A movie about art was the big winner at Friday night's 2010 IDA Documentary Awards, but it wasn't the much-talked-about "Exit Through the Gift Shop" from graffiti artist Banksy.
Instead, the International Documentary Association gave its Distinguished Feature Documentary Award to Lucy Walker's "Waste Land" (left), a three-year look at artist Vik Muniz, who created massive works of art with the help of the catadores who search the world's largest garbage dump (outside Rio de Janeiro) for recyclable materials.
The message of her experience making the film, Walker said in her acceptance speech, is that "treasure comes out of trash just when you think it's not possible."
Earlier in the week, Walker's film was also named winner of the IDA Pare Lorentz Award, which is given to a film that honors that pioneering filmmaker's legacy by featuring "one or more of Lorentz's central concerns – the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems."
Other films nominated for Distinguished Feature included "Exit Through the Gift Shop," "The Oath," "Steam of Life" and "Sweetgrass." "Exit" and "The Oath" were considered favorites in the category, though "Waste Land" had picked up rave reviews since screening at Sundance last January and the IDA's DocuWeeks in the summer.
"Waste Land" is among the 15 non-fiction features on the shortlist for the Oscar Documentary Feature category.
For Distinguished Short Documentary, a category in which four of the five nominees had ties to HBO, IDA voters chose "Woman Rebel," a Kiran Deol film about a woman from Nepal who fought in the heavily female rebel army and rose to become a member of the new republic's parliament.
In the IDA's television categories, the Continuing Series Award went to the ESPN series "30 for 30," while the Limited Series Award was won by Connie Field's seven-episode South Africa chronicle "Have You Heard from Johannesburg."
While the two series awards and the Distinguished Feature and Short prizes were announced live during the ceremony at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, other IDA honors were announced earlier in the week and handed out onstage Friday.
In those awards, "For Once in My Life" won the Music Documentary Award, "Bhutto" the ABCNews Videosource Award for the best use of archival news footage, and "Waiting for a Train: The Toshio Hirano Story" the David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award.
In the IDA Humanitas Award category, which goes to "films that strive to unify the human family," the result was a tie between Laura Poitras' "The Oath" and Roberto Hernandez's and Geoffrey Smith's "Presumed Guilty."
Honorable mentions in the Pare Lorentz category went to "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?" and in the student category to "The Stinking Ship."
Veteran documentarian Barbara Kopple was given the Career Achievement Award. "We live in very challenging times, both politically and professionally," she said, saluting the assembled documentary community.
"We need community to lean on, we need community to learn from, and we need community to celebrate with."
"Marwencol" director Jeff Malmberg won the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award, and USC film professor Mark Jonathan Harris the Preservation and Scholarship Award.
Pioneer Award honoree Susan Raymond, accepting the award with her husband Alan Raymond, mentioned her and her husband's uneasiness with "Cinema Verite: The Story of 'An American Family,'" an HBO feature now being made about the groundbreaking public television series that the Raymonds filmed in 1973.
After saying that they had been on the set of the film, which stars Diane Lane, Tim Robbins and James Gandolfini, she shook her head. "I don't know if words can truly express our feeling about this," she said. " … Right now I have no comment."
Voting in the Feature Documentary and Short Documentary categories was done by IDA members who viewed all nominees on a password-protected website. All other winners were chosen by blue-ribbon committees of doc professionals.
The ceremony was hosted by "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock, who opened the show with IDA board of directors president Eddie Schmidt spoofing the nominated doc "Steam of Life," in which naked Finnish men talk about their lives in saunas.
Spurlock and Schmidt came onstage clad only in towels, and then launched into a parody song about documentary filmmaking set to the tune of the "West Side Story" song "When You're a Jet."
Spurlock also made running jokes about how Banksy, the elusive director of "Exit Through the Gift Shop," was in the room, but was disguised in a dress.
When told at a pre-show reception that other nominees were wondering what Banksy looked like and whether he was in attendance, producer Jaime D'Cruz just smiled.
"You'll notice," he told theWrap, "that I'm not responding."
The winners:
Feature Documentary Award: "Waste Land"
Director/Writer: Lucy Walker
Producers: Angus Aynsley, Hank Levine
Short Documentary Award: "Woman Rebel" (right)
Director/Producer: Kiran Deol
Executive Producer: Robert Richter
Continuing Series Award: "30 for 30"
Executive Producers: Keith Clinkscales, John Dahl, Joan Lynch, Connor Schell, Bill Simmons, John Skipper, John Walsh
Limited Series Award: "Have You Heard from Johannesburg"
Director/Producer: Connie E Field
IDA Pare Lorentz Award: "Waste Land"
Director/Writer: Lucy Walker
Producers: Angus Aynsley, Hank Levine
Honorable Mention: "Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?"
Director: Taggart Siegel
Producers: Jon Betz, Taggart Siegel
IDA Music Documentary Award: "For Once in My Life"
Directors: Jim Bigham, Mark Moormann
Producer: Jim Bigham
ABCNews Videosource Award: "Bhutto"
Director/ Producer: Duane Baughman
Director/ Writer: Johnny O’Hara
Producers: Arleen Sorkin, Mark Siegel
IDA Humanitas Award: (tie)
"Presumed Guilty"
Directors: Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith
Producers: Layda Negrete, Roberto Hernandez, Martha Sosa, Yissel Ibarra
"The Oath"
Director/Producer/Director of Photography: Laura Poitras
IDA David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award: "Waiting for a Train: The Toshio Hirano Story"
Director/Producer: Oscar Bucher
Honorable Mention: "The Stinking Ship"
Director/Producer: Bagassi Koura
Career Achievement Award: Barbara Kopple
Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award: Jeff Malmberg
Pioneer Award: Alan Raymond & Susan Raymond
Preservation and Scholarship Award: Mark Jonathan Harris
