Of Men and War by Laurent Bécue-Renard
Laurent Bécue-Renard won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 2014 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), for Of Men and War (France / Switzerland). The film is about a group of American Iraq veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Director Bécue-Renard follows the group for many years during therapy sessions in a clinic for veterans. The jury presented the Special Jury Award to Something Better to Come (Denmark / Poland) by Hanna Polak, who for fourteen years followed young girl Yula and those who share her fate, living in the biggest waste tip in Europe, just outside Moscow.
Julia Mironova won the NTR IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary for Kamchatka – The Cure for Hatred (Russia), a (self-) portrait of the former television reporter Vijatsjeslav Nemishev who in 2001 covered the war in Chechnya and now lives a withdrawn life on an island.
The IDFA Award for First Appearance was presented to Gábor Hörcher for Drifter (Hungary / Germany), an up-close-and-personal portrait of a rebellious Hungarian racing talent who dramatically often veers of the socially accepted course. In addition, the jury presented the Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance, an incentive award in memory of Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick who passed away last year. The award went to Nadine Salib for Mother of the Unborn (Egypt / United Arab Emirates), about an Egyptian woman’s desire to become pregnant and thereby gain acceptance as a woman.
The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary, went to The New Rijksmuseum – The Film by Oeke Hoogendijk. The film is a fascinating behind-the-scenes report on the large-scale renovation of the Netherlands’ most well-known museum, which took a total of ten years.
The BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award went to Naziha’s Spring (the Netherlands) by Gülsah Dogan, a candid portrait of single mother Naziha, a number of whose children were the focus of negative media attention in 2007.
The IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling went to Serial (USA) by Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder. Serial is an audio-visual whodunit who keeps the followers of the podcast on permanent tenterhooks: who killed American schoolgirl Hae Min Lee?
The IDFA Award for Student Competition went to No Lullaby (Germany) by Helen Simon. The film is a reconstruction of a horrific family history across three generations.
Alan Hicks received the IDFA Melkweg Music Documentary Audience Award for Keep on Keepin’ on (USA), about jazz legend Clark Terry (1920) and his young protégé Justin Kauflin, a blind jazz pianist.
The IDFA DOC U Award, presented by a youth jury, went to Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland for My Beautiful Broken Brain (UK). Following a serious stroke, resilient, intelligent Lotje Sodderland tries to recapture her previously glorious life.
Finally, the Mediafondsprijs Kids & Docs 2014 was presented to Giovanni and the Water Ballet by Astrid Bussink. A special children’s jury chose Giovanni and the Water Ballet as the best Dutch youth documentary of the past year. Astrid Bussink received with which to make a new youth documentary.
The next IDFA will take place from 18 through 29 November 2015.