International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)

IFDA Founder and Festival Director Ally Derks Announces Departure

Kate Erbland — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 17:40:40 GMT

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam founder and festival director Ally Derks is moving on after thirty years from the event she created. The IFDA announced today that Derks is departing the festival, and "will spend 2017 living and working in Berlin as an invited 'fellow' of the prestigious 'Robert Bosch Stiftung.'" Of her decision to leave after 30 years with the festival, Derks commented, "That seems like a good moment to say farewell and pass on the baton to the next generation."

Per the official press release, "as a 'Bosch Fellow in residence,' Derks will remain affiliated to IDFA in 2017, but on a sabbatical. In November 2017 – during the thirtieth anniversary celebrations – Ally Derks will officially step down from 'her' IDFA."

Dubbed "The High Priestess of Documentaries" by this very publication, Derks has long been one of the most influential participants in the Dutch and documentary film worlds. Derks founded IDFA in 1988, and the first edition of the festival screened 80 films to an audience of around 3,000 people. Since then, the festival has only grown in both prestige and reach, with an estimated 271,000 visitors last year. The festival has also grown to include the IFDA Forum, the Docs for Sale marketplace and the IDFA Bertha Fund for filmmakers, along with newer programs like DocLab and IDFAcademy.

Derks has long been lauded for her work, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Bannink Cock medal for her contribution to the city of Amsterdam and Hot Docs' Doc Mogul Award. Last year, she was made a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French ambassador to the Netherlands.

READ MORE: Why IDFA Founder Ally Derks is the High Priestess of Documentaries

Of the news, Derks added, "It has been 30 wonderful years, and saying goodbye is always a little painful. But I think the time is right. A year in Berlin will be a great challenge. I know I am leaving IDFA in good hands with my hugely appreciated, professional, dedicated colleagues. I look forward to the future with confidence, both for IDFA and for myself."

Chairman of the board Derk Sauer added, "IDFA without Ally is almost unthinkable. We are of course hugely indebted to Ally for what she leaves behind: a strong organisation, a fantastic festival and a great future."

Barbara Visser, visual artist/filmmaker and chair of the Royal Academy of the Dutch Royal Society of Arts, will take over Derks' role in 2017, and will be responsible for the creation of next year's festival program.

Visser said, "The documentary story, whether told in film or through interactive media, builds a bridge between social commitment and artistic freedom. These days there is always an abundance of information, while the giving of context and creation of beauty are pushed to the margins. The success of IDFA demonstrates that increasingly large numbers of people are coming to realise this."

Moreover, the IDFA board will name a new artistic director during the first quarter of 2018. The current financial director, Cees van 't Hullenaar, will transition to managing director in 2018.

2015 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) African Diaspora Highlights

Tambay A. Obenson — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 23:21:16 GMT

The 2015 edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) kicks off on November 18, and will run through the 29th.

Skimming through this year's lineup, I came across the below titles (short docs and feature docs) that have not been previously covered on this blog, and that will be of interest to readers. So take a look at the summaries below.

S&A will be present for the festival this year, so expect write-ups on these films, and others (some already covered quite extensively on this blog, like Stanley Nelson's "The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution" and more).

First, the 3 *unknown* short films.

1 - "Boxeadora," a film by Meg Smaker. Description: Since Castro’s Revolution, Cuba has won more Olympic gold medals in boxing than any other country in the world. Although this boxing powerhouse has more than 19,000 male boxers, female boxing is nonexistent on the island – the result of a ban on female boxing put into place after the revolution. 'Boxeadora' follows Namibia, a Cuban woman who has been training in secret as a boxer for five years, hoping the government would lift its ban. Now 38, she only has two years left of boxing eligibility. Journey with Namibia as she tries to leave the island to follow her only dream: to compete as a boxer.

Here's its trailer:

2 - "Bird Skin," from director Clara Peltier. Description: A Brazilian named dancer Tuane transcends her life in the favelas with dazzling performances in glittering costumes.

3 - "Iceberg," from director Juliana Gabriela Gomez Castañeda. Description: An intimate and lyrical portrait of Theresa, a frail fisherwoman in her sixties living on a small island with her granddaughter Maria.

And here are the 3 feature documentaries.

1 - "Coming of Age," from director Teboho Edkins. Description: A film that follows teenagers over two years as they grow up deep in the southern African mountain kingdom of Lesotho. Lefa, sees her world fall apart when her best friend Senate leaves the village, and must decide whether to stay or leave in search of a better education. Retabile takes care of the family’s livestock up in a remote cattle post, helped by his younger brother Mosaku, who watches as he goes through a rite of passage that marks his transition into manhood. The summer of youth is quickly over, doors into adulthood open and close.

2 - "Last Conversations," the last film by the late Brazilian director who died last year (he shot the film but passed away before he was able to edit it). Made from interviews with young Brazilian students by Coutinho, the film seeks to understand how teenagers think, live and dream nowadays. The footage was edited by Coutinho’s longtime partner, film editor Jordana Berg, and the final cut is signed by João Moreira Salles.

Errol Morris Reveals IDFA Top 10 Program, Including 'Man With A Movie Camera'

Zack Sharf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:08:31 GMT

READ MORE: Interview: Errol Morris Talks His Criterion Releases, Why 'The Unknown Known' Is "Superior" To 'Fog Of War' & More

The 2015 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is partnering with documentary pioneer Errol Morris for this year's Top 10 and retrospective programs.

The filmmaker behind "The Thin Blue Line" has selected 10 documentaries by prominent directors with a reputation for innovation within the documentary genre. The selection includes work by the likes of Chris Marker, Dziga Vertov, Frederick Wiseman and Kazuo Hara. On Friday, 20 November, Morris will elaborate on the choices in his Top 10 at a masterclass chaired by American film theoretician Bill Nichols.

Morris' Top 10 program includes:

"Bright Leaves" (USA, 2002) by Ross McElwee

"Fata Morgana" (Germany, 1971) by Werner Herzog

"It Felt Like a Kiss" (UK, 2009) by Adam Curtis

"Land Without Bread" (Spain, 1932) by Luis Buñuel

"Let There Be Light" (USA, 1946) by John Huston

"Man with a Movie Camera" (USSR, 1929) by Dziga Vertov

"One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevitch" (France, 1999) by Chris Marker

"Tales of the Grim Sleeper" (USA/UK, 2014) by Nick Broomfield

"The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On" (Japan, 1987) by Kazuo Hara

"Welfare" (USA, 1975) by Frederick Wiseman

Additionally, IDFA will be holding a Morris Retrospective, featuring six of the director's films. "The Thin Blue Line" (1988), "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" (1997), "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." (1999), "The Fog of War" (2003), "Tabloid" (2010) and "The Unknown Known" (2013) will all screen at IDFA 2015.

The festival takes place November 18-29.

READ MORE: Watch: 6 Unique Sports Documentaries Directed By Errol Morris About Everything From Streakers To Horse Racing

Review: In 'Song From the Forest,' Louis Sarno Joins a Pygmy Tribe, Starts a Family and Returns to New York

Eric Kohn — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 15:44:00 GMT

The saga of Louis Sarno has never been a secret. In the 1980s, American writer and musicologist visited the remote Bayaka Pygmy clan in the Central African Republic to record their unique music; with time, he settled among them, married a member of the tribe and started a family. In 1993, he published a memoir of his experiences, followed by an album collecting the Bayaka's earthy acoustic melodies in 1996; in 2010, Lavina Currier's feature-length "Oka!" fictionalized Sarno's journey with Kris Marshall cast as an embellished version of Sarno.

But the true record of his unique tale finally comes together in "Song From the Forest," documentarian Michael Obert's perceptive and utterly gorgeous look at Sarno's life today and his experience returning to his old haunts in New York. Through an elegant juxtaposition of jungle and city life, "Song From the Forest" (which takes its name from Sarno's book) not only shows what drew Sarno to the Bayaka's world, but the impulse that kept him there.

Delicately shot by cinematographer Siri Klug, "Song From the Forest" begins with an abrupt immersion into Sarno's life, where he's surrounded by lush greenery in every direction and the spiritual profundity that the tribe's solitary life has provided him. It doesn't take long to establish why he loves it there, but despite the degree of his integration he remains tied to his earlier roots: a scrappy radio provides him with news from the outside world, and he continues his affinity for classical music, which Obert conveys through a soundtrack that blends the Bayaka's sounds with 16th century renaissance chants.

The resulting portrait of Sarno's existence could form a compelling project by itself, but Obert effectively digs deeper to magnify Sarno's distaste for his old home with an appropriate hook: After his adolescent son Samedi grows ill, a bereft Sarno promises that he'll take the child to see the world if he manages to pull through; once he does, Sarno takes Samedi on a trip to New York, where Samedi seems more curious about the allures of urban life than his father ever was. The resulting odyssey reflects a greater meditation on the value of Sarno's work recording the tribe's sounds by hinting at its newer generation's desire for assimilation.

Before it gets that far, however, "Song From the Forest" explores Sarno's desire to abandon his roots with an ongoing audiovisual contrast between civilization and the tranquility of his Central African life. Among those reflecting on Sarno's choices, a key figure is his old pal Jim Jarmusch, who explains how the radicalism of their youth led Sarno to immerse himself in a culture divorced from the complex socioeconomic pressures of the Western world. "You realize how artificial it is," Sarno says. Even so, not everyone around him comprehended the move -- as his suburban-dwelling brother explains, their father only came to accept Sarno's unorthodox life choice on the older man's death bed.

For Sarno, however, the music speaks for itself. He was drawn to the Bayaka after hearing a snippet of their sounds on the radio, and ultimately became their greatest chronicler. His recordings, comprised of over 1,000 hours and 25 years worth of sounds, capture the communal aspect of the music and the way it blends with the natural surroundings. It has a uniquely fragile dimension -- "a sound not to be heard again," as Sarno puts it -- which makes the value of his work to other researchers unprecedented, as several of them interviewed in the movie attest.

Obert also reveals how the level of integration that Sarno experienced as he recorded these sounds has extended to his daily life: The filmmaker reveals snippets of Sarno speaking with his fellow villagers in their native tongue, helping them with their medical needs, and bargaining for local supplies. He seems so fully a part of their world that the prospects of leaving them is unthinkable -- which makes his eventual trip a source of much intrigue.

When the eventual voyage takes place, it confirms Sarno's lack of interest in his past, while showing his consternation with the way the rest of world (particularly doctors) regard him like a museum object. However, by primarily unfolding in the present, "Song From the Forest" leaves Sarno and the Bayaka in the same mysterious state that so many others see them in. The means by which he fell in love and decided to start a family, in addition to the relationship that the rest of the tribe has with the world beyond the jungle, remain somewhat frustratingly unclear.

However, that never detracts from the movie's success as a form of first-rate ethnographic storytelling. By documenting Sarno's worldview, "Song From the Forest" compellingly foregrounds the ephemeral nature of all culture. Additionally, by demonstrating the intrinsically beautiful quality of the Bayaka's ways, it merges with his mission.

Grade: B+

"Song from the Forest" opens theatrically in New York this Friday and in Los Angeles on April 17 followed by other cities.

Review: Is 'Of Men and War' the Most Powerful Iraq War Movie in Years?

Julian Ross — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 23:03:55 GMT

The second installment of his "Genealogy of Wrath" trilogy, Laurent Bécue-Renard's "Of Men and War" — which won the top prize at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam over the weekend — might be the most powerful Iraq war movie in years.

Using a device that recalls Claude Lanzmann’s "Shoah," Bécue-Renard explores the horrors of war with U.S. army veterans recounting their personal combat experiences with little else to guide the narrative.

Mostly set at the Pathway Home in Yountville, California, "Of Men and War" follows the lives of 12 war veterans who have succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder. Finding difficulties functioning back home, they seek support at the treatment center set up by Fred Gusman, a pioneer in the field, who initiated new treatment for veterans during the Vietnam War. Despite his comforting presence, the director keeps Gusman mostly off-screen, instead opting to fill the frame with tight close-ups of his main storytellers. Irrespective of the setting, the film isn't about the facility so much as the men's experiences before they got there.

READ MORE: IDFA Review: 'Those Who Feel the Fire Burning' is a Ghost's Perspective on Real Life Tragedy

In spite of his close proximity to his subjects, cinematographer Camille Cottagnoud never intervenes with fancy camerawork. After spending five months just observing, Cottagnoud and Bécue-Renard brought ventured into the group therapy sessions and recorded daily for five months. The results are remarkable: The ex-soldiers share their inner fears and deepest traumas in such candid ways that it's hard to believe a camera is present. But "Of Men and War" is no regular fly-on-the-wall documentary. The camera becomes an instrument for therapy through which, with incredible courage and generosity, the veterans reveal the memories that haunt them.

Outside of the small rooms where the group therapy takes place, the filmmakers occasionally follow individual soldiers out of the center to visit their families. At times, these lead to heartfelt encounters and festive celebrations. At other times, they unveil the repercussions of the trauma that have manifested in anger mismanagement. In either case, we are suddenly thrown back into the therapy room where we are confronted with another soldier in the middle of a lucid recollection. The abrupt cuts painfully reflect the instability of the veteran's state of mind that can never fully detach itself from the trauma.

