Poh Si Teng

Director of IDA Funds and Enterprise Program

Poh Si Teng is an award-winning filmmaker and the director of IDA Funds and Enterprise Program. She is the producer of St. Louis Superman, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the short documentary category, and won a Critics’ Choice Award.

Prior to joining IDA, she was the documentary commissioner overseeing the US, Canada and Latin American for Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand, Witness. Poh was previously a staff journalist for The New York Times, where she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Interview, and received both a Society of Professional Journalists’ Deadline Award and a NPPA award.

Before joining the Times, she was an independent filmmaker and journalist based in India for several years. She is one of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 Filmmakers to Watch. Her latest documentary, Blood On Our Side, recently won best documentary short at the Austin Film Festival.

Participating Sessions

FUNDING SHIFT

The reckonings over race, power and the role of media are forcing a reevaluation among funders across the country. Not only are foundations beginning to ask new questions of their applicants, but they are interrogating their own grant-making, with some even changing their grant review and selection process to cede their own agency and power and to render their decisions more transparent. The shift includes new application questions designed to...

HOW TO ADDRESS AUTHORSHIP IN DOCUMENTARY AND JOURNALISM

The documentary field continues to evolve as it grapples with issues of accountability, equity, and situatedness; that is, the ways the filmmakers’ own experiences (historically, culturally, familially and personally) shape how they interpret and respond to the world around them. Now more than ever, filmmakers must find ways to incorporate meaningful collaboration in their work. The filmmaking team from Fire Through Dry Grass will share how they successfully addressed “connection...