'Searching For Sugar Man' Takes Doc Prize

Searching For Sugar Man was named best feature tonight at the International Documentary Association Awards at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles. The film directed and written by Malik Benjelloul also made this week's list of 15 finalists for the Oscar nominations for documentary feature. Another Oscar shortlister honored tonight was David France's How To Survive A Plague which took the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award.

Sugar Man, which chronicles South African fans' efforts to find out what happened to American singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, also was named best documentary earlier this week by the National Board of Review. Last month the Producers Guild of America also nominated the film for Best Documentary, along with another of tonight's winners, Jon Shenk's The Island President, which took the Pare Lorentz Award.

Other IDA winners included:

Career Achievement Award ' Arnold Shapiro

Best Short ' Saving Face, Daniel Junge & Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Humanitas Documentary Award ' Bitter Seeds, Micha X. Peled, Teddy Bear Films

Best Writing, Ann Richards' Texas, Keith Patterson

Best Music ' Searching for Sugar Man, songs of Sixto Rodriguez, score by Malik Benjelloul

Best Editing: Room 237, Rodney Ascher

Best Cinematograpy ' Women With Cows, Peter Gerdehag

David L Wolper Student Documentary Award ' La Camioneta, directed by Mark Kendall

Best Limited Series ' On Death Row, Werner Herzog

Best Continuing Series ' American Masters

ABCNEWS Video Source Award ' Harvest Of Empire, Peter Getzels & Eduardo Lopez

Pioneer Award ' Documentary Film Program at Sundance Labs

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