While his first feature, 2001’s "War-Wearied," depicted displaced women of the Bosnian War, Bécue-Renard's follow-up focuses entirely on male characters. Although their outward appearances may seem traditionally virile, the fragility of their minds are communicated with persistent long takes that reveal the fragile terror in their expressions. As one ex-soldier stutters and twitches, his body falls in and out of the tightly composed frame. However, Bécue-Renard never abuses the frailty of these men. Rather than seeking to capture any particular event, "Of Men and War" is focused solely on reflection.

Appropriately, the film opens with a line from "All Quiet on the Western Front": "What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account?" The stories from the men at Pathway Home similarly address the challenges of sharing wartime memories. But through that process, Bécue-Renard proposes for us to learn from their experiences. As U.S. forces are sent back to Iraq to counter the advance of the Islamic State, "Of Men and War" allow us to consider whether the past that refuses to fade is not only for the soldiers but for all of us.

Grade: A

"Of Men and War" had its international premier at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), where it won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

READ MORE: Indiewire's Festival Page for IDFA

'Of Men and War' Wins Top Prize at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

Rachel Bernstein — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 16:17:54 GMT

The 27th annual International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam wrapped up this weekend and Laurent Bécue-Renard's "Of Men and War" took home the top prize for Best Feature-Length Documentary.

Per IDFA's synopsis, "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 IDFA jury explained its decision for the film's win: "The Jury recognizes a film that confronts us with our fragility as human beings, revealing that we must treat each other with gentleness and love. In a way that is never intrusive, the camera participates in therapy sessions for traumatized veterans...a more powerful anti-war film is hard to imagine."

The full list of winners and IDFA synopses are below:

Best Feature-Length Documentary
"Of Men And War" by Laurent Bécue-Renard

Special Jury Award
"Something Better to Come" by Hanna Polak
For fourteen years Polak followed young girl Yula and those who share her fate, living in the biggest waste tip in Europe, just outside Moscow.

NTR IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary
"Kamchatka – The Cure for Hatred" by Julia Mironova
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.

Award for First Appearance
"Drifter"by Gábor Hörcher
An up-close-and-personal portrait of a rebellious Hungarian racing talent who dramatically often veers of the socially accepted course.

Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance
"Mother of the Unborn" by Nadine Salib
Salib's film is about an Egyptian woman’s desire to become pregnant and thereby gain acceptance as a woman. The film received financial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund and was also one of the projects at the IDFAcademy Summer School 2014.

Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary
"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.

BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award
"Naziha's Spring" by Gülsah Dogan
A candid portrait of single mother Naziha, a number of whose children were the focus of negative media attention in 2007.

IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling
"Serial" 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?

IDFA Award for Student Competition
"No Lullaby" by Helen Simon
The film is a reconstruction of a horrific family history across three generations.

IDFA Melkweg Music Documentary Audience Award
"Keep On Keepin' On" by Alan Hicks
The film is about jazz legend Clark Terry (1920) and his young protégé Justin Kauflin, a blind jazz pianist.

IDFA DOC U Award
"My Beautiful Broken Brain" by Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland
Following a serious stroke, resilient, intelligent Lotje Sodderland tries to recapture her previously glorious life.

Mediafondsprijs Kids & Docs 2014
"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.

The next IDFA will take place November 18-29, 2015

READ MORE: IDFA Launches New Fund to Support Documentaries From Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Asia

Is the Future of Storytelling Just a Bunch of White Dudes?

Kel O'Neill — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 16:19:48 GMT

Last Sunday morning at 10 AM, I queued up behind a long line of groggy-eyed interactive media enthusiasts fighting through hangovers and jetlag, and shuffled my way into the Expozaal theater of the Flemish culture house De Brakke Grond, where IDFA DocLab holds its annual interactive conference. The audience, which seemed equally split between men and women from where I was standing, was greeted by Veerle DeVreese, fine art curator at De Brakke Grond and co-curator of DocLab’s Immersive Reality program. DeVreese quickly thanked everyone for giving up their cozy Dutch Sunday morning to sit in a theater and think about the future of storytelling, and then the program began.

A palpable sadness rippled through the Expozaal about an hour later, when curator Juha van ‘t Zelfde of Lighthouse shared a short clip from the video for Holly Herndon’s surveillance ballad "Home." With its lyrics about everyday invasions of privacy and its skittering 8-bit imagery, the piece served as a deeply unsettling reminder that our homes have become panopticons, and our privacy may be lost forever.

READ MORE: Here's How to Do Immersive Storytelling

Herndon's work is more than a beautifully crafted knife to the heart — it is a form of therapy for the listener. Before the age of constant surveillance and ubiquitous social media, there was a common understanding that loneliness meant isolation from other human beings. Today’s version of loneliness is different because it is tempered by the realization that none of us, or at least none of us who choose to own a smart phone or a computer, are ever truly by ourselves anymore. We are always being monitored, and yet we still continue to produce and share more and more personal information online, presumably in an effort to connect with others. We don’t yet have the language to describe this new loneliness, or to explain our relationship with the faceless men and women who are constantly looking over our shoulders. We need more artists like Herndon to help us turn over and examine this collective trauma.

Unfortunately, Herndon only showed up on a projection screen that Sunday and did not appear in person. If she had, we may have had a very different day, and I may have successfully completed my original assignment for POV, a listicle entitled "7 Things I Learned From the DocLab Interactive Conference (Plus 3 I Figured Out Myself)." Instead, I must write about the lack of diversity on display at the DocLab Interactive Conference. Out of the 18 speakers who took to the stage, only four were women. Meanwhile, the racial make up of the conference’s presenters was so homogeneous that it would have made the audience at a Toby Keith concert look like the UN General Assembly.

IDFA DocLab is an event about the intersection of film and tech. If you were to create a Venn diagram to chart the connections between these worlds, the overlapping area would contain the words "No Girls Allowed." This is not to give the impression that the DocLab Competition or Immersive Reality side bars don't feature female creators. They do. My co-director Eline Jongsma is one, as are Sarah Koenig, Miranda July, Yuki Kho and many others. But the Interactive Conference was something else all together, and people noticed.

READ MORE: What's to Be Gained with Immersive Storytelling?

Things came to a head midway through the day, when the conference was host to a five-person panel about virtual reality. The panel was a total brodeo, a shame given that VR in particular is a medium that holds the potential to allow audiences to experience perspectives other than their own. The Conference’s keynote speaker, Kyle McDonald, took notice by tweeting the message "@DocLab these guys all seem really cool, but is the future of vr & storytelling really dominated by young dudes?" Oscar Raby, director of the great Oculus Rift project Assent, responded by explaining that, in his mind, the panel was missing the voice of Nonny de la Pena, the virtual reality pioneer behind Hunger in Los Angeles and Project Syria. Sean Flynn of MIT Open DocLab tweeted a link to the White Guys Wearing Oculus Rift tumblr, while Brakke Grond employee Lara Coomans created the hashtag #blamecaspar — a (real? ironic?) jab at DocLab curator Caspar Sonnen and the rest of the programming team for their lack of attention to diversity. VR panelist Thomas Wallner defended himself by saying that he did not choose the panel’s participants. Some snorted at Wallner’s answer. I certainly did.

In retrospect, I had no right to do so. Just this October, I participated in a monochromatic, single-gender panel at NYFF Convergence about the difficulties of working as a small-crew filmmaker. I was aware of the problem before the panel and said nothing because I, like Wallner, didn’t think it was my place. Before that, in 2012, IDFA Paradocs celebrated the first festival exhibition of the installation version of our project "Empire" with a public discussion about the work between four white men (myself included) and Eline, whose gender and mixed Dutch-Indonesian heritage stood as the only barrier preventing the panel from achieving peak white-maleness. This last example is particularly egregious considering the subject matter of our work — the lingering effects of Dutch colonialism worldwide — and the diversity of the people who are represented on screen in the project. Because that panel was about our project, we could have done something to fix the issue. We did not, which in essence made us de facto curators totally deserving of a shaming hashtag of our own. I still feel embarrassed.

When certain people talk about curation, diversity is often framed in terms of restrictions. There are the artists who curators wants to program because they like their work, and then there are the semi-competent people who the curator has to program according to the rules of liberal decency. I get why this sounds like a drag, but it’s a logic built on a false dichotomy. If there’s one thing that our four years of life on the road for Empire taught me, it's that there is no shortage of great new media work being made by artists of both genders, all over the world. Being committed to representing diversity means being committed to finding more work, and to promoting more artists, not less. Diversity is the antidote to the echo chamber effect that can make nascent art forms feel so boring so quickly. I am thankful, for instance, that the Interactive Conference introduced me to Holly Herndon's work because her music speaks to me. Audiences want to have new experiences, and to hear new voices.

Kel O'Neill is one half of Jongsma + O'Neill, an award-winning Dutch-American creative team working at the intersection of documentary, art and technology. Jongsma + O'Neill's latest project, the interactive documentary "Empire," can be experienced at http://www.pbs.org/pov/empire/. Follow Kel at @keloneill.

This post was originally published at POV's blog.

READ MORE: Here are the Secrets to the Storytelling Success of "Serial"

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Heads to Amsterdam

Ryan Lattanzio — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:54:22 GMT

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) will jury the AWFJ EDA Awards at this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, which is one of the world's leading documentary film fests. This year's iteration runs November 19 to 30.

A nonprofit organization of leading female film journalists with members in the US, Canada and UK, the AWFJ annually recognizes women filmmakers with the prestigious EDA Awards at select film festivals and at the end of the year.

At Amsterdam, AWFJ will present the EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary. The fest has already nominated five female-directed feature-length docs. The films, which are all world premieres, are:

"My Beautiful Broken Brain" by Sophie Robinson (England)
"The Queen of Silence" by Agnieszka Zwiefka (Germany/Poland)
"Something Better to Come" by Hanna Polak (Denmark/Poland)
"Tea Time" by Maite Alberdi (Chili)
"Unearthed" by Jolynn Minnaar (South-Africa/Nigeria/US)

AWFJ jury members are: Leba Hertz (San Francisco Chronicle), Katherine McLaughlin (The Arts Desk in London), jury chair Jennifer Merin (Cinema Citizen Blog in NY), Wendy Mitchell (Screen International, London), Dorothy Woodend (The Tyree in Vancouver) and TOH! contributor Susan Wloszczyna (RogerEbert.com)The EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary at IDFA 2014 will presented at the festival on November 26.

Why the Antidote to Oscar Season Is a Pair of Documentary Festivals In The Netherlands And Denmark

Eric Kohn — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 14:00:01 GMT

With the Oscar season engine hitting full throttle, it's increasingly difficult to acknowledge any movie that's not being thrust to the front of the awards race. This is particularly true for documentaries, a handful of which manage to land slots on the shortlist, before a mere five titles duke it out for the top honor. If this minuscule sampling were meant to represent the overall quality of non-fiction storytelling today, it would be a pretty limited overview.

In a refreshing contrast, during the past two weeks in Amsterdam, some 292 documentaries from dozens of countries screened at the 26th edition of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. The festival also screened 100 older films and sold upwards of 200,000 tickets -- 10 times as many as it did in 1988, for its first edition. Now, it offers an ideal window into the expansive possibilities of the documentary form, but it's not alone.

In North America, documentary festivals like True/False, Hot Docs, Full Frame, AFI DOCS and DOC NYC provide further exposure for the widening field of documentary storytelling to supplement the exposure given to the handful of titles in the Sundance lineup. In fact, IDFA isn't even the only significant documentary showcase in the area: Over the past decade in neighboring Copenhagen, CPH: DOX has provided a compelling focus on hybrid cinema that combines elements of documentary and staged narratives, questioning assumptions on existing limitations with regard to the documentary form. This year, CPH: DOX sold some 70,100 tickets, a nearly 75% increase from the previous year.

The global documentary circuit provides a significant contrast to the perceived struggles that documentaries face in the United States, particularly those that aren't in English. Most distributors are wary of all but the most awards-friendly, issue-driven documentaries. A fair amount of traditional documentaries may find lucrative television deals, but the more sophisticated efforts struggle to find audiences willing to embrace them -- except, of course, for the ones filling cinemas in The Netherlands this past month.

IDFA alone presents a promising counter-example to the seemingly tough scenarios that documentaries face, not only with respect to the films out now but those in production as well. Docs For Sale provides a healthy forum for distributors, commissioning editors, sales agents and programmers to check out new projects and survey those in the pipeline during competitive pitching forums. "People are fighting to get in," said IDFA founder and current festival director Ally Derks during a conversation in Amsterdam last week. "It's been a controlled growth."

When IDFA first started, it was a small, disorderly affair that reflected the lack of infrastructure for documentary films at the time. "We had no idea what we were doing," Derks recalled, pointing out that the competition section featured an unwieldy bundle of 44 films, compared with this year's 15. "It was like madness."

However, the festival gradually accumulated its stature as the epicenter of the international documentary industry by its virtue of the platform it provided for the films, many of which now screen in the 900-seat Tuchinski theater. "What I said from the beginning was that we take documentary just as seriously as fiction," Derks said. "We're not going to show these films in art houses, but in commercial cinemas."

As a result, on the opening night of the festival, the Tuchinski was packed for a screening of the dour-but-essential "Return to Homs," a vivid depiction of the Syrian civil war shot from the heat of the battle. By the next day, streets were crammed with audiences zipping from one screening to another. It was a distinct illustration of the demand for quality documentaries that has resulted from a festival of this size offering them up.

