The youngest filmmaker of the 32nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) – the 21-year-old Canadian-Vietnamese director Carol Nguyen – opened the 2019 festival with a call for diverse representation in the film industry.
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
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IDFA 2019 Opens with Call for Gender Parity and Inclusion
21-year-old Canadian-Vietnamese director Carol Nguyen at opening night of 32nd International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) – PHOTO AND COPYRIGHT ROGER CREMERS
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IDFA Unveils Main Competition Lineup, + World Premiere of SUNLESS SHADOWS
Sunless Shadows (Mehrdad Oskouei) The world premiere of Sunless Shadows (Mehrdad Oskouei) will kick off the 32nd edition of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Filmed in a small juvenile detention center, Sunless Shadows steps into the enclosed world of five young Iranian women, all accomplices in the murder of their abusive husbands, fathers, or brothers-in-law. Through breathtaking monologues and whip-smart interactions, the beauty, humor, and tragedy of the characters’ daily lives confirms that a murder story is never simple.
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IDFA 2019 Adds 72 Documentary Films incl Dutch Competition, Spotlight on Venezuela and Sudan
The Death of Antonio Sanchez Lomas 72 documentary films have been added to the lineup for International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2019 including the Dutch, Short, Student, and Kids & Docs competitions, alongside non-competitive sections Luminous, IDFA on Stage, Spotlight: Venezuela, and Spotlight: Sudan.
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IDFA Reveals 70 Documentary Films on 2019 Lineup
Fat Front directed by Louise Unmack Kjeldsen and Louise Detlefsen From acclaimed auteurs to emerging directors to visual artists that push the limits of documentary film, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) announced 70 selected documentary film titles to the program sections Frontlight, Masters, Paradocs, Paradocs: Amsterdam Art Weekend at IDFA, and Best of Fests, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jørgen Leth. The new selections include world premieres from Oeke Hoogendijk, Louise Detlefsen, Louise Kjeldsen, and Basir Mahmoud.
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IDFA Reveals First 2019 Documentary Selections + Patricio Guzmán Restrospective
Marshawn Lynch: A History directed by David Shield The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam announced the first film selections for IDFA 2019, taking place November 20th to December 1st. The curated program sections include 54 titles from the new focus programs It Still Hurts, Re-releasing History, and The Villain, the Retrospective and Top 10 of Guest of Honor Patricio Guzmán, and a special tribute section to D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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World Premiere of DIRTY GOD to Open 48th International Film Festival Rotterdam
The film Dirty God by Dutch filmmaker Sacha Polak (Hemel, Zurich) will open the 48th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Dirty God is a compelling portrait of a young mother named Jade (a powerful debut role for actress Vicky Knight), and deals with themes of courage, self-acceptance and motherhood in contemporary London.
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2018 IDFA Awards – REASON Wins Top Award for Best Documentary
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Anand Patwardhan (India), The IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary Film Reason, The film is a broad-ranging examination of Indian society, where secular rationalists are hunted down as they attempt to stem the rising tide of religious and nationalist fundamentalism.
Photo: Nichon Glerum International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam 2018, Award Show in de Stadsschouwburg.[/caption] Reason by Anand Patwardhan won the Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the awards ceremony of the 31st International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Los Reyes by Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff won the Special Jury Award for FeatureLength Documentary. IDFA runs until Sunday November 25, 2018. Giacinto Scelsi. The First Motion of the Immovable by Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva was awarded the IDFA Award for Best First Appearance, and Kabul, City in the Wind by Aboozar Amini won the IDFA Special Jury Award for First Appearance. The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary went to ‘Now something is slowly changing’ by mint film office. But Now Is Perfect by Carin Goeijers received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary. At the beginning of the evening, Reber Dosky presented the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipend (€ 50.000) to filmmaker Sophie Dros.International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam 2018 Awards
IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary
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Reason by Anand Patwardhan[/caption]
Anand Patwardhan won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (€ 15.000) with Reason (India). The film is a broad-ranging examination of Indian society, where secular rationalists are hunted down as they attempt to stem the rising tide of religious and nationalist fundamentalism.
