight Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Summer of Soul, about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a long-overlooked series of extraordinary concerts by soon-to-be or already famous African American performers, won Best Music Documentary, Best Editing, and the directing award for Thompson.


Flee and Summer of Soul square off again on March 27 at the Oscars. They are nominated alongside Ascension, Attica, and Writing With Fire.


IDA executive director Rick Pérez appeared during the virtual ceremony to salute nominees and celebrate the IDA on its 40th anniversary. He also referenced the controversy that has engulfed the IDA since he took over the top job last May. As Deadline has reported, almost 40-percent of staff have quit in the last few months, with many sharply criticizing the leadership of Pérez, the IDA’s first BIPOC and gay executive director, and actions by the IDA board of directors, which they have said have undermined the organization’s mission to support diversity, equity and inclusion in the documentary field.


The IDA Awards were to have been held in-person on the Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood in early February, but were postponed as a result of the Omicron surge. Tonight’s ceremony was shifted to a virtual event, hosted by filmmakers Kate Amend, Jerry Henry, Pedro Kos, and Renee Tajima-Peña. The ceremony began with a musical performance by Mehandis Geleto, featured in the IDA-nominated documentary Faya Dayi, a nominee for the IDA’s Best Feature award and winner of Best Cinematography.

Artist Mohamad Hafez in 'A Broken House' ‘A Broken House’ The New Yorker

Also taking home awards tonight were short documentary winner A Broken House, directed by Jimmy Goldblum. The film about Syrian-born architect and artist Mohamad Hafez previously earned a spot on the Oscar shortlist but didn’t score an Oscar nomination.


Academy Award-nominated director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) won Best Multi-Part Documentary for his HBO series Exterminate All the Brutes.


Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow won the IDA’s Truth to Power Award. The Career Achievement Award was presented to filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, director of the Oscar-winning short documentary Music by Prudence (2010) and the Oscar-nominated documentary feature Life, Animated (2016).

'Landfall' director Cecilia Aldarondo IDA Emerging Documentary Filmmaker award winner Cecilia Aldarondo Flora Hanitijo

Emmy-winning producer and editor Jean Tsien (76 Days) earned the Pioneer Award, and Cecilia Aldarondo (Landfall) was honored with the Emerging Filmmaker Award.


This is the full list of winners at the 37th Annual IDA Awards:


Best Feature


FLEE (Denmark, France, Norway / NEON, Participant. Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen.
Producers: Monica Hellstrӧm,Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie)


Best Director


Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson — Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be
Televised) (USA / Onyx Collective, Hulu, Searchlight Pictures)


Best Short


A Broken House (USA, Lebanon / Condé Nast Entertainment, The New Yorker, POV.
Director/Producer: Jimmy Goldblum. Producer: Matt Weaver, former Representative Richard
Gephardt and Harrison Nalevansky)


Best Curated Series


Independent Lens (USA / Independent Lens, PBS. Executive Producers: Lois Vossen, Sally Jo
Fifer)


Best Episodic Series


My Love: Six Stories of True Love (USA / Netflix. Executive Producer: Mo-young Jin, Andrew
Fried, Dane Lillegard and Jordan Wynn)


Best Multi-Part Documentary


Exterminate All the Brutes (USA, France / HBO, HBO Max. Director/Executive Producer:
Raoul Peck. Producers: Daniel Delume. Executive Producers: Rémi Grellety, Nancy Abraham,
Lisa Heller, Jamie Morris, Jack Oliver and Poppy Dixon)


Best Short-Form Series


Viral Dreams (Germany, Israel / ZDF Arte. Producer: Georg Tschurtschenthaler. Executive
Producers: Christian Beetz)


Best Stand-Alone Audio Documentary


VICE News Reports: Monaea, A 2020 Diary (USA / VICE News, iHeartRadio. Reporters:
Monaea Upton and Jen Kinney. Producers: Jen Kinne, Ashley Cleek, Adizah Eghan and
Adreanna Rodriguez. Executive Producer: Kate Osborn)


Best Multi-Part Audio Documentary or Series


“Suave” from Futuro Studios and PRX (USA / Futuro Studios, PRX. Reporters: Maggie
Freleng and Julieta Martinelli. Producers: Maria Hinojosa, Maggie Freleng, Julieta Martinelli,
Marlon Bishop, Audrey Quinn and Stephanie Lubow. Executive Producer: Maria Hinojosa)


Best Music Documentary


Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (USA / Onyx Collective, Hulu,
Searchlight Pictures. Director: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Producers: Joseph Patel, Robert
Fyvolent, David Dinerstein)


David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award


Seahorse (Germany / Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. Director/Producer: Nele
Dehnenkamp. Producer: Christine Duttlinger)


Best Cinematography


Faya Dayi (Ethiopia, USA, Qatar / Janus Films. Cinematographer: Jessica Beshir)


Best Editing


Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (USA / Onyx Collective, Hulu,
Searchlight Pictures. Editor: Joshua L. Pearson)


Best Music Score


Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground (USA / HBO Max. Composer: Roman GianArthur)


Best Writing


North By Current (USA / POV, PBS. Writer: Angelo Madsen Minax)


ABC News VideoSource Award


Whirlybird (USA / Greenwich Entertainment, A&E IndieFilms. Director: Matt Yoka. Producer:
Matt Yoka, Diane Becker)


Pare Lorentz Award


The First Wave (USA / National Geographic. Director/Producer: Matthew Heineman.
Producers: Jenna Millman and Leslie Norville)


HONORABLE MENTION: Tigre Gente (USA. Director/Producer: Elizabeth Unger. Producer:
Joanna Natasegara)


Career Achievement Award


Roger Ross Williams


Pioneer Award


Jean Tsien


Truth to Power Award


 Ronan Farrow


Courage Under Fire Award


Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh (Writing With Fire)


Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award


Cecilia Aldarondo


The 2021 IDA Documentary Awards was sponsored by Netflix, Showtime, Participant Media, HBO
Max, Archibald Family Charitable Foundation, AppleTV+, ABC News Videosource, Hulu, and
Onyx, with Media Partner Variety and Official Accessibility Partner Rev.