With that much in play, the onus has been placed on documentary programmers to figure out which movies deserve the exposure that such events can provide. "I think most of the films in competition are author-driven films, good storytelling, and good cinema," said Derks, by implication distinguishing those films in the selections from the slew of issue-driven ones that tend to hog the spotlight. "It is a stigma," Derks said of the tendencies for documentaries to be perceived as works of activism instead of art. "These films do exist, of course, and we show them. I do think it's important to talk about them. Our reality can arouse some important discussions."

As a result, IDFA's lineup had it both ways: Its 2013 competition titles dealt with heavy issues through innovative filmmaking techniques. In a year when Joshua Oppenheimer's mesmerizing, otherworldly look at unremorseful Indonesian gangsters in "The Act of Killing" stands a good shot at sneaking into the Oscar race, the prospects for filmmakers dealing with big topics in fresh ways are particularly strong.

At IDFA, several of the titles in the main lineup illustrated just that. Competition winner "Song From the Forest," from first-time director Michael Obert, explored the experiences of American expatriate Louis Sarno, who fled New York thirty years ago and started a family with a tribe in Africa. While the movie contains shrewd observations about the contrast between urban and jungle lifestyles, it's largely a gentle mood piece that strives to convey Sarno's zen state of mind. "Don't Leave Me," another well-received competition entry, explores the struggles of alcoholism by foregrounding the antics of its two lead characters in the guise of a disarming buddy comedy. Even "A Letter to Nelson Mandela," which intelligently poked holes in Mandela's squeaky clean legacy, assumed the form of a first-person diary project.

With its own competition winner, CPH: DOX provided an even greater statement on the possibilities of the documentary to explore substantial global issues in compelling ways. Algerian filmmaker Narimane Mari's "Bloody Beans" follows a handful of Algerian children exploring their country's history of colonialism and its battle for independence through an increasingly bizarre series of play sessions. The result is like last year's New Orleans-set "Tchoupitoulas" (in which a trio of boys engage in lyrical adventures over the course of a vivid evening) were framed against the backdrop of "The Battle of Algiers." With its emphatic children guiding the story forward, "Bloody Beans" manages to be simultaneously charming and thematically complex. Over the course of an increasingly wild night, the kids engage in a flamboyant dance to reenact their cultural heritage, take a French soldier "prisoner" and dodge invisible bombs. Through this spectacular choreography of mimicked rituals and liberated energy, "Bloody Beans" keenly illustrates the performative aspects of history as it travels through generations.

Above all else, "Bloody Beans" represents a genuine film festival discovery -- the sort of thing that would simply never find its way into the world without the support system of validation and exposure that such an event has the power to provide. Whether at IDFA, CPH: DOX or elsewhere, such works demand proper context to stand out, particularly when so many narrative features contain more traditional selling points. "Film critics nowadays have no idea how to write about documentary films," Derks complained. "It's really all about the topic, nothing about form."

But with time, IDFA and its ilk have started to alter the perceptions of documentaries around the world. "All of a sudden people wanted to come here, because all of these documentary filmmakers had been struggling by themselves," Derks said. "Suddenly there was was a festival where everybody came together. And there was an audience."

How Ballet Casts Political Protests In A Fresh Light In Mesmerizing Doc 'Demonstration'

Eric Kohn — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 14:48:38 GMT

On March 29, 2012, as thousands of youth stormed the streets of Barcelona for a general strike against the nation's austerity plans, Ludwig Minkus' "Don Quixote" was performed at the Opera House. Filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky ("¡Vivan las Antipodas!") threaded together these two seemingly unrelated events with a third: He sent 32 of his film students from his Master of Creative Documentary course at the Pompeu Fabra University to document the chaotic protests. The feature-length project assembled out of the extensive footage, titled "Demonstration," has been cleverly set to excerpts of Minkus' compositions, resulting in a ballet of moving images that simultaneously recounts the events while meditating on their significance.

In an emerging sub-genre of movies about modern activism that rely on crowd-sourced footage (see everything from the Cairo-set "The Square" to "99% -- The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film"), "Demonstration" stands out for taking a shrewd artistic approach that fuses its fragments into an engaging whole. With a shrewd eye for melding images with their musical counterpoints, Kossakovsky and his students craft a montage of visuals that undulates in accordance with the rhythms of its soundtrack; on occasion, tidbits of sound trickle in, marrying the experiment with its inspiration.

The roaming collage is unapologetically transparent in its intentions, but it leads to a highly enjoyable treatment of its subject. Fast-paced by virtue of its breathtaking crowd scenes, "Demonstration" maintains a state of shock and wonder at the nature of the citizen revolt largely divorced from its specifics. (The same approach could've worked wonders in Tahrir Square.)

However, the flow of images doesn't prevent the movie from developing a handful of recurring characters. The most prominent of these is a war veteran initially seen marching solo in the plaza to a scattered crowd and yelling to the wind ("Where are the bankers and stock brokers? They're eating the workers!"). Gradually, he becomes a more dynamic figure, ultimately emerging as the symbolic hero as events unfold; while first heard offering measured arguments about the country's unemployment problem, he later creates an alarming spectacle by lying down in the middle of the street in the path of incoming police vehicles and beckoning them forward. His radicalism leads to a delightfully human moment: A concerned officer, thinking the old man has fallen down, expresses concern for his health. "I'm fine," he spits back, "but the rights of the people are not."

Kossakovsky cuts between these enthralling moments and shots of the same activist, along with one of his peers, watching their exploits in a screening room months later. Here, he strikes a sobering note, recalling his experiences in wartime when bullets weren't made of rubber; his intellectual justification lends a deeper meaning to the earlier antics that the musical element can't possibly convey on its own.

Still, such theatricality is closely mirrored in the movie's experimental form. Lecturing some of the younger onlookers about his mission, the camera swirls around him, turning the scene into a blur of colors, as if his vivid ideology has merged with the physical events. The suggestion takes on an even shrewder dimension with the movie's insightful closing shot, in which bank employees hesitantly enter a graffiti-caked building after the bedlam has subsided.

The music lends a graceful quality to the chaos by playing against it with darkly ironic and often humorous results. Minkus' score crescendos as police swarm toward unseemly groups, batons in hand, and fail to do much beyond stir things up even further; elsewhere, a helicopter playfully drifts in and out of an otherwise empty shot of the cloudless sky, as if mocking the authorities' finicky response.

Extending beyond the aggressive component of the riots, the students' footage also features a meta-quality in the bountiful shots of activists recording the events around them. The cameras take on a starring role. It's here that "Demonstration" turns into a thoughtful celebration of its ability to exist. Beyond the particularities fueling the mayhem, the project explores the possibilities of the recorded act as an act of self-empowerment (the idea echoes the early revolutionary theories of Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov, and there's no doubting that "The Man With the Movie Camera" director would've loved what Kossakovsky has achieved here).

Though unquestionably fun to pull apart, however, "Demonstration" establishes its fairly rudimentary concept early on (considering the volume of footage that must have been available, its 70-minute running time is a particularly impressive feat). The broader implications of relationship between the "Don Quixote" score and and the revolutionary spirit remains up for debate: Are the activists fighting windmills or has the government become lost in capitalist fantasies? For all the dexterity of its execution, "Demonstration" stops short of assembling its pieces into a satisfying whole. But even if the gimmick runs its course before the movie's end, it maintains the vitality of the music by showing how the protestors skillfully dance to their own tune.

Criticwire Grade: B+

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Having premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, "Demonstration" is likely to remain on the festival circuit for the next year, surfacing at niche-oriented festivals interested in its subject matter or avant-garde aspects. Theatrical prospects are slim, though it could wind up in a limited release at independent venues with local audiences hip to its topic.

A Teen Helps Syrian Rebels From the U.S., But Can She Carry A Movie? '#chicagoGirl' Attempts It

Eric Kohn — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:01:37 GMT

The role of social media in fueling the Arab Spring has been a crucial aspect of its progress, so it was only a matter of time before somebody made a documentary about it. In the aptly titled "#chicagoGirl -- The Social Network Takes On a Dictator," director Joe Piscatella explores the phenomenon in the throes of one its more prolonged struggles, the Syrian revolution.

The project simplifies the cluttered impact of status updates and video fragments sent forth from the war by focusing on the receiving end, in the form of Illinois-based college freshman activist Ala'a Basatneh, who has aided revolutionaries in Syria online for two years. While hardly a complete picture of the situation or even an especially complex one, "#chicagoGirl" embodies the idealistic spirit of its subject.

A Syrian immigrant obsessed with aiding her countrymen overseas, Basatneh wields technology with extraordinary finesse, mapping out escape routes on Google Maps and pulling together activists from different parts of town using the online powers unavailable to them. Shifting between her account of attempts to aid the cause from her bedroom to dramatic footage of the war shot from the front lines, Piscatella shows the direct link between Basatneh's button-pushing tactics and the intense survival methods adapted by those on the receiving end. The global infrastructure is a fascinatingly modern process: At protests, activists record footage and send it directly to Basatneh, who blurs out faces to protect them from government scrutiny before uploading them to YouTube. In her Facebook group, she weaves together Syrian activists both in the country and beyond it, creating a broader representation of those committed to fighting ahead than any given media broadcast.

Piscatella pads this portrait with expert talking heads, largely hordes of media experts whose eagerness to place Basatneh's endeavor in the context of new media paradigms border on the obvious -- it's all about "the ability of citizens to report on facts of their own lives," proclaims tech writer Clay Shirky. But the filmmaker also includes a welcome overview of the Syrian war itself, uncovering its roots in Bashar al-Assad's history of rulership in the wake of his father's 30-year reign.

Nevertheless, "#chicagoGirl" places less emphasis on the cause of the war than the moment to moment efforts by those engaged in it. The story's immediacy mirrors the pace of communication that Basatneh facilitates with relentless fervor. Piscatella outlines her domineering commitment to the cause, finding her fiddling with her smartphone during class and discussing experiences with pro-regime stalkers threatening her in person, which only strengthens her drive.

At a slim 74 minutes, "#chicagoGirl" rushes through as many aspects of Basatneh's significance as it can without devoting too much time to any single ingredient. Her parents express concern for her, but their relationship to the cause remains largely undefined; the glimpses of emotion when Basatneh deals with news that some of her activist friends have been killed come and go relatively quickly. The movie concludes with an end credit summing up two trips she made to Syria, hinting at a missing third act.

But "#chicagoGirl" makes a distinct point by virtue of its existence: That mainstream reports on Syria haven't sufficiently exposed the extent of the destruction taking place there. "Don't forget this country," pleads one activist on Skype. This isn't the only new movie to make that point. "chicagoGirl" premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, which opened last week with the viscerally unsettling "Return to Homs," a powerful but relentlessly dreary account of activist fighters in the eponymous bombed-out city.

Viewed collectively, "#chicagoGirl" and "Return to Homs" portray the dwindling resources among revolutionaries in Syria as they dash through crumbled buildings dodging bombs. Of the two, "Return to Homs" is unquestionably a sharper work of cinematic heft that carries the grim weight of the losses unfolding in the country at each moment, as well as the growing sense of despair surrounding them. "#chicagoGirl" contains only a frantic glimpse of the intense survival tactics shown throughout "Return to Homs."

However, Basatneh's drive shows that the battle cries haven't gone unheard. "When the regime finally falls, these videos will hold them accountable," one activist proclaims. And even she realizes that her wifi connection can only do so much. "They need help on the ground more than they do online," she says. As it ends, "#chicagoGirl" leaves the impression of being the first chapter in a long story far from being finished.

Criticwire Grade: B

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Broadly accessible if not groundbreaking, "#chicagoGirl" is too short and specific for a wide theatrical release, but should enjoy continuing festival play and a healthy broadcast/VOD life.

Is Nelson Mandela Overrated? New Documentary 'A Letter to Nelson Mandela' Makes the Case

Eric Kohn — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:54:51 GMT

With Nelson Mandela apparently at death's door and the biopic "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" revving up for Oscar season with a recent White House screening, widespread veneration for South Africa's iconic leader has arguably never been higher. The mythology surrounding Mandela has grown so sacrosanct that the measured approach to his failings in Khalo Matabane's diary-like documentary "A Letter to Nelson Mandela" has almost radical connotations. However, far from issuing a subversive missive, Matabane manages a thoughtful analysis of Mandela's monolithic legacy through the prism of growing up in its shadow as a child of the eighties. Expertly assembled with a mixture of authoritative talking heads and the filmmaker's introspective first-person narration, "A Letter to Nelson Mandela" cannily deconstructs the messianic fervor surrounding its subject -- and, by extension, others like him.

Raised, like so many South Africans of his generation, to revere Mandela as the panacea to the ills of apartheid, Matabane uses his eponymous open letter to frame a contrast between the hysteria's surrounding Mandela's celebrity and the reality of his accomplishments. Many of the fellow South Africans that Matabane interviews complain about the heavenly qualities ascribed to Mandela as the curtain fell on apartheid. "The symbol of Mandela became more powerful than the man," says one, while another suggests that the fanaticism surrounding Mandela's activism made him "like a Moses."

