For the second year running Danish documentary films will be screening in official programmes at IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (24 Nov - 4 Dec 2005). Eight films have been chosen for competition, and three films for side programmes.
Competition filmsSelected for IDFA's most prestigious category, Joris Ivens Competition, is Ove Nyholm and Digital Film's "The Anatomy of Evil", the result of persistent research into the personal history of some of the perpetrators of genocide in Europe during the past fifty years.
The Silver Wolf Competition, for films of less than 60 minutes, will screen two films with director-producers at the helm: Mira Jargil's "Turn Out the Light", a portrait of a couple on their final day in their home of 45 years; and Helle Toft Jensen's "Hotel of Dreams", about a man who after two and a half decades in Europe returns to Senegal to fulfil his childhood dream of building and running a hotel.
The First Appearance programme will screen three films: Mette Zeruneith and Magic Hour's "In the Soldier's Footsteps", a story about corruption and the recruitment of child soldiers; Simone Aaberg Kern, Magnus Bejmar and Cosmo Film Doc's "Smiling in a War Zone", an airborne road-movie with the director at the wheel of a tiny plane flying to Kabul to find a young girl who dreams of becoming a fighter pilot; and finally Frank Piasecki Poulsen and Zentropa Real's "Guerrilla Girl", which follows in the footsteps of a young middleclass girl who joins the Columbian guerrilla movement FARC.
Two films have been selected for the Doc U! Awards programme helmed by IDFA's Youth Jury: Jannik Splidsboel and Radiator Film's "Homies", about two 15-year-old boys who are friends in spite of their different ethnic and cultural backgrounds; and Cathrine Marchen Asmussen and Cosmo Film Doc's "Zezil's World", about 15-year-old Cecilie, a Dane living in Copenhagen and whose school mates are mostly foreigners.
Reflecting Images, Kids & Docs, Docs at War 1939-1945Selected for Reflecting Images are two films: Tómas Gislason and Nordisk Film's "Overcoming", about professional cycling, with former professional and Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis in the lead; and "Karma Clown", by Ulrika Ekberg of the National Film School of Denmark. Ekberg's film is about a student clown who is struggling with the distress of losing her first great love.
Kids & Docs will screen Mariella Harpelunde Jensen and Easy Film's "Hiding Places", about seven children and their experience with nature's animals, tastes and scents.
Docs at War 1939-1945 has selected Hagen Hasselbach and Nordisk Film's "The Harvest is in Danger", a propagandist documentary film from 1944 with the Danish resistance as the underlying motive. For further information
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, IDFA www.idfa.nl
Danish Film InstituteAnne Marie Kürstein, +45 3374 3609, +45 4041 4697, kurstein@dfi.dkVicki Marie Synnott, +45 3374 3559, vickis@dfi.dk