From the jury report: The IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary is unanimously given to Reason by Anand Patwardhan for the epic storytelling of the rise of the far right in one of the most populated countries of this planet, the violence of religious and ultranationalist militias with the support of authorities and dominant medias, the dignity of resistance in multiple forms, often at life-cost, in a way that acknowledges the complexity of the situation but put it in a very understandable shape.
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Los Reyes by Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff[/caption]
In addition, the jury presented the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary (€ 2.500) to Los Reyes (Chile, Germany) by Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff. In this almost fairytale-like film, the phenomenal, dreamlike camerawork centers almost entirely on the subtle interaction between two dogs, as they play with a ball, a stick, a stone, and each other.
From the jury report: The IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary goes to Los Reyes, by Bettina Perut and Iván Osnivikoff (Chile, Germany) for the creative and beautiful way it displaces the viewer gaze by associating a sensible look at non-human wonderful characters and the soundtrack that connects daily lives of animal and human stray dogs.
IDFA Competition for First Appearance
Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva won the IDFA Award for Best First Appearance (€ 10.000) for Giacinto Scelsi. The First Motion of the Immovable (France, Italy). Aboozar Amini won the IDFA Special Jury Award for First Appearance, in memory of Peter Wintonick (€ 2.500) for Kabul, City in the Wind (Netherlands, Afghanistan, Japan, Germany).IDFA Competition for Mid-Length Documentary
The IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary (€ 10.000) was awarded to Andrei Kutsila for Summa (Poland, Belarus). The IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary (€ 2.500) went to In Touch (Poland, Iceland) by Pawel Ziemilski.IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling
Ross Goodwin won the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling (€ 5.000) for 1 the Road (United States).IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction
The IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction (€ 5,000) went to Eat | Tech | Kitchen (Netherlands, United States) by Klasien van de Zandschulp & Emilie Baltz.IDFA Competition for Dutch Documentary
The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary (€ 7.500) went to ‘Now something is slowly changing’ by mint film office. Carin Goeijers received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary (€ 2.500) for But Now Is Perfect.IDFA Competition for Short Documentary
I Signed the Petition (United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland) by Mahdi Fleifel won the IDFA Award for Best Short Documentary (€ 5.000). The IDFA Special Jury Award for Short Documentary (€ 2.500) went to And What Is the Summer Saying (India) by Payal Kapadia.IDFA Competition for Student Documentary
Beryl Magoko won the IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary (€ 5.000) for In Search… (Germany, Kenya). The IDFA Special Jury Award for Student Documentary (€ 2.500) was presented to Dana Gelman for Backwards (Israel).IDFA Competition for Kids & Docs
The IDFA Award for Best Children’s Documentary (€ 5.000) went to Dancing for You (Poland) by Katarzyna Lesisz. Martijn Blekendaal received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Children’s Documentary (€ 2.500) for The Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon (the Netherlands).Other Awards
At the beginning of the evening, Reber Dosky presented the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipend (€ 50.000) to filmmaker Sophie Dros. This € 50.000-Euro stipend towards the making of a new documentary was donated by an anonymous donor, who has made the stipend possible through the Cultuurfonds. The Amsterdam Human Rights Award (€ 25.000) was presented on Tuesday evening to Island of The Hungry Ghosts (Germany, United Kingdom, Australia) by Gabrielle Brady. The award was made possible by the City of Amsterdam.
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2018 IDFA to Open with Afghan Documentary KABUL, CITY IN THE WIND
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Kabul, City in the Wind[/caption]
Kabul, City in the Wind by Aboozar Amin, a sobering, intimate and warm account of daily life in Kabul during the silent intervals between suicide bombings, will open this year’s 31st International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) on Wednesday November 14th.
The bombings that happened, and those that will, define life for the film’s characters; a father who works as a bus driver, and two young boys whose policeman father is away due to murder threats.
“Amini introduces himself as an original uncompromising artist of film, he absorbed the work of Abbas Kiarostami and made it his very own,” Artistic Director Orwa Nyrabia comments.
Aboozar Amini (Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 1985) arrived in the Netherlands as a teenager and graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2010. Amini returned to reside in Afghanistan after his studies in the Netherlands. Kabul, City in the Wind is a co-production between Afghanistan, Japan and the Netherlands and was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund.