These assertions are juxtaposed with an impressive lineup of establishment figures ranging from Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger to the president of Germany. Using their voices to explore the nature of Mandela's diplomacy, Matabane both shows reverence for the erstwhile president's influence on other world leaders while demystifying his presumed greatness.

Though Matabane doesn't force his own experience into the center of these conversations, through his voiceover, he cast himself as the story's other main character, foregrounding his emerging understanding of Mandela over the years. A teenager when Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Matabane recalls noticing Mandela's unglamorous appearance on television ("You looked normal, like my grandfather"). It's a sly way into poking holes in perceptions of South Africa's immediate transformation into peacetime: Matabane touches on the 1993 assassination of African National Congress member Chris Hani by apartheid loyalists and the nation's lingering poverty as evidence that the picture never really got that rosy.

Matabane assails the transformation of Mandela's old prison cell into a public shrine for obscuring the events that unfolded during the same time in the outside world, but once again, he doesn't do all the legwork himself: Selina Williams, an activist whose sister died in an apartheid-related bombing during protest activities, sets the record straight: "South Africa was created by its people," she says. "We can't give all the glory to one person." War photographer Greg Marinovich echoes that concern by calling Mandela "a shorthand solution to all the country's problems." Although it clocks in at just over 80 minutes, Matabane's project tucks these concise assertions into each of its neatly formulated chapters, leaving no doubt that many others share his frustrations.

However, with its reflective tone, "A Letter to Nelson Mandela" is never entirely dismissive of Mandela's impact. Digging into his message of reconstitution through a controversial process of national forgiveness, Matabane includes multiple stories featuring victims of apartheid-era oppression facing their supposedly remorseful captors years later. The most tantalizing among them is Albie Sachs, who lost an arm in a car bombing, and recounts his story of meeting the bomber after the war with cathartic results. Instead of dismissing this approach, Matabane convincingly argues that the unifying spirit simply underserved the demand for justice.

"A Letter From Nelson Mandela" gets somewhat unruly when Matabane expands its scope to draw parallels between apartheid, the Salvador Allende rulership in Chile and the war in Iraq. However, the personal dimension of the project allows these asides to churn along without interrupting the flow. Matabane's collection of sights and sounds allow for a complete immersion into the iconography of the main period under discussion. Combining pro-Mandela chants, folk songs featuring fawning lyrics, and snippets of news reports surrounding Mandela's current withering state to root the project in the present, Matabane reaches an apt conclusion: "Perhaps you are a creation of my own imagination." By the time Matabane gets that far, he's earned the ability to speak for a generation.

While some of the repeated cutaways of the filmmaker's sullen reflection in the window of a South African train overemphasize his confused state, that same ingredient excuses the movie from a purely objective overview. Matabane only touches on Mandela's positive achievements through archival materials, but that point of view has been so heavily established (and strengthened further with each passing year) that its marginal role here imbues "A Letter From Nelson Mandela" with a fresh angle that feels not only provocative but essential.

"The narrative around building a new country was not interrogated enough," Matabane asserts. "It is an unfinished story." With "A Letter to Nelson Mandela," the director takes a productive step towards the possibility of completing it.

Criticwire Grade: A-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? A well-received and obviously provocative entry at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, "A Letter to Nelson Mandela" should enjoy plenty of festival play and has a decent shot at finding limited distribution with a company willing to embrace its unconventional slant.

IDFA Names Special Jury Award After Late Peter Wintonick

Peter Knegt — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:13:54 GMT

The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced that they will present an extra award in memory of the late Peter Wintonick -- who had hosted the popular "IDFA talkshow" at the festival. IDFA founder and director Ally Derks said the Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance will be given out with a prize of €2,500.

"Throughout his career, Peter Wintonick was committed to guiding young filmmakers," IDFA said. "This encouragement award is IDFA’s tribute to his work and his spirited enthusiasm."

Jan Röfekamp, sales agent at Canada’s Films Transit provided the financial support for the award.

Wintonick passed away last week, leaving behind a remarkable amount of friends in the film world, many of whom have posted in the comments section of the linked article. Another, Sheffield Doc/Fest Director Heather Croall, offered this beautiful essay on Wintonick's final days.

Why Lamb Of God Documentary 'As the Palaces Burn' Isn't Just For Metalheads

Eric Kohn — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:37:33 GMT

Don Argott's 2011 documentary profiled a heavy metal addict, Pentagram vocalist Bobby Liebling, just as he hit rock bottom and decided to fight for a comeback. In "As the Palaces Burn," Argott follows another famous metalhead, Lamb of God's growling songster Randy Blythe, who has already put his hard drinking days behind him, but remains haunted by them. At first simply a look at the band's recent tour, the movie blossoms into a gripping legal tale when Blythe faces unexpected murder charges. Whereas "Last Days Here" explored the self-destructive power of stardom, "As the Palaces Burn" achieves an even greater impact by universalizing that theme and exposing the challenges that persist even when it seems like the worst is over. Like the music at its center, "As the Palaces Burn" foregrounds deep-seated anguish and finds tenderness at its core.

At first, "As the Palaces Burn" successfully demystifies clichés surrounding heavy metal subculture by finding the band hard at work in preparation for touring with its 2012 "Resolution" album. Behind the explosive riffs and growls that define their sound, the group has entered middle age in relatively low key fashion. There's no better image to punctuate this observation than bearded guitarist Mark Morton shooting hoops with his toddler and working the grill, although drummer Chris Adler shares a similarly gentle moment with his own young child. Blythe himself, compared to earlier tour footage that shows him stumbling around in a drunken stupor, has grown increasingly erudite in the wake of giving up the bottle. The juxtaposition between Lamb of God's anarchic music and soft-spoken amiability is both comical and well-defined, setting the stage for an exploration of metal's cathartic power for its countless fans.

During the initial half hour, Argott uses the tour as a backdrop for detailing the band's international appeal, particularly its impact on alienated youth. The series of mini-profiles are straightforward but entirely watchable even if you don't care for assaultive noise rock: In Colombia, Argott finds a "part time cab driver, full-time metalhead" who looks to the band as his way of moving beyond the trail of corruption and death that has marred his family history; in India, the filmmaker finds a female heavy metal vocalist for whom the music provides an escape from her country's restrictive social norms. Collectively, these sequences smartly make the case that metal, as one band member put it, provides "an organic outlet to get all those fucking demons out."

The celebratory spirit provides enough enthusiasm to sustain about a third of the movie, which is all the space it takes up. Around the 30 minute mark, the movie's entire focus shifts when the band gets stopped on the runway by officials in the Czech Republic and Blythe gets taken into custody. Once there, he's accused of playing a role in the death of a teen fan from three years earlier injured during a stage diving incident that none of the band members can recall. Stuck behind bars in a foreign land, Blythe finds himself fighting charges that could put him behind bars for years.

Maybe Argott was just in the right place at the right time, but "As the Palaces Burn" hardly downplays the significance of this development, instead nimbly transforming into a courtroom drama that forces the singer to literally confront his former self. Argott's camera captures remarkable back-room conversations between Blythe and his legal council as they scrutinize videos from the show and prep for a jury-free trial where seemingly anything could go awry. With the shift from conventional rock doc into something more sophisticated, "As the Palaces Burn" remains enthralling all the way through.

Even then, the band's future remains at the center of the proceedings. Argott shows Larry Mazer, Lamb of God's gruff manager (who initially commissioned Argott to make a traditional movie about the band's popularity) yelling into the phone about the business ramifications of Blythe's situation, while the group's extensive community (including big-hitters like Slash) jumps to his defense. As pressure mounts for Blythe's release, the network of fandom established in the first half of the movie becomes a key factor in its second.

The details of the ensuing trial are fascinating, even as they come at the expense of certain personal aspects involving its impact on Blythe's family, his decision to return to face trial after he's released on bail, and his experience behind bars. But the stakes of his conundrum build to a deservedly moving conclusion. No matter how many fans have been saved by Lamb of God's music, "As the Palace Burns" leaves no doubt that the one person whom the band has helped most of all is its valiant frontman.

Criticwire Grade: A-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? SpectiCast will release the movie in a series of special engagements in February ahead of its DVD/VOD release, when fans of the band are likely to welcome it. Whether non-fans pay attention is uncertain.

Review: Dutch Documentary 'Don't Leave Me' Is the Best Buddy Comedy In Years

Eric Kohn — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 17:08:27 GMT

If Jim Jarmusch made a movie about two alcoholic friends hanging out in the woods, it might look something like the Dutch documentary "Don't Leave Me" ("Ne Me Quitte Pas"). Directors Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden's hilariously touching portrait of bitter men drowning their sorrows in booze is the ultimate buddy comedy with brains. Shot in the isolated forests of Wallonia, in French-speaking southern Belgium, it manages a fascinating naturalistic tone that's infectiously lighthearted without obscuring the downbeat quality of its subjects' lives.

The filmmakers focus on the meandering exploits of middle-aged native Marcel and his slightly older Flemish chum Bob, whose destructive antics have cut them off from any source of companionship aside from each other. As they stumble through a seemingly abandoned world defined by their vices and self-deprecating wit, "Don't Leave Me" marks the finest example of deadpan humor to come along in years. That's largely because it never strays from an emotional foundation that makes Marcel and Bob so likable no matter how much they screw up.

Any restrictive notion of documentary storytelling evaporates before the first frame, when Bakker and Van Koevorden cite "Waiting For Godot" in an opening quote, contextualizing their small cast in the traditional minimalist theater. The spirit of Samuel Beckett is certainly alive in this depiction of Marcel and Bob as they sit around chugging various intoxicants and reflecting on their meaningless existence. Their chemistry is key: The disheveled Marcel's loud, biting pronouncements form a sharp contrast to the soft-spoken Bob, who obscures his gloomy backstory under a decrepit fedora and trench coat, where he keeps a flask on call for any given moment.

Their defeatist attitude manifests in amusingly wonky fashion. Marcel's garrulous energy constantly puts him in the corner -- during the first scene, he tries to talk his wife of 16 years into a final screw after she announces plans to leave him -- while Bob shrugs off his woes with peculiar understatement: In an early scene, he takes a long walk to the tree he ascribes near-spiritual significance only to find that it has been cut down. "Tough luck," he sighs, as if it were his mantra.

Bakker and Koevorden frame the men with a carefree quality that liberates their irreverent misadventures, setting the scene with a bouncy rockabilly soundtrack at odds with their static lives. The camera captures them in somber moments tinged with an absurdity. At one point, Marcel takes his kids to a costume party and sits in the corner with a sullen expression while the lights and music create an amazingly ironic juxtaposition.

Such moments encourage speculation about how much the scenario has been planned; the timing of the gags and the complexity of the characters feel almost too neat. Yet "Don't Leave Me" remains so transfixing that the conditions of its production are secondary to its ability to entertain and provoke in equal measures. Hailing from the direct cinema school of non-fiction filmmaking, it shows virtually no evidence of a cameraman in the room, which makes it easy to settle into the duo's lives without contemplating how or why they've decided to reveal themselves so candidly.

The resulting odyssey, which finds Bob submitting himself to a rehab clinic and considering his next move, has the clean rhythms of a scripted black comedy. (With their precise archetypes echoing the attributes of a traditional "Odd Couple" pairing, one can easily imagine a producer snatching up the rights to turn "Don't Leave Me" into an American narrative with the likes of Zach Galinianakis as Marcel and perhaps Bryan Cranston in the role of Bob. You read it here first, folks.) Irrespective of the degree to which various scenes contain a constructed element, "Don't Leave Me" allows the men to carry each scene with their off-the-cuff wit. Announcing his plans for one day, Bob sighs, "I'm going to die first…then, I've got some leftover meatballs."

Since the days of Chaplin, melancholic figures have provided the best examples of slapstick, and these guys are no exception. An unruly joint visit to the dentist offers one of several moments of unsettling physical humor. A more shocking sequence involves Marcel passing out drunk in Bob's living room, prompting him to pour hot water to waken his sleeping pal; in another bit, he slips Marcel a shot of ammonia in a questionable attempt to cure his hangover.

Though Bob at first seems like the more collected of the two, when Marcel submits himself to a clinic, he starts to understand his friend's buried problems as more developed versions of his own: Bob, estranged from his adult son while Marcel struggles to remain a good dad to his young kids, proudly announces that he has no problem with a daily diet of rum. Puzzled by this revelation, Marcel is closer to the prospects of returning to his old ways than he initially realizes. The story smartens up along with him.

Ultimately the movie's assertive centerpiece, Marcel remains utterly likable in spite of his catastrophic ways, an utter mess desperately searching for a good time, which places him in a familiar tradition of bumbling male anti-heroes (imagine Kenny Powers by way of Homer Simpson). Telling lewd jokes to the nurses in his ward and then offering to buy them drinks, he threatens to turn his plight into a complete farce. But once back in the outside world, he battles through withdrawal symptoms with alarming results that deepen the stakes of his conflict.

The directors sustain a visual appeal on par with the unusual charisma their stars. Littered with beautiful compositions, "Don't Leave Me" uses insightful visual and audio cues to emphasize their secluded lives: a fleeting cutaway to a drowning frog mirrors Marcel's predicament as he copes with the temptation to take another drink; the use of Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart" blaring from a stereo creates an ironic context while Marcel broods by the window. Through it all, the minimalist quality of Marcel and Bob's lifestyle results in a touching, wistful quality that most dramatically-tinged mainstream comedies would never dare approach.

