TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI Wins ABCNEWS VideoSource Award for Best Footage Use

ABCNEWS VideoSource, the news and stock footage licensing arm of ABC News, announced today that The Trials of Muhammad Ali was the winner of the 2013 ABCNEWS VideoSource Award. Directed by Academy Award-nominated director Bill Siegel, The Trials of Muhammad Ali examines Ali's life outside of boxing, focusing on the years 1967 to 1970, when, after refusing military induction, he was stripped of his heavyweight title and banned from boxing. The Trials of Muhammad Ali was honored at the IDA Awards Gala, which took place on December 6, 2013 in Los Angeles.

"We are very pleased that The Trials of Muhammad Ali has won this award," said Anthony Perrone, Director of ABCNEWS VideoSource. "Bill Siegel and the team at Kartemquin Films are very deserving of this recognition. Their film brings to light a period of Ali's life that has long been overshadowed by his athletic success and outsized personality. They discovered incredible archival material and wove it together such that it gives new life to this important story, which is what this award seeks to honor."

The team at Kartemquin spent years hunting down previously unseen archival footage, and the raw power of the images they unearthed, as well as the skill, creativity and editorial integrity with which they've woven the footage into their film, brings Ali's extraordinary story to life with great force, resonance and complexity.

"We're honored to win the ABCNEWS VideoSource Award," said Bill Siegel. "It's a great recognition of the role archival footage plays in making documentary films, as well as the intensive amount of time we took to find the most effective and powerful footage. I don't think of The Trials of Muhammad Ali as a historical documentary. Hopefully the urgency of the archival material in the film helps audiences grapple with the struggles Ali faced, as many of them are still concerns we're struggling with today."

"Each year, the International Documentary Association presents the ABCNEWS VideoSource Award to a filmmaker for the best use of news footage as an integral component in a documentary," said Michael Lumpkin, IDA's Executive Director. "For over a decade, ABCNEWS VideoSource has sponsored the award, which has become a mainstay of our Documentary Awards gala. In 2013, Bill Siegel received the award for his film The Trials of Muhammad Ali."

Founded in 1966, Chicago-based indie Kartemquin's best known film, Hoop Dreams, won every major critics prize and journalism award in 1995 and was named on over 150 "ten best" lists. This is the second IDA award in Kartemquin's history. In 2004 they won for Best Limited Series for The New Americans, which captures the complexities of contemporary immigration by taking viewers inside the lives of immigrant families from five different countries.

The Trials of Muhammad Ali is in limited theatrical release currently and will premiere on US television on Independent Lens in the Spring of 2014.

ABCNEWS VideoSource, in partnership with the International Documentary Association, has presented this award annually since 1997 to a film or video that best uses news footage as an integral component of the work.

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