Full Frame Alumni Shortlisted for IDA Documentary Awards

This year’s International Documentary Association (IDA) Documentary Awards shortlists recognizes four films from the 2024 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival:  AGENT OF HAPPINESS, HOLLYWOODGATE, and SUGARCANE, along with the short film THE SPARKLE. 

• In AGENT OF HAPPINESS, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way? 

• Director Ibrahim Nash’at’s HOLLYWOODGATE spends a year inside Afghanistan following the Taliban as they take possession of the cache of weaponry America left behind—and transform from a fundamentalist militia into a heavily armed military regime.  

• THE SPARKLE, a short film directed by Isabelle Grignon-Francke, portrays Kim and Billy, two friends who work at carnivals. Kim plans to leave this family of colleagues to devote himself to his passion, the search for precious stones. The layoff of Billy, his best friend, accelerates his disenchantment. 

• In SUGARCANE, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, an investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. SUGARCANE, which is now playing in select theaters, recently welcomed Native American actor Lily Gladstone to the project as Executive Producer.  

Nominees for the IDA’s shortlists are selected by independent committees of 300 documentary makers, curators, critics, and industry experts from more than 40 countries. The organization received more than 700 entries from 77 countries across all its categories. 

The 40th IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony will be held on December 5, 2024, at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.  

Read the announcement from IDA.