Irrespective of their chaotic ways, the men maintain an astute self-awareness. "If we don't feel pain, we can't tell when something feels good," Bob asserts. That nugget of wisdom finds its visual parallel in a climactic image where Marcel fumbles his way up a snowy hill with his motorcycle. Viewed solo, his conundrum assails the notion that misery loves company by showing that no amount of it can supply a cure-all for terminal addiction. Stuck in a loop, Marcel and Bob push ahead, but their perennial intoxication is never more than a temporary fix.

Criticwire Grade: A

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Certain to please festival audiences around the world following its premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, "Don't Leave Me" faces tough theatrical prospects in North America (though it has already landed distribution with a Dutch company for early next year). However, strong reviews may turn it into one of the year's sleeper hits.

Moving Or Offensive? Henry Corra's New Cancer Documentary 'Farewell to Hollywood' Is Both

Eric Kohn — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:42:14 GMT

Some movies push beyond perceived moral boundaries for the sake of being purely transgressive. "Farewell to Hollywood," documentarian Henry Corra's collaborative project with Regina Nicholson -- who died of cancer last year at the age of 19 -- has a blurrier agenda. Corra, whose previous credits include "The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan," began a peculiar relationship with Nicholson after meeting her at a film festival and learning of her interest in completing a feature before her death. The mission is noble, but the final, scrappy product contains an ethical dubiousness that slips between Nicolson's apparent intentions and those of the much older man with whom she spent her dying days.

Is it a provocation from beyond the grave or a misconceived paean from the surviving director? Alternately confounding, upsetting and riddled with grief at every turn, "Farewell to Hollywood" is certainly the most paradoxical moviegoing experience I've endured this year.

Fortunately, there's no surprise moment involving Nicholson's death. Corra establishes that much upfront, explaining his initial interest in Nicholson with an opening title card and including footage where her ashes at buried at one of her favorite outdoor spots. Her parents, Corra explains, have not yet learned of her demise. From there, "Farewell to Hollywood" flashes back to 2010 and quickly establishes the spunky Nicholson as a diehard movie buff whose walls are lined with DVDs. Her ebullient Christian parents, encouraged after her recent surgery to remove a tumor in her leg, seem to encourage her interests and Corra's investment in helping her explore them.

The filmmakers -- taking the project at face value, the dual credits imply that there are always two authors at work here -- further emphasize Nicholson's burgeoning cinephilia with a series of flash cuts that shift between her life and the movies that excite her: A fleeting shot of Nicholson using her inhaling is followed by Uma Thurman (Nicholson's fashion idol) jerking upward during her infamous heroin-snorting scene in "Pulp Fiction"; the helicopters from "Apocalypse Now" emphasize the increasing gloominess caused by her sickness. The device is immediately over the top and never quiet settles in, although it stands out for the very same reason, by showing the obsessive elements of the dying Nicholson's burgeoning cinephilia: Movies provide her with a gateway to worlds she'll never fully explore on her own.

Because "Farewell to Hollywood" aims to represent both directors' points of view early on, its subjective ingredients are troubling from the start. But Nicholson's perseverance when faced with her dour prognosis provides a remarkable narrative in spite of the questionable methods used to tell it. Over time, Nicholson endures a heartbreaking series of spats with her beleaguered parents, who eventually reject her when she chooses to move out in a bid to experience young adulthood during the small window of time available to her.

The bumpy road to their ultimate estrangement unfolds with heavily sad component. However, the language of the narrative leads to an invasive, voyeuristic quality enforced by the camera's presence; while Corra may have felt strongly about helping Nicholson and she embraced his assistance, it's hard not to wonder if he crossed some line by insisting in remaining a part of the family's struggle.

"Farewell to Hollywood" frequently leaves too much up for interpretation. As Corra and Nicholson become better friends, the movie includes extreme close-ups of the two of them as they drive around together and share smiles; much of their cheeky communication unfolds through text messages provided onscreen in captions riddled with emoticons. Any preconceived notions about the essential boundaries between non-fiction storytellers and their subjects have clearly been abandoned.

During a Q&A following the world premiere of "Farewell to Hollywood" at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam this week, Corra said he was no stranger to such concerns.

"People have brought up words like 'unethical' and 'too close,'" he said. "I think of this as a very unique style of personal filmmaking." The project isn't the first of its kind to engage with the touchy issue of child death in alarmingly intimate detail: The 2009 documentary "Boy Interrupted" explored the factors that led to a 15-year-old's suicide from the perspective of his filmmaker parents; "Dear Zachary" deals with the murder of an infant and emphasizes the pain surrounding his death by including it as a late second act surprise.

Still, those movies contain fairly traditional documentary ingredients that at least make their intentions readily understandable. "Farewell to Hollywood," with its messy assemblage of home video footage, lacks the same clarity; as a whole, it's best approach as a diary film made primarily for the two people who conceived of it.

At his Q&A, Corra referred to this unorthodox approach as "living cinema," a process mandated by the emotional journey endured by its creators. This isn't exactly a fresh term: In the 1970s and 1980s, the Collective for Living Cinema provided a haven for New York's underground avant garde filmmakers, who regularly explored the possibilities of filmmaking that pushed beyond any traditional restrictions on the medium. Viewed in light of that tradition, "Farewell to Hollywood" ostensibly constitutes a work of experimental film art only accessible to audiences open to its goals.

However, it may represent one of the biggest productions from that school of thought: "Farewell to Hollywood" was produced in part by Lance Armstrong's Livestrong foundation and lists the disgraced biker among its executive producers. Just as that company has been overshadowed by the moral infringements of its founder, the poignant aspects of "Farewell to Hollywood" are at odds with the problematic conditions behind its creation.

Of course, Corra feels differently. "I think the film gave us something to go through with this death in an elegant and graceful way," he told the IDFA audience. But Nicholson's own talent may have achieved that much already. "Glimpse of Horizon," one of the short films uploaded to Nicholson's YouTube page, provides more emotional lucidity than "Farewell to Hollywood" achieves in two hours.

The very presence of Corra in the movie problematizes it from the outset. Given their decision to reject their daughter, Nicholson's parents don't escape unscathed, but their concern over her relationship to Corra doesn't seem entirely unfounded: Corra never allows himself to become enough of a fully defined character in the story to justify his motives. Naturally, he was ready to face the firing squad at the Q&A. "We did not have sex, OK?" he stated unprompted at the premiere. "That's what everybody's thinking right?" Then he added an unusual qualifier: "We had a relationship that was better than sex."

Setting aside that troubling dynamic, "Farewell to Hollywood" unquestionably contains a passionate energy as it chronicles Nicholson's increasingly weak state; her body literally withers away before our eyes, and many of the unsettling details of her chemotherapy treatment remain onscreen. There's no doubting that the movie's closeness to Nicholson's experience has the ability to address anyone with the capacity to relate.

Towards the end of the Q&A, one audience member tearfully recounted how the movie reminded her of an experience last year surviving a brain tumor operation, then asked Corra for a hug. He obliged, while an IDFA cameraman recorded the whole thing nearby, and suddenly it was as though the entire crowd had become a part of Corra's movie. The scattered, awkward applause that followed this moment was an apt reflection of the conflicting effect that "Farewell to Hollywood" has on its viewers.

Corra concluded the post-screening discussion by telling audiences that Nicholson provided him with a message to anyone who questioned their connection. "I'm your dead virgin bride," he quoted her as saying, "and the film is our immaculately conceived love child." It's the kind of poetic assertion that should have made it to the final edit. "Farewell to Hollywood" contains ample footage to illustrate that Nicholson was an active creative mind cut down just as it was starting to get complicated. The movie succeeds at making the case for her sizable ambition and conveying the tragedy of her fate. But the ultimate documentary is less successful than the document of Nicholson's talent buried inside of it.

Criticwire Grade: C+

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Sure to divide audiences as it continues to play festivals, "Farewell to Hollywood" is most likely going to have a tough time finding a distributor, though it could manage to stay in the conversation with a self-release strategy that capitalizes on interest from the cancer support community.

Review: Ai Weiwei Is Both Movie Star and Director in New Docs 'The Fake Case' And 'Stay Home!'

Eric Kohn — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:58:11 GMT

Mixed media artist Ai Weiwei is the rare Chinese iconoclast whose provocative output manages to circumvent countless efforts by the government to censor him, which is a particularly impressive feat given his current ubiquity.

Last year, Alison Klayman's documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" followed Ai through the aftermath of his work on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his daring critique of government aid "The Sichuan Earthquake Names Project" and his eventual imprisonment by the government for 80 days. Now comes Danish filmmaker Andreas Johnsen's "Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case," which premiered this week at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. An unofficial follow-up to "Never Sorry," "The Fake Case" explores Ai's yearlong period of probation after his release in 2011.

At the same, Ai himself has recently completed a documentary, "Stay Home!," a touching portrait of a strong-willed young woman with AIDS fighting the government for better care. The movie extends Ai's cinematic presence from in front of the camera to behind it with equal resolve. "Stay Home!" screened earlier this month at the CPH: DOX festival in Copenhagen, where Ai -- currently banned from leaving his country by Chinese authorities -- also remotely curated a series about "the role and responsibility of artists" that included everything from "Dr. Strangelove" to "Sicko" and Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia." In light of that productivity, he might be the most insuppressible suppressed artist of his time. (Watch Ai's presentation for "Stay Home!" and his CPH: DOX series in the video below.)

Ai's portly, bearded appearance has turned him into the modern Buddha of creative activism, and the attention he has received in such a short period of time attests to his allure: At this point, he's like the star of a transmedia franchise beyond his control. "The Fake Case" functions like a sequel to "Never Sorry," picking up where the previous movie left off by revealing Ai's life under governmental scrutiny and his willingness to remain active despite increasing attempts to slow him down. But while Johnsen competently follows Ai over the course of more than a year of contemplation and anger, "The Fake Case" doesn't introduce anything new to the equation, and mainly succeeds by virtue of its subject's inherent appeal.

Ai's extensive period in jail stemmed from a phony charge of "tax evasion" leveled against his company, Fake Ltd., where he does most of his work. As "The Fake Case" begins, Ai shows an extreme reticence to speak openly about his experiences given the restrictions of his probation, but he never recedes from the spotlight. Prohibited from granting interviews, he instead writes a condemnatory article for Newsweek; instead of detailing his jailing for the press, he crafts a series of complex dioramas (unveiled over the summer in Venice) illustrating the claustrophobic nature of his time in solitary confinement, where he lived toe to toe with a pair of guards at every moment. When there's wiggle room for Ai to further his cause, he wiggles freely.

"The Fake Case" contextualizes Ai's struggle by positioning it in relation to his family history. In one thoughtful sequence, he's seen in conversation with his 80-year-old mother discussing his upbringing among intellectuals engaged in a similar struggle with Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. "Chinese society is a big wave," she tells him. "Our family is always at the top of it."

Despite that legacy, however, Ai's latest challenges in "The Fake Case" are firmly rooted in the present. While "Never Sorry" explored the personal dimension of Ai's career in more detail, Johnsen predominantly focuses on providing a snapshot of his time under probation, wherein the confrontational ingredients of his art face the ultimate test. If not a daring experiment of self-expression like Jafar Panahi's "This Is Not a Film," the Iranian director's canny diary project made during his time under house arrest, "The Fake Case" also finds a prominent voice battling to hang onto his freedom: Having once strolled regularly in the park near his home, he now walks in a nearby parking lot where he can tell when he's being followed, and the fears aren't unfounded; at one point, he gathers the cigarette butts left by agents on his tail and turns them into an art project. At home, he installs a 24 hour webcam to flaunt the degree to which his life has become increasingly public.

Though his participation in the project illustrates his commitment to transparency, Ai seems less enthused by the attention placed on him than its potential to impact others. In conversation with an increasingly desperate group of lawyers, he insists on fighting restrictions on his life in the hopes that it will prevent the government from directing similar campaigns against his peers. While human rights issues course through his output, he resists being categorized in purely ideological terms. "I'm not a political artist," he says. "I'm just political."

That assertion comes through more in his filmmaking than the films about him. "Stay Home!" is a noticeably subdued production in contrast to the blatant flag-waving found in his other media works. At its center is Ximei, an ebullient young woman orphaned at an early age who spends her days living in a Chinese hostel and complaining about the limitations of her healthcare. Ai goes great lengths to establish the rhythms of Ximei's seemingly ordinary life so that she never takes on symbolic value, rooting the socioeconomic problem in personal experience. A full six minutes unfold before the title card comes up, and even then it's not yet clear that Ximei suffers from a life-threatening illness; the full extent of her tragic story is only revealed in the credits.

Gradually, it becomes clear that Ximei leads an oppressed existence. Like Ai, she's stalked by the government at every corner, which only pushes her to complain louder, as she petitions the government for more affordable treatment and complains about the physical efforts she must invest in receiving it. She constantly talks through the ramifications of her actions with a genial resolve, much as Ai does in the documentaries about him. "They can't find a way to control me because there is none!" she says with her ever-present smile.

While not a prominent artist, she takes a like-minded stand for the prospects of publicizing her plight. At the Center for Disease Control, officials attempt to block the camera following her. "I like it," she insists, which prompts a thinly veiled threat: "What if you're ostracized?"

