Los Angeles, CA – Work on the latest project from documentary film producer Steven Fischer recently received an uplifting jolt. The International Documentary Association in Los Angeles, California has selected Old School, New School (formerly Generation Yes!) for fiscal sponsorship. This is Fischer’s second award of the honor.

“I am very excited and proud to once again be associated with the International Documentary Association,” Fischer said. “The IDA is the documentary filmmaker’s best friend. Their support raises the legitimacy of any project in the eyes of potential investors.”

The IDA was founded in 1982 as a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to supporting the efforts of nonfiction film and video makers throughout the United States and the world. Over the past twenty-three years IDA has served as a voice for documentarians, offering programs, seminars, lectures, workshops, and screenings for members and the general public. They currently serve over 2,800 members in 50 countries.

The IDA serves as a fiscal sponsor for more than 300 independent nonfiction projects each year. Under its 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella, IDA accepts grants and donations for those projects approved to participate in its Fiscal Sponsorship program, thereby supporting worthwhile programs that would otherwise have difficulty finding funding.

Fischer has twice been awarded fiscal sponsorship from the IDA. Two years ago, the IDA supported Freedom Dance, an animated documentary featuring Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay that Fischer produced with an animation partner.

Old School, New School is an educational documentary series that attempts to empower younger storytellers (filmmakers, musicians and playwrights) by introducing them to the art of storytelling practiced by established Masters of the older generation.

Thus far, Fischer’s new documentary has taken him to Los Angeles, New York, Miami and his native Baltimore, and includes interviews with the legendary animator Bill Melendez, renowned Yeats scholar and playwright Sam McCready, and internationally acclaimed poet and screenwriter James Ragan.

Though the maker of Old School, New School is himself of the younger generation, Fischer is by no means novice. His versatile award-winning track record spans over 10-years and includes the absurd comedies of Steve & Bluey, the documentary Draw the Line which won the coveted Cine Golden Eagle in 2006, and a powerfully poetic foreign language tribute to Polish POWs murdered in the Katyn Forest Massacre called Silence of Falling Leaves which was nominated for an Emmy® Award in 2000.


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