The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA is the largest and one of the most important documentary film festivals in the world. Every year, it attracts almost 250 000 viewers, is visited by over three thousand people from the most important organisations in the documentary film industry, and the films shown at IDFA are often festival favourites later on. This year, IDFA is held from November 14 to 25, but the festival awards were presented on November 21.
A strong representation of Polish documentary films was invited to the festival, six of them was in the competition, and during the closing ceremony, three Polish productions won the awards.
The film directed by Katarzyna Lesisz “Dancing for You” won the IDFA Award for Best Children’s Documentary in the Kids & Docs Competition. The documentary tells about twelve-year-old Wiktor, who is a pupil at a renowned ballet school. He’s preparing for an event of enormous importance in school life; the ‘promo show’, which decides whether or not he’ll be ‘promoted’ and move up to the next grade. All the teachers and all the pupil’s parents take part in the occasion. His grandmother is his companion as he practices for the performance, but his dream is that his father, who lives abroad, will come to the show. Film is produced by Munk Studio – Polish Filmmakers Association.
Two other Polish titles were also awarded. The Polish-Belarus co-production “Summa” directed by Andrei Kutsila, received the IDFA Award for Best Mid-Lenght Documentary. In the same competition The IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary went to “In Touch” by Paweł Ziemilski.
Four another films from KFF Sales&Promotion catalogue were presented in this year’s festival’s program: “Unconditional Love” by Rafał Łysak at IDFA Competition for Short Docs, “Connected” by Aleksandra Maciejczyk at IDFA Competition for Student Docs, “Father and Son” by Paweł Łoziński and “Father and Son on a Journey” by Marcel Łoziński – in the section ME. All the filmmakers attended festival and introduced their films to the audience.
The full list of award-winning films is on the website of the festival IDFA.