That two-way dialogue between official and citizen complicates the equation by humanizing the people responsible for Ximei's challenges. While Ai talks about the government's impact on him as if it were an invisible menace, in "Stay Home!" Ai finds a human element in the authorities through a jovial middleman who's tasked with tracking Ximei's every move. He insists it's a more complicated picture. "The government isn't impotent," he says, claiming that his job is to present Ximei's needs to the authorities so they can provide for her. Ximei openly ribs her overseer for his ineffectual role in her life. "Film it!" she blurts out after teasing him for the camera. "It's the government's image."

That assertion results in a more sophisticated portrait than anything visible from Ai's privilege spot in his studio, the main set piece for both "Never Sorry" and "The Fake Case." Ximei's rambunctiousness also leads her pontificate on how new generations will deal with the same challenges, echoing Ai's thoughts in "The Fake Case" about the burgeoning resistance to bureaucratic control among children of the eighties. In "Stay Home!," it's as if he's speaking through her -- the ultimate illustration of Ai's activism come to life.

Both "The Fake Case" and "Stay Home!" end in song, though "The Fake Case" uses music to further the spectacle of its subject and Ai applies the device as a means of digging deeper into the life of his character. "The Fake Case" concludes with the absurdist image of Ai taking a shower (a visual he offers up to a needy reporter eager to land an exclusive interview) set to a brassy version of "You Know How I Feel." In the climactic moments of "Stay Home!," Ai tracks his subject as she wanders through a lush forest, while the sounds of her Christian friends chanting a prayer for her survival underscores the tension between her state of isolation and the thread of hope that keeps her going.

It's a remarkable juxtaposition with the way documentarians tend to frame Ai: While the conclusion of "The Fake Case" embodies the playful quality of Ai's approach to his conundrum, the artist's depiction of a far more troubled victim of the system has a delicacy that shrewdly embodies the paradoxes of contemporary Chinese society. As much as Ai makes an enticing figure of individual revolt against institutional persecution, he's even better at finding it elsewhere.

Criticwire Grades:

"Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case": B

"Stay Home!": A-

HOW WILL THEY PLAY? "The Fake Case" should land a fair amount of festival play due to Ai's elevated profile, but the recent release of "Never Sorry" may keep it from receiving a similarly major theatrical release, though it could find a welcome home in digital markets and television. "Stay Home!" faces a harder time gaining exposure, only poised to receive further attention if the wider documentary festival circuit makes an effort to keep it out there.

Review: Groundbreaking Perspective of Syrian Civil War Reveals Dire Situation In IDFA Opener 'Return to Homs'

Eric Kohn — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:45:37 GMT

To anyone outside of Syria, the battle ranging on between President Bashar Al-Assad's armed forces and various rebel factions is mainly an abstraction. That makes director Talal Derki's "Return to Homs," which opened the 25th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam on Wednesday, something of a revelation: It portrays the struggle from the inside, from about as far from the filter of mainstream media as one can get, capturing tense shootouts and the extremes of revolutionary spirit in unnerving detail. Centered on a handful of fighters in the largely abandoned city of Homs, with footage smuggled out of the country, Derki's angry, fragmented portrait constitutes a lonely shout in the darkness.

Though the events in question carry a definite immediacy, "Return to Homs" actually covers two years worth of events. Stretching back to 2011, Derki finds a pair of activists in the heat of the Syrian uprising: Local 19-year-old soccer star Abdul Basset Saroot, who leads exuberant anti-Assad chants at the center of town, and media activist Ossama al Homsi, a quieter figure eager to wield his camera in service of the revolution.

These images form a striking contrast with later scenes, shot as recently as last summer, in which the equation has dramatically shifted. Discarding his ideals, Saroot transforms into a full-on militant insurgent, blasting away at Assad's forces from makeshift firing holes in deserted buildings, while al Homsi winds up detained by the government and absent from the rest of the story. That leaves Saroot at the center of a drama with dwindling resources, fighting from a stronghold in the empty city with an existential weariness and trapped in the limbo of his own mission with no end in sight.

Derki narrates Saroot's tale as he returns to the city several times, explaining its connotations as the epitome of the Syrians' plight. The filmmaker -- who inherited the production after the film's producer, having shot much of the earlier footage, fled the country, places the bleak portrait in poetic terms. Exploring "the city which has become the most precious thing I have," he finds that it has quickly devolved into a post-apocalyptic outpost exclusively populated by Saroot, his colleagues and a smattering of others. Given the extreme nature of their conditions, there's a darkly comical element to the glimmers of humanity they manage to retain. In one scene, a group of fighters shout out to one of their colleagues huddled behind another hole in the wall to find them some tobacco. "You'll have better luck finding hashish," he replies.

"Return to Homs" prioritizes such closeness with the insurgency over any journalistic analysis of their situation. On the outskirts of town with his family, Saroot displays a tenderness that belies his militant energy, showing the essence of the conflict between pushing ahead and attempting to flee. There's no sugar-coating here: In an alarming moment, the camera captures Basset in extreme close-up as he contemplates another battle, displaying the intimacy of the situation as no media report could. "Do you think I'll have time to shave before I die?" he wonders.

Despite its gripping qualities, the movie's limited perspective can be a source of frustration. While Derki casts himself as a witness to the tale, much of the footage was shot by other men -- including Homs-based video activist Khatan Hassoun -- and so the role of the cameraman in the events at hand is never fully defined. Blatantly avoiding an empirical look at the situation, "Return to Homs" contains no snippets of news broadcasts or neat captions detailing the political circumstances that have caused the uprising, which liberates the material, but also limits its ability to place the scenario in context. There's an unmistakably rushed quality to the collage of material despite the time that was spent gathering it.

However, that very same characteristic imbues the project with the franticness of the survival story at its center. Derki creates the sense that that this is the only kind of movie possible under the circumstances; as rebel fighters crawl through claustrophobic tunnels in a mad dash to rescue their comrades from the city, the setting turns into a ramshackle metaphor for the movie's existence.

Through it all, Saroot and his colleagues evade gunfire from faceless villains, leaving the door open for another portrait that delves with equal detail into the complex moral transgressions unfolding on the other side of the battlefield (if such a thing is even possible). But the invisibility of the threat illustrates the sheer absence of a visible resolution. Unlike Jehane Noujaim's Cairo-set "The Square," which portrays the revolutionary mindset as a constant, forward-moving phenomenon, "Return to Homs" reveals a far more frenzied, visceral struggle that a handful of driven warriors continue to endure at all costs. With its climactic freeze frame, Derki captures the men's uneasy combination of desperation and triumph in a single image: With nowhere left to go, they still push ahead.

Criticwire Grade: A-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? While not exactly a commercial project, the topicality of the material and its shocking content should elevate the movie's profile at festivals around the world and could lead it to gain acclaim akin to the Oscar-nominated Palestinian portrait "5 Broken Cameras" last year. In the hands of the right distributor, it has the potential to become a major conversation piece.

IDFA Announces 2013 Lineup

Kerensa Cadenas — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:00:00 GMT

The International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) announced their 2013 lineup. The festival will screen a total of 288 films and over a 100 will be premieres.

This year the festival will include special programming including "Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia," which is dedicated to showcasing voices from the area, and "Based on a True Story," which will compare documentaries and feature films that examine the same subject.

This year, 15 films are in the feature-length documentary competition. The winning film will be awarded with the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary which includes a cash prize. Winners may also be eligible for a Special Jury Prize.

5 of the 15 films in competition are directed by women. Check out the women eligible below. For a full list of the films in competition go here.

IDFA runs from November 20 to December 1. For more information and the complete lineup, visit their site.

Displaced Persons by Asa Blanck & Johan Palmgren (Sweden)

Forty years ago, Pelle Persson left Sweden and settled in Pakistan. Now he returns to his motherland with the family he started far from home.

Farewell to Hollywood by Henry Corra & Regina Nicholson (USA)

A heartwarming yet heartbreaking and controversial ode to 17-year-old Reggie, who is struggling with cancer, her family and the realization of her cinematic dream.

Ne me quitte pas by Niels van Koevorden & Sabine Lubbe Bakker (the Netherlands)

A Direct Cinema portrait of the Flemish Bob and the Walloon Marcel, two Belgian friends who share loneliness, humor, alcoholism and suicide plans with great elan.

Sepideh by Berit Madsen (Denmark)

A portrait of a courageous young Iranian woman who refuses to conform to expectations and dreams of a future as an astronaut.

Stream of Love by Agnes Sos (Hungary)

Love and desire still fill the hearts and thoughts of elderly villagers in Transylvania, Hungary. Their spirits are young, despite their years.

IDFA Announces 2013 Selection: New Section Devoted to Voices from Southeast Asia

Clint Holloway — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 16:25:23 GMT

International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) has just unveiled their lineup of films to be shown at the 2013 edition of the cinematic gathering, which is set to occur from November 20 through December 1. Having received more than 3,000 submissions, the program will consist of a total of 288 titles, with 100 of them having their world premiere. Since starting in 1988, IDFA has become one of the most pivotal documentary film festivals on the international cinematic front.

New program developments in the upcoming installment of the Dutch festival include "Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia," dedicated to burgeoning filmmakers from the area. Another special themed program for this year's festival will compare documentaries and feature films based on the same subject, entitled "Based on a True Story," done in collaboration with EYE Film Institute Netherlands, which has become a regular screening venue for the films throughout the festival.

The 15 films in the feature-length documentary competition have the opportunity to be awarded with the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary, which includes a cash prize of €12, 500. They may also garner a Special Jury Prize. Check out the competition selections, and for a full rundown of the films playing this year, head over to their website.

"Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case" by Andreas Johnsen (Denmark)
Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei wonders, after three months of lonely confinement, what the price of his struggle is.

"Alphabet" by Erwin Wagenhofer (Austria/Germany)
Arm-in-arm in the classroom or painting whatever you want? An indictment of competitive education and a plea for the imagination of the individual.

"Birth of a Tiger" by Sam Benstead (England)
The newly formed nation of South Sudan employs a Serbian coach to get its national football team up and running.

"Displaced Persons" by Åsa Blanck & Johan Palmgren (Sweden)
Forty years ago, Pelle Persson left Sweden and settled in Pakistan. Now he returns to his motherland with the family he started far from home.

"Farewell to Hollywood" by Henry Corra & Regina Nicholson (USA)
A heartwarming yet heartbreaking and controversial ode to 17-year-old Reggie, who is struggling with cancer, her family and the realization of her cinematic dream.

"An Inconsolable Memory" by Aryan Kaganof (South Africa)
A reconstruction of the history of South Africa’s first opera company, Eoan, and an exercise in getting at the truth of what it was to be "a colored."

"Life Almost Wonderful" by Svetoslav Draganov (Bulgaria/Belgium)
An observational documentary about three brothers and their granny. Despite their hardships, they still believe happiness is just a hope away.

"Ne me quitte pas" by Niels van Koevorden & Sabine Lubbe Bakker (the Netherlands)
A Direct Cinema portrait of the Flemish Bob and the Walloon Marcel, two Belgian friends who share loneliness, humor, alcoholism and suicide plans with great élan.

"Putin’s Games" by Alexander Gentelev (Russia/Austria)
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are breaking all records when it comes to corruption and megalomania. This investigative documentary uncovers the hidden story behind Putin's Games.

"Return to Homs" by Talal Derki (Syria/Germany)
A remarkably intimate portrait of the unequal struggle of a group of young revolutionaries in Homs, Syria, against the national army destroying their city.

"Sepideh" by Berit Madsen (Denmark)
A portrait of a courageous young Iranian woman who refuses to conform to expectations and dreams of a future as an astronaut.

"Shado'man" by Boris Gerrets (the Netherlands)
A cinematic portrait of the nocturnal street life of the disabled in Sierra Leone, in which a group of friends reflects on their complex existences.

"Song from the Forest" by Michael Obert (Germany)
American Louis Sarno has been living for 25 years in the jungle, among the pygmies of central Africa. Now he’s taking his pygmy son to see America for the first time.

"Stream of Love" by Agnes Sós (Hungary)
Love and desire still fill the hearts and thoughts of elderly villagers in Transylvania, Hungary. Their spirits are young, despite their years.

"The Wild Years" by Ventura Durall (Spain)
Living without money or adult involvement, three street children struggle to survive in the capital of Ethiopia.

So What Happens When You Make a Fake North Korean Propaganda Film?

Bryce J. Renninger — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:21:03 GMT

From consumerism to Columbus Day to celebrity culture, the film "Propaganda" (available to watch in whole online) slices open contemporary Western culture for its rewriting of history and its imperialist and corporatist policies. The film was released in ten parts last year, uploaded bit by bit with the title "North Korean film exposes Western propaganda," and was eventually accompanied by this statement, by Sabine, the woman who translated the film.

On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They presented me with a DVD that recently came into their possession and asked me to translate it. They also asked me to post the completed film on the Internet so that it could reach a worldwide audience. I believed what I was told and an agreement was made to protect their identities (and mine).

Despite my concerns about what I was viewing when I returned home, I proceeded to translate and post the film on You Tube because of the film's extraordinary content. I have now made public my belief that this film was never intended for a domestic audience in the DPRK. Instead, I believe that these people, who presented themselves as 'defectors' specifically targeted me because of my reputation as a translator and interpreter.