IDFA also revealed the the complete list of nominees for the Feature-Length Documentary, First Appearance and Dutch Documentary competitions. IDFA’s main competition consists of 12 titles by established filmmakers; the IDFA Competition for First Appearance consists exclusively of first films, including opening film opening film; and 11 unique films – both in terms of subject matter and form – compete in the IDFA Competition for Dutch Documentary.
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Alex de Ronde’s DEAF CHILD Wins IDFA Audience Award
Deaf Child by Alex de Ronde has been voted the winner of the VPRO IDFA Audience Award – the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam’s big audience prize.
Director Alex de Ronde was presented with the VPRO IDFA Audience Award (€ 5,000) by Chairman of the IDFA Board Derk Sauer during the VPRO broadcast Best of IDFA: Audience Award 2017, presented by Marijn Frank.
In Deaf Child, a father looks back over his life, prompted by old photographs, home movies and frank discussions with his two sons, now young adults, and evaluates the choices he has made. Was his fear that his deaf son would live an isolated life justified?
The winner of the VPRO IDFA Audience Award is decided by the audiences voting at the end of each screening, using ballot cards to express their opinion of the film.
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THE OTHER SIDE OF EVERYTHING Wins IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary
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The Other Side of Everything[/caption]
The Other Side of Everything wins the Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 30th edition of IDFA in the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. The Deminer by Hogir Hirori and Shinwar Kamal won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary.
At the beginning of the awards ceremony Ester Gould presented the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipend (€ 50,000) to filmmaker Reber Dosky. The festival runs until Sunday.
IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary
Mila Turajlic won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (€ 15,000) for The Other Side of Everything (Serbia, France, Qatar). The prize was presented by the Dutch minister of Education, Culture and Science, Mrs. Ingrid van Engelshoven. The film takes place within the walls of a sub-divided apartment in Belgrade. A family portrait that symbolises the political unrest in the country. From the jury report: An apartment becomes a metaphor for both the former Yugoslavia and the current political climate in the region. Through the filmmaker’s lens, we are introduced to her mother – an enlightened woman who has dedicated her life to political activism. Poetically structured, the beauty of this character resonates. The textured cinematic language artfully blends the historical with the personal. In addition, the jury presented the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary (€ 2,500) to The Deminer (Sweden) by Hogir Hirori and Shinwar Kamal. The documentary is a nerve-racking portrait of a Kurdish colonel, who disarmed thousands of roadside bombs and mines armed only with his courage and a pair of wire-cutters. From the jury report: The Deminer is an experiential, universal and global film. It portrays and reflects a part of the world that we rarely encounter in the cinema while capturing the tenacity of a single man confronting impossible odds.IDFA Competition for First Appearance
Simon Lereng Wilmont won the IDFA Award for Best First Appearance (€ 10,000) for The Distant Barking of Dogs (Denmark, Sweden, Finland). Ieva Ozolina won the IDFA Special Jury Award for First Appearance in memory of Peter Wintonick (€ 2,500) for Solving my Mother (Latvia).IDFA Competition for Mid-Length Documentary
IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary (€ 10,000) was awarded to Martin Benchimol and Pablo Aparo for The Dread (Argentina). The IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary (€ 2,500) went to Last Days in Shibati (France) by Hendrick Dusollier.IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling
Trine Laier won the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling (€ 5,000) for Cosmic Top Secret (Denmark).IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction
The IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction (€ 5,000) went to Lauren (United States) by Lauren McCarthy.IDFA Competition for Short Documentary
Zhalanash – Empty Shore (Poland) by Marcin Sauter won the IDFA Award for Best Short Documentary (€ 5,000). The IDFA Special Jury Award for Short Documentary (€ 2,500) went to As We’re Told (Sweden) by Erik Holmström and Fredrik Wenzel.IDFA Competition for Dutch Documentary
The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary (€ 7,500) went to The Long Season by Leonard Retel Helmrich. Maasja Ooms received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary (€ 2,500) for Alicia.IDFA Competition for Student Documentary
Klaudiusz Chrostowski won the ARRI IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary for Call Me Tony (Poland). He wins € 5,000 and an Amira camera which ARRI will give on loan for the winner’s next production. The IDFA Special Jury Award for Student Documentary was presented to Denise Kelm Soares for I Am (Cuba, Brazil). The award consists of € 2,500 and an Amira camera which ARRI will give on loan for the winner’s next production.IDFA Competition for Kids & Docs
The IDFA Award for Best Children’s Documentary (€ 5,000) went to Lenno & the Angelfish (the Netherlands) by Shamira Raphaëla. Astrid Bussink received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Children’s Documentary (€ 2,500) for L I S T E N (the Netherlands).Other Awards
At the beginning of the ceremony, Ester Gould presented the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipend (€ 50,000) to filmmaker Reber Dosky (The Sniper of Kobani, Radio Kobanî and Meryem). The first Amsterdam Human Rights Award (€ 25,000) was presented on Monday evening to Piripkura (Brazil) by Renata Terra, Bruno Jorge and Mariana Oliva.
