By Syazwani
Picture by Mayank Misra
Poh Si Teng, producer of Oscar-nominated documentary short St. Louis Superman, has joined the International Documentary Association (IDA) as the new director of the IDA Funds and Enterprise programme. Poh will oversee and build IDA's grants portfolio and serve as a key liaison with the documentary field in the U.S. and globally, working with IDA's programme officer Dana Merwin.
Poh succeeds Carrie Lozano who joined the Sundance Institute as director of the documentary film programme in fall 2020.
Prior to joining IDA, Poh oversaw the US, Canada and Latin America as documentary commissioner and senior producer for Al Jazeera English's flagship documentary strand, Witness. She was previously a journalist with The New York Times, where she received an Emmy nomination and other awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Society of Professional Journalists and the NPPA for her work.
Originally from Penang, Malaysia, Poh has also had a stint as a reporter covering India for the Times, the Wall Street Journal and Agence France-Presse. As an independent filmmaker, Poh has collaborated with filmmakers from a variety of racial, ethnic, socio-economic and religious backgrounds across a range of nationalities. Her film producing credits also include Dead Woman's Pass, Halima: Somali American Model and Flirting With The Islamic State.
The IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund was established in 2017 to serve documentary projects taking on in-depth explorations of original, contemporary stories and integrating journalistic practice into the filmmaking process. Since then, the fund has awarded US$4mil in development and production grants to over 65 projects. Recipients include four films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival: Users by Natalia Almada,President by Camilla Nielsson,Philly D.A. by Ted Passon and Yoni Brook, and At The Ready by Maisie Crow.
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