Ten documentaries backed by the Fund of which 4 competition entries, are among the 30+ Nordic titles taking part in IDFA’s 30th anniversary celebration (November 15-26).
In their special anniversary edition, Amsterdam’s prestigious festival is sticking more than ever to its mission to bring high quality films offering an ‘alternative to mass entertainment and uniformity’.
Karolina Lidin, Documentary Advisor at Nordisk Film & TV Fond said: “IDFA is always the end-of the-year celebration of the power and beauty of documentaries worldwide – especially this year, honouring all 30 years of Ally Derks at the helm of the festival and our global community. We are proud to contribute to this from our Nordic corner of the world, again this year with an impressive array of cinematic voices & urgent stories, many taking stock of the instability of our world, addressing global conflicts and the rise of discontent from personal and disturbing perspectives. The 30+ films in the festival and 12 projects at the Forum together speak to the infinite creative power of our genre, but more importantly, to the importance of independent voices of documentaries today.”
This year two films backed by the Fund are among 15 titles vying for the VPRO-Best Feature Film:
Two other films backed by the Fund are competing in the First Appearance category:
Screening at the Panorama section dedicated to thought-provoking films is Aleppo’s Fall directed by Nizam Najar, produced by Henrik Underbjerg and Tore Buvarp for Norway’s Fenris Film with Denmark’s Stray Dog and France’s YUZU Productions. The director travels back to his home town, where a group of civilians defend themselves against their government. The film follows them through the days of hope, via desperation, death, and division – until Aleppo falls and the survivors must flee to Idlib.
Three films backed by the Fund are screening in the Best of Fests, gathering festival highlights of the past year.
Finally 18 renowned filmmakers have selected their favourite IDFA films in the Visual Voice programme honouring the festival’s 30th anniversary. The Yes Men selected Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady picked Anders Østergaard‘s Burma VJ-Reporting from a Closed Country while Danish master Jørgen Leth will introduce his own coup de coeur, Santiago by João Moreira Salles and Finland’s documentary queen Pirjo Honkasalo will introduce the Iranian film The House is Black by Forough Farrokhzad. Honkasalo will also take part in the Camera in Focus programme (November 16-21) with her 1996 film Atman, winner of IDFA’s Fest Feature Length Film.
Meanwhile the parallel industry section IDFA Forum (November 20-22) has selected 57 projects from 23 countries for its three-day co-financing and production market, including the following 12 Nordic projects:
Watch out for our IDFA special published on Friday.