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30th IDFA to Open with World Premiere of Egyptian Documentary AMAL
The 30th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will open on November 15 with the world première of Amal by Egyptian director Mohamed Siam. This coming-of-age documentary follows an Egyptian teenager during the revolution and its long resonating aftermath until today.
Panning through 6 years, we see how Amal searches for her identity in a country in transition. Amal is fierce and undaunted. But, as a young woman among men, she has to fight to survive and to find her own place in the streets and in all other areas of life. Amal has been selected for the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary and the focus program Shifting Perspectives: The Arab World.
Artistic director (interim) Barbara Visser: “In its choice of Amal as its opening film, IDFA has been able to combine almost everything it considers important: cinematic depiction of reality, an intimate story, and showcasing work by up-and-coming film talent from all over the world.” Siam (1982) is a fiction and documentary filmmaker from Egypt whose first work Whose Country? (2016) was amongst others selected for the New York Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival. He has previously won the Robert Bosch Film Prize, Durban FilmMart Afridocs Prize and Thessaloniki Award. For Amal, he took on the roles of writer, director, cinematographer and producer.
This film was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) and attracted finance at the IDFA Forum. This year, 57 projects have been selected from 23 countries, for IDFA Forum Selection 2017, including new projects by Victor Kossakovsky, Nino Kirtadze, Jian Fan and Maite Alberdi.
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NAILA AND THE UPRISING, Story of the Role Women Played in First Intifada, Premieres at DOC NYC
Naila And The Uprising
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Julia Bacha (Budrus, My Neighbourhood), Naila And The Uprising tells the remarkable story of Naila Ayesh, who played a key role in the First Intifada, the most vibrant, nonviolent mobilization in Palestinian history.
Naila And The Uprising will World Premiere at the eighth annual DOC NYC festival on Sunday, November 12 at the SVA Theatre, 209 East 23rd Street.
When the uprising broke out in the late 1980s, Naila was living in Gaza. Faced with a choice between love, family and freedom, she embraced all three, joining a clandestine network of Palestinian women in a movement that forced the world and Israel to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination for the first time. The film focuses on the power of women’s leadership in building a united front in the struggle for self-determination, equality and freedom in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It inventively combines animation with archival footage to explore this hidden history.
Naila And The Uprising premieres in the month leading up to the 30th anniversary of the start of the First Intifada on December 9, 1987 and, following its DOC NYC screening, will launch internationally at IDFA in Amsterdam.
Julia Bacha said the film was a long-anticipated Just Vision production: “The First Intifada is an iconic moment in Palestinian history, when women took the helm of leadership positions at the grassroots and guided a civil resistance effort that was highly strategic, effective and creative and, in many ways, is an example of what civil resistance can achieve in the face of overwhelming repression. It’s a story that the media at the time missed—a trend that continues today as communities organize across the region for equality, freedom and justice—and we’re thrilled to finally bring it to light.”
As part of a newly announced deal with Fork Films and THIRTEEN/WNET, Naila And The Uprising will be included in the four-part Women, War & Peace II series, which is slated to have its exclusive US broadcast premiere on PBS in 2018, as well as broad international distribution. This is the second installment of the Women War & Peace series, which highlights how women in contemporary conflict zones risk their lives and lift their communities in pursuit of freedom and justice. The first installment of the series in 2011—which included groundbreaking films like Pray the Devil Back to Hell—exceeded the expectations of PBS and the series producers.