Haskell Wexler, ASC, will receive the 2006 International Documentary Association (IDA) Career Achievement Award. The award is presented annually to an individual who has an extraordinary record of achievements in the nonfiction film genre. The presentation will be made in Los Angeles on December 8, 2006, at the IDA Distinguished Documentary Achievement Awards at the Directors Guild of America.

"We could rightly present two career achievement awards to Haskell Wexler," says IDA President diane estelle Vicari. "He deserves this recognition for his incredibly powerful, diverse body of work as well as for his unwavering courage. He has inspired a generation of documentary filmmakers to be uncompromising in their pursuit of the truth regarding the crucial issues of our times."

Wexler has compiled some 30-plus documentary credits, including The Bus, Interviews With My Lai Veterans, Brazil: A Report on Torture, Interview with President Allende, Introduction to the Enemy, CIA Case Officer, The Swine Flu Caper, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas, Target Nicaragua – Inside a Secret War, At the Max, an IMAX depiction of a Rolling Stones tour, and Bus Riders Union, an in-depth probe of the neglect of public transportation relied on by the Los Angeles working class.

"My excitement in making a documentary comes from making discoveries, seeking a truth, to communicate images that may not conform to the original intention," Wexler says. "When there is an assignment to fill in the colors of a pre-painted picture it may be difficult to trust your gut, to do what's in your heart. Difficult but not impossible, it's all part of the game we
must learn as artist citizens."

Wexler's recent project, Who Needs Sleep?, is a documentary about film and television crews routinely working sweat shop hours, clocking 15- to 18-hour days at the expense of their families, their health, their well being and even their lives.

Wexler is also a celebrated narrative film cinematographer who has earned Oscars for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bound for Glory, and additional nominations for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Blaze and Matewan. A short list of his other credits include such classics as The Thomas Crown Affair, In the Heat of the Night and Coming Home.

Wexler has received lifetime achievement awards from the American Society of Cinematographers (1993) and the Camerimage International Festival of the Art of Cinematography (1996). In 1996, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Previous recipients of the IDA Career Achievement Award include such legendary filmmakers as Pare Lorentz, Richard Leacock, Jacques Yves Cousteau, Albert Maysles, Michael Apted, Charles Guggenheim, Ken Burns, and Sir Richard Attenborough. IDA has also presented the award to Fred Friendly, Walter Cronkite, Bill Moyers, Ted Turner, and Sheila Nevins.