Dutch cinema circuit Pathé Netherlands, a long-time collaborator with IDFA through its Tuschinski and Munt theaters which host many of the festival’s events and screenings, is launching a new documentary label called Pathé Docs, aimed at bringing documentaries to a wider audience.
The label, which has been devised in close collaboration with IDFA, will go live during the festival with the screening of three IDFA titles – Icelandic eco-doc Dreamland, Michael Moore’s C...
Getting a prize at IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, can be of major significance to a documentary film at the start of its long journey through the Festival circuit and, hopefully, to theatrical, television and ancillary distribution. The Festival's imprimatur is highly regarded and respected in the world of programmers and festival directors, who are here in Amsterdam scouring for the best in non-fiction film.
Here is the first part of the films compet...
The American documentary U.N. ME, a lacerating look at the inefficiencies of the United Nations, has its word premiere at the IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam this week. In a film that exposes the incompetence and corruption at the heart of the United Nations, filmmakers Ami Horowitz and Matthew Groff show how an organization created to ennoble mankind now actually enables evil and sows global chaos.
When the United Nations was founded more than sixty yea...
Veteran documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman was honored at IDFA's Opening Night ceremonies last evening with a Living Legends Award. There is much truth in the name of the award......Wiseman is a true living legend who continues his 50-year streak of creating intriguing, involving and sometimes shocking documentaries at the tender age of 79. He shows no signs of slowing down. His lastest project, LA DANSE, a portrait of the Ballet Company of the French National Opera.
Freder...
One could call it a documentary deluge.......IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world's largest event devoted to the non-fiction form, is expecting over 2000 international guests over the next 10 days. If you are in and into docs, Amsterdam is ground zero for film premieres, special events, chic parties and industry seminars and networking sessions.
The Festival has clocked in some 2200 accredited guests from The Netherlands and around the world to at...
The world of documentary film has descended on the city of Amsterdam for IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world's largest and most diverse showcase of non-fiction film from around the world. With documentaries showing muscle at the theatrical box office, as well as providing a well of programming for new electronic distribution formats, the hunger for the real is greater than ever. By offering a diverse program of film premieres, special...
IDFA is deeply saddened to hear that Wouter Barendrecht, founder and co-chairman of international sales and production company Fortissimo Films, passed away suddenly at the age of 43....
The Jan Vrijman Fund has concluded the first selection round of 2009 with the selection of 21 new projects from amongst others Mali, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iran....
Arrested by the Iranian government in July 2008, filmmaker Mohammad Ehsani has been imprisoned for almost a year. Ehsani's award-winning documentaries deal with critical social issues in Iran....
Arrested by the Iranian government in July 2008, filmmaker Mohammad Ehsani has been imprisoned for almost a year. Ehsani's award-winning documentaries deal with critical social issues in Iran....
In January, several documentary makers familiar to the IDFA audience were awarded at Sundance 2009. IDFA is pleased to congratulate Kim Longinotto, Havana Marking and Anders Østergaard....
Do we need movie critics? US newspapers and magazines increasingly think not. In recent years, many of the most celebrated film reviewers in the US have either retired or lost their jobs....
Also, watch the report on the FORUM and see the results of the Any Media workshop. Watch IDFA TV on the homepage or following this link....
Sunday, November 30--------IDFA came to a smashing and glamorous climax last evening at the IDFA Awards Ceremony. Winning the Joris Ivens Competition, the Festival's most prestigious prize, was Burma VJ--Reporting From A Closed Country by Danish director Anders Ostergaard. The film is a gripping chronicle of the 2007 uprising by Burmese monks, which creates a political and religious crisis in a country that is viewed as the most repressive regime on earth. Nearly all the footage in this fascin...
Saturday, November 29-----As IDFA began to wind down in anticipation of its Awards Gala this evening, here are some bits and pieces announced or experienced in the past week:
CROSS MEDIA PROJECTS AT IDFA FORUM
In addition to the traditional documentaries that were pitched at the IDFA Forum this past week, three projects were invited that deliberately cross media. Thee include the ambitious 24berlin-A Day In The Life, marking the 20th anniversary of the fa...
Saturday, November 29---------One of the pleasures for me in attending the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the theatrical experience of viewing "serious cinema" in a plush environment. With its move last year to the Rembrandtplein, IDFA has been able to license two of Amsterdam's premiere theaters: the art deco movie palace the Tuschinski and the modern multiplex Pathe Munt. Both theaters offer a widescreen and "big" presentation of what is often...
On one level, 'Necrobusiness' is an amusing account of how three business partners fall out when their business strategy goes awry. On another, it is a terrifying tale of murder, blackmail, and ultimately betrayal....
IDFA’s Kids and Docs sidebar, showcasing international documentaries made for children aged eight to thirteen, has gone from strength to strength this year, with sell-out screenings most afternoons....
Burma VJ (Denmark/Sweden/England/Norway
Friday, November 28-------As IDFA enters its final weekend, the front runners in the various competition categories have been announced. At the nightly IDFA Talks, an assembly of filmmakers, producers, programmers and IDFA staff anxiously awaited the announcements of the final nominees in the main Festival competitions. The list is included below, with information on the award winners coming soon on this blog.
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Thursday, November 27-----While the accent at IDFA is on the new crop of documentaries being created around the world, there is also a healthy respect for career retrospectives to showcase for both filmmakers and audiences alike the themes and techniques of earlier non-fiction masters.
At this year’s event, the Festival is presenting two such retrospectives. 110 Years of Joris Ivens, named for the most famous Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, is celebrating the 110th birthday of th...
