Oscar Winner Freida Lee Mock, 'Knock Down the House' Director Rachel Lears To Be Honored at IDA Awards

Mock will receive Career Achievement Award, Lears set to earn Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award at ceremony December 7

Rachel Lears receives the Audience Award for US Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Park City, Utah, February 2, 2019. Photo by Matt Carey

Documentary legend Freida Lee Mock, director of the Oscar-winning film Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, will receive the Career Achievement Award at the upcoming International Documentary Association Awards in Los Angeles, the IDA announced today.

"Freida Lee Mock’s Career Achievement Award is overdue," IDA Executive Director Simon Kilmurry noted in a statement. "Her films have tackled a wide range of topics with an insightful artistic vision, and her unparalleled body of work continues to inspire and impact the world."

Mock has earned five Academy Award nominations over her career, including the Best Documentary Award in 1995 for her film about Lin, the artist and architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.
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I’m delighted and honored as a documentary filmmaker to be recognized by the world’s preeminent media organization devoted to the documentary arts and craft.

​--Freida Lee Mock, on earning the IDA's Career Achievement Award

Mock has several documentaries in the works, including RUTH: Justice Ginsburg In Her Own Words, about the celebrated Supreme Court justice, and The Heroes Project/Seven Summits, a feature documentary "about seven young single- and double-amputee veterans climbing the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents."

Filmmaker Freida Lee Mock. Photo courtesy IDA

The IDA also announced Rachel Lears will receive its Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award at the ceremony December 7 in Los Angeles. Lears directed Knock Down the House, the award-winning film about Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio and other insurgent Democratic women candidates who took on entrenched incumbents in 2018 primary races. 

"I am truly humbled and honored to be this year's recipient of the Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award, given the IDA's long history as a pillar in the field," Lears said in a statement. "As I continue to try to tell stories with human depth, political and cultural nuance, and audiovisual grace, I'm thrilled to have the IDA's vote of confidence in my ongoing commitment to the art form of independent documentary.

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Rachel Lears (lower right) on the red carpet at the SXSW Film Festival. To her right (with cap on) is her husband, Robin Blotnick, producer and editor of "Knock Down the House." Austin, Texas, March 10, 2019. Photo by Matt Carey

Last year's winner of the Emergency Documentary Filmmaker Award was Bing Liu, director of the Oscar-nominated Minding the Gap.

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Related:
>Minding the Gap wins Best Feature Documentary at IDA Awards

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The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will receive the IDA's Amicus Award. 

The organization "provides pro bono legal representation, amicus curiae support, and other legal resources to protect First Amendment freedoms and the newsgathering rights of journalists," according to the Reporters Committee website.

The IDA's Kilmurry commented, "Amicus Award honoree, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has fought for and defended the rights of countless journalists and filmmakers, and has been a key partner for IDA-funded filmmakers." 

Cinereach, the non-profit production company that plays a vital philanthropic role supporting fiction and nonfiction filmmakers, will receive the IDA's Pioneer Award. 

"Cinereach believes that nonfiction films are essential to reflect on our shared humanity and find beauty in our differences," Phillip Engelhorn, Cinereach executive director, remarked. "For us, this award is a celebration of the bold artists we have proudly been able to support, who have dedicated themselves to nonfiction film's ability to be as artful as it is honest.”

Recent films backed by Cinereach include the documentaries The Edge of Democracy and Hail Satan? and the fictional/narrative films The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Sorry to Bother You.

The Cinereach team. Photo courtesy IDA

The IDA's shortlist of the year's best feature and short documentaries will be announced this Thursday.