Furthermore, I now believe these people work for the DPRK. The fact that I have continued to translate and post the film in spite of this belief does not make me complicit in their intention to spread their ideology. I chose to keep posting this film because - regardless of who made it - I believe people should see it because of the issues it raises and I stand by my right to post it for people to share and discuss freely with each other.

Sabine

When the film debuted at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA), the ruse was lifted. The film was made by a group of New Zealanders; it was written and directed by Slavko Martinov. And, in fact, now the film's crew and a brief history can be found on the film's website.

But the film, with its original descriptions on YouTube, still exists, and clips from it continue to be shared across social media networks. Sometimes commenters know what's up; sometimes, they think the film's really from North Korea. People post parts of the film surprised that the North Koreans have a more searing critique of our own culture than we do.

Indiewire talked with the film's director Slavko Martinov from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand over Skype, a week before the film's July 31 US premiere at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan.

Now that you've come clean, I've noticed that when someone comments on YouTube in a way that shows they don't know it's not really North Korean, you play along. How do you balance responding to the people who are congratulating you, Slavko, and dealing with the character, Sabine?

It's weird and twisted you know. Things are much easier now in terms of responding to people. When you surreptitiously release this thing on the Internet the way we did, with a metafiction, we were literally responding as this person, this fictional person. At first, there was no precedent for it, you start doing it, and you have to ask yourself how is this going to pan out. That's it, there's no getting out of it. Even when we submitted to IDFA -- we said we have this disc, we just got it, it's North Korean. Even though you know the purpose of what you're doing, it was very sticky. The day we came to IDFA and said we did it, we thought that was it; what an interesting social experiment that was! As you can see on YouTube, people still believe it. There's this willingness to believe that it's North Korean. Someone will say, "Look at this RT interview with the director," but the next 2 or 3 comments are about the North Koreans and their motivations for making this film. That's one of the questions we wanted to ask: how do we understand what we see?

So how did you decide to make a film criticizing what you saw wrong with Western culture in this way?

It's part of a trilogy of films about propaganda. It was a social experiment about propaganda. I wanted to make a film about propaganda. If you make a film about how propaganda works, it's going to be as dry as a bone. I had a short list of Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. North Korea sticks out like a sore thumb. It'll be about propaganda in a propaganda campaign, a metafiction. It's propaganda-squared. You can't just do it and go to a distributor. After the first wave of people saw it, it blew up. There's nothing else you can do but conduct a social experiment this way. People came up to me at IDFA to buy this film, I said you know it's online. I could see them become sick. Really no one's seen this film in the scheme of things. It's still a hidden film.

There's no rulebook. On the one hand, it's been exciting. When so and so did this similar thing, you could kind of lean on it as kind of a model or something. We honestly didn't know. We made a lot of mistakes.

What kinds of mistakes did you make?

We don't regret any mistakes. Just the stupidest things -- it might seem insignificant to you. But sometimes, I'd get tired and sign in to one email account and send an email as another. We had no idea a single person would ever see it. We knew we were being watched before we ever made the film. The first time I ever sent the script, I got a call from a counterterrorist unit. As part of the research for the film, I was collecting footage in Kuala Lumpur -- i found these jihadist videos -- I didn't look at them. I was stopped, and the authorities were like "Wow man, you can't do this." It was no coincidence, when I wrote that script and sent it, that they knew about it.

And why did you think it was important to have the film in parts online?

That's the story behind the film. Sabine came into possession of the film, and she was translating it as fast as she could in parts. She was passing it to a friend of hers who was an editor. They were posting it in chunks, a bit at a time. The question of the entire project was: if you have a film and you release it on the internet, there's no advertising, marketing, nothing, because you don't exist as a director? What happens if you put it out on the Internet and say nothing. Would anyone ever see it? You just don't know, you create this whole backstory the descriptions underneath part one. You put tags in: North Korea and propaganda -- it goes from there. You just watch it grow. After the first one went up, people are like "WTF is this? Where's part 2?" And then, Sabine says "I'm translating it!" Before long, people are demanding, "Where's part 5?" "What the hell's going on?" "Why's it taking so long?"

And were you surprised at what people did and didn't share?

First of all, it's the most unsharable film you can imagine. Ninety-five minutes of being slapped about the face of your core beliefs as a Westerner. You're hardly going to be popular with your friends if you share this. However, part 9, which is about celebrity culture is entertaining and enough of a chunk that people can pay attention, that's nearly at a million views now. We always thought that particular segment would take off. Part 3 -- we thought that would take off. The rivalry between Australia and New Zealand is fierce, although, they're our brothers and sisters across the pond. There was an ad mocking Kiwis -- it was front page news in both countries. It was a direct provocation written with love. We were thinking it would be what will ignite the whole film, and away we go. Nothing! Not a thing! No response! I'd even write the script keeping in mind what's going to work -- what will provoke certain emotions. I'm saying I got it wrong.

And what was the global response to the film?

We were investigated by the NAS -- South Korea's CIA. I was asked, "Are you in collusion with the North Korean regime? I started writing and researching at this point -- I started guiding them through the process. Yeah, but prior to 2003, when were you contacted and commissioned to do this. What do you say to that? How do you even deny that logic. To them, what really worried them was that North Korea had stepped up their game, they had hired a western filmmaker to make a PR coup.

And do you have a sense of how the film is playing in North Korea?

They have their official website, and there's an unofficial website that's run from outside of North Korea. They had picked up on the film, and they were posting it in parts, except they removed the text from the front [that made claims that the film was made by the North Korean government]. The assumption is that they weren't displeased with the film. I don't know, is it? How is this film viewed? That's the big question that I'm dealing with in the second film. I just don't know.

What's next for the film?

I get into Traverse City on the 30th, and then it plays at Raindance. Then of course the big goal is: Will it get into Busan [Korea's biggest film festival?] -- or the biggest irony of all -- the DMZ festival [a festival on the border of North and South Korea in Paju, South Korea]?

It's taken you a long time to have your American premiere. Why do you think it's taken that long?

No American film festival would touch it -- after IDFA, Tribeca asked for it, and they were great, really really supportive and really really got it, and in the end, it stood out like a sore thumb for them. They were terrific with their communication and support. All other American festivals I entered didn't bother to be polite about it. One can only guess that Sabine was too much. Festivals are weird of course. I'm looking at Busan. On the one hand, it's going to be like drinking a cup of cold sick for a Korean audience. Festivals want to be controversial and cause a bit of a storm. Traverse City has been perfect. They couldn't be more supportive. They're thrilled.

It's difficult to talk to the festival programmers about this film. I assume it's even harder to talk to funders and others?

The only money I did have was to go to an entertainment lawyer after I read the fair use act, and he said I think you have a strong case. I set about collecting footage -- I use snippets of Michael Moore's films. What's going to happen when they find out? Am I going to get sued, or get a pat on the head? In Michael Moore's case, it's a pat on the head. As for getting sued… First of all, I don't own anything. What are they going to sue me for? Second of all, If Paris Hilton or Tyra Banks sues me, it's publicity I couldn't pay for. What are you going to do if you don't have any money?

And what's next for you?

I'm working on a lot of things. I love documentary. I have an international distributor that just came on for a TV series I've been developing. I've got development funding for a script I've been working on. Two drama series have been optioned. As for the second and third parts of this trilogy about propaganda, I've literally just sent away the applications for funding from New Zealand.

And are you excited to see it with an American audience?

It's always been one of the goals, to be present for that, a confronting audience. Hopefully that happens there. I'm prepared. I think I am.

Docs to Watch in 2013: IDFA Showcases Next Year's Crop -- 'I Am Breathing,' 'Winter Nomads,' 'Propaganda' & More

David D'Arcy — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:43:20 GMT

The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, or IDFA, piles a selection of the year’s docs into a window in mid-November--this year during its recently-wrapped 25th edition. The films are not all new, but enough of them are being seen for the first time that IDFA becomes a showcase for next year. Here are some docs that you can expect to see in 2013.

"First Cousin Once Removed" Dir. Alan Berliner, USA, 2012

Alan Berliner makes no-budget films that tend to be about himself and his family. In this one (which premiered at the New York Film Festival and won IDFA’s feasture doc award), Edwin Honig (1919-2011), a poet and Berliner’s mother’s first cousin, is losing his memory and his mind. He doesn’t even recognize pictures of himself. “I’m not impressed,” is his opinion when he sees one. Often, when Honig speaks, what comes out sounds a lot like someone’s odd poetry. Does a “poetic soul” trump dementia? Berliner filmed his poignant doc over five years, with plenty of improbable laughs -- even assisted-living lyricism, as the camera observes the trees outside Honig’s window changing with the seasons. This may be the film to see after Michael Haneke’s Amour tears you apart. Honig’s warning on aging: “It’s worse than what you think.” Remember that even a broken clock speaks the truth twice a day.

"I Am Breathing" Dir. Emma Davie, Morag McKinnon, Scotland / Denmark, 2012

There are fewer punch-lines in this Scottish doc than in First Cousin Once Removed. Neil Platt is the father of a young son. Neil is diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease in his early thirties. The filmmakers follow bedridden Neil’s blog as the disease worsens and he looks back at life with good spirits. Two supporting characters will win over the audience – his wife, whose mood sustains Neil’s, and his Oscar, who experiences his father’s affections in the only way that he knows the dying man, attached to a machine that enables him to keep breathing. This wins the reality check award.

"Soldier on the Roof" Dir. Esther Hertog, Netherlands, 2012

As a truce holds, barely, in Gaza, Esther Hertog’s film (winner for Best Debut and Best Dutch Film at IDFA) watches a deeper crisis, the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. In the West Bank city of Hebron, some 800 Israeli Jewish settlers lives under military protection in the center of that town of 120,000 Arabs. Israeli soldiers are everywhere the settlers go. The soldiers also watch the town from atop its buildings. Arabs who walk nearby are stopped, made to stretch their arms against the walls, and searched. While that humiliation persists, the settlers’ kids throw rocks through the windows of Arab houses with impunity. The Gatekeepers, the jolting doc by Dror Moreh now in theaters, gives you the pessimistic legacy of the occupation from former leaders of the Shin Bet (military intelligence) who believe that negotiating for peace is the only solution. Soldier on the Roof gives you ground truth from settlers who couldn’t disagree more. It’s likely to be a fixture at Jewish film festivals in the US.

"Propaganda" Dirs. The Coming Crisis (from North Korea by way of New Zealand)

This shock-umentary about Hollywood Babylon is a mockumentary. Imagine a film warning you away from the sins of the West by showing you capitalism’s evil in all its grotesquery. Sex, drugs, greed, Hollywood, and religion, are all explained by a narrator who we’re told is a North Korean academic. This spoof of systematic theology is a satire from New Zeeland. Look for the Spinal Tap spectacle in the Midnight sections of film festival around the world. Or you can watch it on youtube.

"In the Dark Room" dir. Nadav Schirman, Israel/Germany/Finland

What was it like to have been the wife of Carlos, the brazen gunman who took oil minsters prisoner and terrified the world (eventually filling his own pockets) with the highjackings of airplanes? We find out from Magdalena Kopp, who is portrayed by glamorous Nora von Waldstatten in Oliver Assayas’s epic. Here we have Kopp herself, telling of moving from one German activist to another (without a deep interest in politics) and finally connecting with Carlos. She did time in a Paris prison after French police caught her and another militant with explosives in an illegally parked car, gave birth to a daughter in a taxi stalled in the gridlock of Damascus (sheltered by the Assad family), and fled to the beaches of Venezuela, where Carlos’s family kept her out of the spotlight. Carlos turns out to have been a heel and no proponent of women’s rights. What a surprise. While he’s serving a life sentence in French prison, Kopp’s sentence for the rest of her life is to tell the world about him. We see her Damascus-born Rosa struggling with the same fate. Will the appetite outside Germany and France for more Carlos lore (this time from the aggrieved wife) sustain this one? Schirman is the director of The Champagne Spy (2007), a portrait of Wolfgang Lotz, who posed as a German horse trainer in Egypt while spying for Israel from 1960 to 1965.

"Red Wedding" Dirs. Guillaume Suon, Lida Chan, Cambodia / France, 2012

If In the Dark Room isn’t enough for you, get ready for Red Wedding, the remembrance of Sochan, who was chosen to be the wife of a Khmer Rouge soldier. Not that she had any choice. The purposes of the forced marriages – there were 250,000 of them --was to increase population, we’re told. Archival footage of farming by hand by thousands of those who weren’t exterminated keeps any nostalgia from creeping in. With all the other crimes of the Khmer Rouge, mass rape hasn’t gotten much attention. You’ll hear a lot from one victim here in this austere portrait of a campaign for accountability after decades.

"Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls" Dir. Julia Lamont, Australia, 2012

Another South East Asian outlaw state is the backdrop for this doc about an improbable girl band. In Myanmar, where pleasure was effectively banned for all but the brutal ruling military elite, the Tiger Girls are a band synthesized by an enterprising Australian and a local purveyor of kitsch pop. At least one of the girls can’t sing at all, and most of them are just a step away from village life than wasn’t anywhere near what we would call the modern world, and most of the country assumes that a girl group is just a front for prostitution. Like Myanmar, the group is a work in progress, and a window onto the opening of what had been one of the world’s worst dictatorships. This doc will be nothing if not a curiosity on the festival circuit.

