On Monday, January 9th, Backpage.com, one of the world's largest classified ads sites, closed its adults ads section. Advocates against sex trafficking hail this closure as a victory, as Backpage has been accused by a scathing U.S. Senate report of hiding criminal activity by deleting terms from ads that indicated sex trafficking or prostitution, including of children. Natalie, the fifteen-year old girl from suburban Seattle who was forced into prostitution and is featured in The Long Night, has been an advocate in this case, claiming that her pimp used Backpage to fuel his business, and her enslavement. With the help of the ads posted on Backpage, Natalie was repeatedly raped every single day, bringing in as much as $4,000 a weekend - every penny of which would go to her pimp.  With that much money on the table, her pimp became increasingly aggressive and abusive. Natalie had no way to escape. When her mother, Nacole,…

Thirty years after the first cases of HIV, the World Health Organization estimates 36.7 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 3.2 million are children under the age of 15. Today we commemorate World AIDS Day by remembering those who have succumbed to the virus and supporting our amazing collaborators working to treat and prevent this destructive disease. AIDS and Family is Kristen Ashburn's intimate portrait of African mothers, fathers and children being crushed by AIDS. Ashburn's work connects us to these people deeply; we learn that only through such connection is hope possible. The Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance, GAIA ,takes the medical breakthroughs of the developed world and brings them to The Far End of the Road. Their focus is one district in Malawi where 1 out of 6 adults are HIV-positive and healthcare can be hours away. 24,000 children under the age of five will die today, many from preventable diseases. In 2009, Save the Children launched…

We are thrilled to announce that MediaStorm and Jessica Dimmock's interactive documentary, The Ninth Floor, has been selected for inclusion in IDFA's DocLab Canon of Interactive Documentaries–a celebration of the the best interactive documentaries of the past ten years. Since 2007, IDFA DocLab, the new media program of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, has showcased all kinds of projects, from web-documentaries, games, apps and virtual reality experiences to live performances, installations and other, often still undefined artforms. A decade later, many of these projects continue to inspire the future of documentary art. To mark the 10th anniversary edition of the program, IDFA invited an international selection of new media curators, decision makers, award-winning artists and producers to look back at the past decade to determine those projects that pushed boundaries and defined the new medium. We are proud to have The Ninth Floor included in this prestigious list. In 2004, an…

Pictures of the Year International is proud to launch its 74th competition to honor the world's premier documentary photography, photojournalism, and visual editing. Pictures of the Year International is the oldest and most prestigious photojournalism program in the world.  When you enter POY, your work reaches out to citizens worldwide and becomes a part of visual history. Please visit "Call for Entries" to learn more. The online "Registration and Entry" platform opens on Wednesday, Dec. 14, here: https://entry.poyi.org/ Deadline for entry is Thursday, Jan. 12.