On December 2, the DGA's Los Angeles theater complex was the site of the International Documentary Association's (IDA) 27th Annual IDA Documentary Awards. The evening honors the year’s best in documentary filmmaking and the DGA is a sponsor of the event.

The awards ceremony was co-hosted by DGA member Josh Fox, whose 2010 feature documentary Gasland was an IDA Pare Lorentz Award and Academy Award nominee. Also serving as co-hosts were Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain and IDA Board President Eddie Schmidt. The evening was kept jumping through the DJ services of Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker (Waste Land), who was spinning live during the show.

This year's IDA award-winners include the Best Feature Award to Patricio Guzmán for Nostalgia for the Light, the Best Short Award to Sara Nesson for Poster Girl, the Best Limited Series Award to Rachel Libert for Boomtown, and the Humanitas Documentary Award to Leonard Retel Helmrich for Position Among the Stars (Stand Van De Sterren). Also during the ceremony, the IDA presented the Pare Lorentz Award to Director Bill Haney for The Last Mountain, the Jacqueline Donnet Award for a filmmaker who has made a significant impact at the beginning of his or her career in documentary film to Danfung Dennis (Hell and Back Again), and the Career Achievement Award given to a filmmaker who has made a major impact on the documentary genre through a long and distinguished body of work to legendary documentary filmmaker Les Blank (Burden of Dreams, In Heaven There Is No Beer?).