"Money for Nothing – Inside the Federal Reserve" Dir. Jim Bruce, US, 2012

Is there a more uncinematic subject? Money for Nothing takes on a subject that you expect might require industrial strength No-Dose. Instead, the filmmakers take us back to the origins of the Fed, which was created to protect American citizens from crises in the financial marketplace. They bring us through history to sharp cuts in interests rates and collapses in the housing and real estate markets which the Fed helped bring about. You’ll look as skeptically at experts as you do at politicians after seeing this doc. But you’ll wonder whether Money for Nothing can have any effect after the presidential election. (Same for Still, this old news is worth watching. You won’t see a quote for this doc from Ben Bernanke, but you’ll find it all over festival programs.

"In the Shadow of the Sun" Dir. Harry Freeland, UK, 2012

In Tanzania, where there are some 170,000 albinos (and where the 2010 soccer-doc Albino United was filmed), local witch doctors have declared that the body parts of albinos can cure disease or make your business a success. Even more outrageous than this canard is the fact that people believe it. Albinos are chased down and killed, and their graves are robbed. You walk through this doc horror movie with charismatic Josephat Torner, who has survived attacks and describes them in chilling detail. In his first feature doc, Harry Freeland tells a story that few knew. Even sadder is that it’s not over.

"Winter Nomads" Dir. Manuel von Sturler, Switzerland, 2012

After winning in Berlin, Winter Nomads has traveled the festival circuit, but still has no theatrical deal in the US – probably due to the fact that it is in French. We journey across Switzerland for months with shepherd Pascal, his partner Carole (a 20-something French woman who left an office job for this life) plus their four dogs and about 800 sheep. The doc’s charm prevails, despite snow, rain, and every other inclement element, with a sweetness and softness to the camera’s view of it all. Intrepid Carole looks like the Bjork of shepherds, but Leon, the puppy who can herd hundreds of sheep with the best of them (carried in her coat pocket when we first met him), steals the show. It’s genuine family entertainment, but is it a road movie, an eco-doc, or a western?

"Smash & Grab: the Story of the Pink Panthers" Dir. Havana Marking , UK, 2012

A story of a crime wave, told by the criminals who drove cars through the facades of jewelry stores and mostly got away with it. The Pink Panthers take their name from the bumbling Inspector Clouseau series starring Peter Sellers. These crooks are no amateurs. Marking (Afghan Star, 2009) traces their origins to the war that tore Yugoslavia apart and spawned a black market for anything that could be stolen. Most of the thieves are Montenegrins but, as in the movies, nothing produces imitators like success. Smash & Grab is a bracing true crime doc, with plenty of reflections on the mechanics and ethics of crime (no kidding) from alumni of the Pink Panthers, whose identities are animated to conceal them. Detectives in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates join in the discussion. And it’s not over, just google “smash & grab” for the latest heists. Somehow I smell a feature remake here, and not only because one of the criminals tells great tales about seducing her way inside the jewelry business. This should be a festival circuit hit.

10 Docs to Watch at IDFA 2012

Basil Tsiokos — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:30:33 GMT

Since Wednesday, the international non-fiction industry has descended on the Venice of the North for the 25th anniversary of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, or IDFA for short -- the largest such gathering in the world. While the event's FORUM begins today, where new projects are pitched to the leading funders and TV commissioning editors around the world, a number of completed projects screening in the festival have generated some buzz among programmers polled over its first weekend. With literally hundreds of new films on offer, it may be telling that the following are among those that have popped - keep an eye out for them at other upcoming festivals:

"Propaganda" (World Premiere)

The title that seems to have generated the most pre-screening curiosity is this anonymous North Korean entry in the fest's "Reflecting Images - Panorama" section. According to IDFA's program, the film made its way into Western hands via a translator through supposed North Korean dissidents, but, as indicated by its title, seems to be more of an indictment of the world outside of Kim Jong-un's dictatorship. A scientist leads the viewer, Michael Moore style, through a lesson in Western greed, violence, and immorality, offering an alternative in the promised land of North Korea. Using rhetoric not unlike that of the Occupy movement, one wonders if this is actually an elaborate satire, holding an mirror uncomfortably close to the excesses of our society.

"Wrong Time Wrong Place" (World Premiere)

Selected to open this year's festival, simultaneously screening in 25 cinemas around the country, Dutch director John Appel's film explores the events of last year's bomb attacks and shootings in Norway. The contemplative essay film - exploring the randomness of coincidence in dictating our experiences - was noted by some international fest programmers as strong, while others noted a difficulty with its pace and approach. Appel's previous work has screened at the festival several times - his 1999 "André Hazes - She Believes in Me" opened IDFA in 1999 and won the top prize - best feature-length doc. His current film is also in the running for the same award as well as the award for best Dutch film.

"Bravehearts" (International Premiere)

Kari Anne Moe's is also informed by the deadly actions taken by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik in Norway on July 22, 2011. Moe was in the middle of filming her current project, following four young people running school election campaigns representing a range of parties, as a sort of litmus test for the upcoming national elections. When news breaks of Breivik's massacre, each candidate must take stock of his or her position, including one young man who was on the island of Utøya where Breivik killed 69 of his fellow Labor Youth party members. The film is in the running for the First Appearance prize.

"I Am Breathing" (World Premiere)

Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon's main competition entry is an emotionally devastating portrait of Neil Platt, a terminal thirty-three-year-old man saying goodbye to his wife and infant son. Paralyzed by the swift onset of motor neuron disease, Platt is completely dependent on others to tend to him. He's decided that once he can no longer swallow or speak, his ventilator will be turned off. Until then, using voice recognition software, he blogs about his life as a way to leave something of himself behind for his one-year-old. A production of the Scottish Documentary Institute, co-produced by the always inventive Danish Documentary, the film is alternately heartbreaking and disarmingly sardonic.

"Smash & Grab - The Story of the Pink Panthers" (World Premiere)

British director Havana Marking, whose "Afghan Star" won both the World Cinema Documentary Directing and Audience Awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, premieres her profile of the notorious jewel thieves in the main competition here. Interviewing members of the wanted gang, disguised by animation, Marking delves into their origins in Yugoslavia in the war-torn 1990s, where, led by political instability and the lack of available employment, many of the gang members originally turned to crime. Attendees polled were eager to see if Havana could bring the thrill and danger of the heist film to the documentary in the manner of "Man on Wire" or "The Imposter."

"The Staircase 2: The Last Chance" (World Premiere)

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade's follow up to his riveting 2004 miniseries also makes its debut in competition here. The original series captivated viewers on the Sundance Channel, detailing the strange death of Kathleen Peterson - did a fall claim her life, or did her husband Michael murder her? As Michael appeals the decision handed down at the end of the first series, de Lestrade offers updates on the major players and where they stand today, while exploring the inner workings of the US criminal justice system. Based on the popularity of the original, this is sure to screen extensively at fests in the coming year, as well as on the small screen on the Sundance Channel.

"In the Dark Room" (World Premiere)

Another main competition title with a darker edge that was mentioned by more than one IDFA industry attendee this weekend is Nadav Schirman's portrait of the wife and daughter of the infamous Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal - most recently the subject of Olivier Assayas' 2010 "Carlos" and also featured in Jacques Vergés' 2007 doc, "Terror's Advocate." Looking at the women behind the legend, Schirman traces his wife Magdalena's path from the radical left into the international revolutionary activities she shared with her husband and his group, and explores their daughter's relationship with Carlos - who she knows only from the media - as Carlos faces a life sentence in a Paris court.

"Who Will Be A Gurkha" (World Premiere)

A real-world, high-stakes modern competition is at the core of Kesang Tseten's compelling film, which offers a fly-on-the wall look at the painstaking process by which thousands of 17-20 year old Nepalese boys attempt to become men in the British Army Brigade of Gurkhas. Tracking the rigorous selection process for six months, this main IDFA competition entry details the physical tests and interviews the boys must excel in to win a place in the storied ranks - which go back to the early 1800s, as demonstrated by fascinating archival footage that echoes the modern day - and, significantly, provide an income far beyond what they could hope to earn otherwise, and an eventual British passport.

"Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls" (World Premiere)

Juliet Lamont's engaging film, also vying for the main prize, follows the first all-girl band in the repressive regime of Myanmar (Burma), from their calculated beginnings as "The Tiger Girls" under the control of a litigious producer to their necessary reinvention as the punny "Me an Ma Girls" with the help of their savvy Aussie choreographer, manager, and de facto mother hen Nikki. As the country takes steps towards more freedom - releasing long time political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi who goes on to elected office - the Girls attempt to push past gender and ethnic prejudices in this poppy, insider view of the nascent awakening of a closed society.

"Elena" (International Premiere)

Making its international bow in the First Appearance section, Brazilian Petra Costa's first feature comes off multiple wins from its debut at the Brasilia festival and praise from her acclaimed countrymen Walter Salles and Fernando Meirelles. The film is a lyrical and partly staged exploration of what happened to Petra's older sister, Elena, who, like Petra, wanted to study acting and live in New York City. As family photos, letters, and video combine, the puzzle of her sister is slowly teased out, and how it informs both Petra's sense of herself, and the viewer's sense of the filmmaker.

IDFA continues through Sunday, November 25. A report spotlighting the FORUM will follow later this week.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Basil Tsiokos is a Programming Associate, Documentary Features for Sundance, Shorts & Panel Programmer for DOC NYC, and a consultant to documentary filmmakers and festivals. Follow him on Twitter (@1basil1) and visit his blog (what (not) to doc).

IDFA Announces Line-Up: 'Gatekeepers,' 'My Afghanistan,' Docs on the Pink Panthers and Norwegian Massacre Included

Bryce J. Renninger — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:31:45 GMT

The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced the line-up for its 2013 edition. The festival's competition for best feature-length documentary will show off 16 films, one of which will win a 12,500 Euro prize. Among the main competition films are Dror Moreh's look at the Shin Bet, Israel's equivalent of the FBI, "The Gatekeepers"; the crowdsourced "My Afghanistan"; and documentaries about the poet Edwin Honig and the diamond thieves the Pink Panthers. "Wrong Time Wrong Place," a film about the recent Norwegian massacre, will open this year's fest, which runs November 14-25.

Below is the line-up for the main competition. For the entries in the mid-length documentary, first appearance, student documentary, Dutch documentary, music documentary and youth-made documentary categories, visit the IDFA site.

Bad Boy High Security Cell by Janusz Mrozowski (France/Poland)
The diary of a Polish bank robber in solitary confinement - without privacy, visiting rights, or even a window - struggling against insanity.

First Cousin Once Removed by Alan Berliner (US)
An intimate and sensitive portrait of poet Edwin Honig, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, in the final phase of his life.

The Gatekeepers by Dror Moreh (Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Six former leaders of Israel’s state security service Shin Bet reveal aspects of the War on Terror.

Housemaids by Gabriel Mascaro (France/Lebanon/Brazil)
Affluent Brazilian young people film their live-in maids, providing insight into their relationships with these family members from another world.

I Am Breathing by Morag McKinnon and Emma Davie (England/Scotland/Denmark)
Neil Platt is 33, has just become a father and is terminally ill. He broadcasts candid, humorous observations on life by means of a blog.

In the Dark Room by Nadav Schirman (Germany/Israel/Romania/Finland/Italy)
A film portrait of Magdalena Kopp, the German wife of Carlos the Jackal, one of the world's most notorious terrorists.

The Lost Fighters of Vietnam by Lê Lam (France)
Elderly Vietnamese men talk about their experiences as colonial forced labor in France during World War II, about gambling addiction and hunger, and about emancipation and pride.

Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls by Juliet Lamont (Australia)
After decades of military dictatorship, Burma’s first girl group wrestle with the question: what to sing about when you’ve always been told what to do?

Missing in the Land of Gods by Davor Dirlic (Australia)
Engaging portrait of an Australian married couple searching India for their son, who disappeared in 2005 after a stay in an ashram.

My Afghanistan - Life in the Forbidden Zone by Nagieb Khaja (Denmark)
Thanks to some secretly distributed cell phones equipped with cameras, average Afghanis provide us with a rare glimpse into their war-torn lives.

Rafea: Solar Mama by Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief (US/Denmark/Jordania/India)
When Bedouin Rafea gets an opportunity to train as a solar engineer in India, she meets great resistance from her unemployed husband and conservative community.

Selection: Who Will Be a Gurkha? by Kesang Tseten Lama (Nepal/Finland)
In spite of the cruel selection procedure, every year thousands of young Nepalese join the Gurkhas, an elite unit of the British army.

Smash & Grab - The Story of the Pink Panthers by Havana Marking (England)
The story of the world's most wanted diamond robbers, told from the point of view of the culprits themselves, the police, and the press. We've seen this classic cat-and-mouse game in many movies, but this time it's real.

The Sons of the Land by Edouard Bergeon (France)
As the filmmaker – himself a farmer’s son – follows the struggles of a French farmer, he talks about his father’s suicide.

The Staircase 2. The Last Chance by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (France)
After eight years in prison, there is a glimmer of hope for alleged murderer Michael Peterson. A new chapter in this thrilling docu-thriller series.

Wrong Time Wrong Place by John Appel (Netherlands)
Survivors of the shootings on the Norwegian island of Utøya talk about their experiences and the role played by chance.