Mary Olive Smith's A Walk To Beautiful took top honours in the feature competition at the 2007 International Documentary Association's (IDA) Distinguished Documentary Achievement Awards Gala in Los Angeles at the weekend.

The film chronicles the challenges of five women in Ethiopia as they try to rebuild their lives after suffering devastating injuries during childbirth.

Yoni Brook's A Son's Sacrifice won the short documentary competition and follows the journey of Imran, a young American Muslim who confronts his roots at his father's slaughterhouse in New York City.

Paul Taylor's We Are Together (Thina Simunye) took the inaugural Alan Ett Music Documentary Award.

'The IDA Awards are presented to individuals who have earned the respect of their peers for their extraordinary achievements,' IDA president Diane Estelle Vicari said. 'These films are a history of our times, and the conscience and soul of our global community.'

As previously announced, Michael Moore was chosen to received the IDA Career Achievement Award and Ken Burns' longtime collaborator Buddy Squires collected the IDA Outstanding Documentary Cinematography Award.

Spike Lee and producer Sam Pollard earned the Pare Lorentz Award for When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts in honour of the film that was adjudged to best represent the activist spirit and lyrical vision of the lat film-maker Lorentz.

CNN war correspondent Christiane Amanpour received the IDA Courage Under Fire Award while Jocelyn Shearer accepted the IDA Preservation and Scholarship Award on behalf of National Geographic Digital Motion and Darfur Now director Ted Braun received the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award.

The David L Wolper Student Documentary Award went to Erin Hudson for Long Haul, which was Hudson's thesis film at Stanford University.

For a complete list of the 2007 IDA Award winners and nominees visit www.documentary.org.