Paris attacks in spotlight on IDFA night – Docu fest and market has global hustle, intimate vibe 

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LOS ANGELES, Nov 20, (RTRS): Both a forum for politically conscious cinema and a platform for the open discussion of potentially world-changing ideas, the Intl. Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, opened its 28th edition Wednesday night by paying tribute to those who had lost their lives in the Paris attacks of the previous Friday. France returned the favor, in a manner of speaking, by knighting IDFA director Ally Derks. Conferring the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres upon the festival co-founder, French ambassador to the Netherlands Laurent Pic explained, “At a time when values are attacked by barbarism, it is worth remembering that culture is a party of our way of life, a state of mind that France shares with the Netherlands.”

The event kicked off with two other major honors, most notably the selection of director Thomas Vroege’s “Theater of the Crowd” for the Mediafonds Documentary Award, which comes with a EUR125,000 prize intended to jumpstart production of the winning project, selected from six nonfiction feature pitches developed during the IDFA-Mediafonds Workshop. Vroege’s idea, a timely film essay inspired by the classic form of Greek tragedy, will examine the effects of unrest in the Middle East and the way refugees become a scapegoat for Europe’s own problems. (Derks also announced that while the Dutch Media Fund is set to expire in 2017, support from Netherlands Public Broadcasting system NPO should keep the workshop and award going in perpetuity.)

The evening’s other prize, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Award, was given to Tom Fassaert, director of opening film “A Family Affair” — a slippery and constantly surprising portrait of the helmer’s 95-year-old grandmother, who nimbly dodges his attempts to unpack various mysteries from the family’s past, while inventing jawdropping new scandals in the present. Before the uniquely peculiar dysfunctional family portrait unspooled, Derks acknowledged several of the festival’s special guests, including documentary masters Jorgen Leth and Errol Morris, whose “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” had opened the festival some 18 years earlier.

In addition to introducing some of his own work, Morris programmed his documentary top 10, ranging from Dziga Vertov’s silent “urban symphony,” “Man With a Movie Camera,” to Nick Broomfield’s true-crime expose “Tales of the Grim Sleeper.” Though IDFAendeavors to extend the topicality of most of its programming selections with in-depth interviews and discussions, another special guest will be taking that inquiry even deeper this year: Political theorist Benjamin Barber collaborated closely with the festival to curate special screenings of 15 films that reflect the concerns raised in his 1995 book “Jihad vs. McWorld” — an idea hatched in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris last January that gains fresh currency after the Nov 13 attacks.

Since launching in 1988, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has remained the largest—319 titles this year—world-class documentary screening and market event on the calendar, pointing auds and attendees toward fresh ideas, forms, and funding models, and constantly fine-tuning programming that reflects the international hustle, intimate vibe, and cinematic beauty of the city. The 12-day fest opened Wednesday with Dutch filmmaker Tom Fassaert’s world-premiering intrigue “A Family Affair,” one of 15 international titles competing for IDFA’s best feature doc—the marquee prize amongst eight juried competitions which, along with the aud award, offer cash prizes.

As of this year, the jury-awards ceremony (Nov 25) shifts earlier in the schedule to attract a larger pack of international guests; IDFA has also dropped the nomination process and instituted a new special jury award category in its six main competitions, accompanied by an increase in the overall amount of prize cash. Continuing its longstanding rep as the Euro launchpad for prestige US docs, IDFA 2015 screens 54 feature-length US theatrical and TV titles—among them, “American Epic,” “ Cartel Land,” “Hot Sugar’s Cold World,” “Live From New York,” “Mavis,” “Keith Richard: Under The Influence,” “This Changes Everything,” and two from Barbara Koppel (“Miss Sharon Jones.”)

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