18th International Documentary Film-Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and: 6th Shadow Festival (review)

The International Documentary Film-festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has already been introduced to Leonardo readers as one of the world's largest documentary film forums (see Leonardo Reviews, March 2005, also published in Leonardo Vol. 38, No. 5). Last year the festival's focus was on debates and workshops around new media and documentary film form, which again this year culminated in the Mediamatic workshop, a forum for interactive political film and its multilinear forms and dialogues between the maker and the player (for more information see <www.mediamatic.net>). This review will discuss this year's IDFA festival and contrast it with the Shadow Festival, which since its origination in 1999 has served as a counter-festival to IDFA.

The discourse on the documentary film genre at festivals, in retrospect, has often suffered from a lack of discussion around the elements of form, structure and composition within an aesthetic and ethical framework. In contrast, discussions on content have often constituted the dominant or even exclusive topic, and ethical issues often only arise from occurring inherent ideological manifestations. IDFA has more than once used the festival to promote free-speech rights for documentary filmmakers and the subjects appearing in the films; at this year's festival, a selection of European and American propaganda films produced during World War II stimulated a critical and self-conscious discussion of propaganda within contemporary documentary filmmaking, with particular regard to documentary as a means for ideologically driven goals. This was particularly useful, as on a subtle level many documentary films on the market can be criticized for their lack of reflectivity and the failure to allow space for viewers to make up their own minds and create their own interpretations.

The apparent difficulties of IDFA to come to terms with the balancing act between film content and film form reflects a growing imbalance of the festival in which the sociopolitical agenda—manifest in a variety of IDFA's activities—dominates over a critical reflection of the subject of film form. IDFA's mission statement addresses these issues, and the festival seems to show a shift in sequence of these categories, starting with film form, followed by content toward communication with the audiences, where shock and sensation constitutes an important part in the description. Through this imbalance, the festival does not acknowledge sufficiently the critical agency of the audience, especially for those who expect documentary film to express an intelligible, reflective and critical approach in the very form and construction of its medium. At IDFA, slightly too often, one gains the impression that the festival is displaying and selling "better television programs," which director Ally Derks seemed to confirm when she stated in her opening speech: "After all the incoherent media violence that we get served up, a bit of depth is a welcome change."

No doubt, with more than 3,000 submissions a year, one can see the festival's potential to not merely distance itself from the general populist media market, but to develop into a serious forum for documentary film on a metalevel of discussion and communication, with a focus on interventions not only with regard to content but also with regard to film form and characteristics inherent in the applied media. IDFA made a promising start by inviting filmmaker Peter Wintonick as convener of the IDFAcademy masterclasses and events in recent years; in addition, the broadness of the IDFA program every year includes a number of films whose makers are informed by a subtle understanding of film form, ethics of approach and a healthy tension between aesthetics, visual pleasure and a critical discussion of the content. One of the highlights of this year's festival was a retrospective of French photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon, to whom the Netherlands Filmmuseum dedicated a retrospective, exhibition, press-conference and masterclass in collaboration with IDFA. (For more information on the film program see <www.idfa.nl>.)

While IDFA...