Review of the completed IDFA documentary film festival in Amsterdam

The IDFA documentary film festival in Amsterdam ended with the distribution of awards and gala screenings of the best films. Comments on its results Andrey Plakhov.

When the festival just started, there was a lot of tension in the atmosphere. Right at the opening ceremony, it spilled over into an incident with activists who came on stage with a poster “From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free.” They were supported by a significant part of the audience, someone shouted: “Why has the Ukrainian flag been raised here for the second year, but not the Palestinian one?”

This formulation of the question puzzled the festival organizers. The Ukrainian subject was represented very prominently: at the opening the film “A Photo for Memory” by Olga Chernykh was shown, and the public prize went to the film “Twenty Days in Mariupol” by Mstislav Chernov, a Ukrainian Oscar candidate. But regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at its current stage, the IDFA leadership did not have a clear position, and had to explain that “we do not ignore, undermine or criminalize any point of view … we provide a platform for outstanding artists who can be critical and free.”

Nevertheless, from the same appeal it is clear that the Palestinian version is closer to the leftist course of the IDFA, which considers “occupation and colonialism” to be the root of the Middle East tragedy. It is not surprising that the film “Life is Beautiful” by Palestinian Mohamad Jabali, based on his personal story of legalization in Norway after the border with the Gaza Strip was closed, was warmly received and awarded here. This is a good film, but it is unlikely that it would have received a prize for directing if it had not fallen into the current context.

The main prize of the full-length international competition was awarded to the Armenian film “1489,” which was also entirely based on personal experiences. Shogohat Vardanyan, a debutante in directing, mourns her deceased brother and films the life of her family against the backdrop of an escalation of the military conflict with Azerbaijan. Here we can already say for sure: there is no political background in this decision; the jury was truly impressed by both the piercing intonation of the film, shot in one go, and its professional qualities.

The fact that the festival has made a choice in favor of personal on-screen statements is evidenced by the awarding of the main award in the second competition called Envision Competition. It was awarded to the film “The Metamorphosis of Canuto” by Ariel Quaray Ortega and Ernesto de Carvalho. Arriving to visit his grandfather in a Brazilian province, Ortega hears a story about a peasant who turned into a jaguar and died tragically in the forest. The reconstruction of this folklore myth becomes the plot of the film, balancing on the verge of mystical realism and the parody genre of mockumentary.

Likewise, the festival itself balances between a political, predominantly leftist, agenda and very personal cinema, which cannot be called anything other than author’s. An example of the latter is Alena van der Horst’s Gerlach, which won the prize for best Dutch film. This is a documentary portrait filled with nostalgic sadness of a farmer who created a “potato paradise” near Amsterdam, where, in addition to potatoes, beets, wheat and strawberries of ideal ecological quality are grown. The owner sells his products to surrounding residents, but he is driven not by business interest, but by a stoic philosophy of fate. Gerlach van Beinum dedicated his entire life to this farm, putting his strength and soul into it. He lost his health, because of this he was unable to start a family, but even now, already old and hunched over, tormented by constant rheumatic pain, he retains his love for the land and hard peasant labor. And his eyes are still alive, young.

The hero is helped and morally supported by his brothers and friends, and yet he is “the only warrior in the field.” Gerlach is in spiritual contact with nature, but we also see how one day she rebels: climate change leads to drought, and then to a flood, and the crops die. The main enemies are the demons of capitalist globalization, greedy for quick profits – distribution centers, megamarkets selling vegetables from Kenya, airplanes constantly flying over the crops and the neighboring McDonald’s that does not subside even at night. The hero sues some, sometimes even wins, but the attributes of the coming future still push the “last farmer” into the historical past. He, however, does not give up and continues to heroically cultivate his favorite field. Alena van der Horst has made a film that is as political as it is personal: it is dedicated to her recently deceased father.

Politics, art and human destinies are closely intertwined in perhaps the most beautiful film of the festival, “They Shot the Pianist.” Spanish directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba chose this title as a paraphrase of Francois Truffaut’s film “Shoot the Pianist.” The action also includes footage from Jules et Jim, another of Truffaut’s cult films, and Godard’s Breathless. These iconic films of the era changed the lives of many people, only Trueba and Mariscal transformed easily recognizable film footage into animated images, as well as the main plot of the film, associated with the era of the Brazilian bossa nova craze, a contemporary of the French new wave. Several decades later, a New York music critic travels to Rio de Janeiro to investigate the fate of a once famous pianist who became a victim of the Argentine junta. And this gives an opportunity to create a magnificent animated film with fiery dances and free characters of the legendary 1960s.