Post-Cold War Films and More at Amsterdam Documentary Festival

This year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) was (once again) a hybrid affair. Which left me, like many nonfiction aficionados attending remotely from around the globe, feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I really longed to return to covering in person — to see, say, Dziga Vertov’s newly restored “lost masterpiece” The History of the Civil War — screened only once before, exactly a century ago — at the grand Tuschinski (recently rechristened “Royal Theater”). Or to swing by De Brakke Grond for DocLab Live. (Though, to its credit, IDFA DocLab did provide a free online exhibition. That said, I still had to skip all those mind-blowing VR projects since I don’t have a headset at home). On the other hand, traveling all the way to The Netherlands to take in the world’s biggest documentary film festival during not just a raging pandemic but a partial shutdown (that turned into a lockdown by closing weekend) isn’t exactly the sort of memorable experience I typically sign up for. Fortunately, between the Press & Industry library, and the slew of screeners I hunted for and gathered from publicists, there was plenty to keep my mind busy — and my jaw dropping, starting with the no-brainer winner of the International Competition, which nabbed awards for Best Film and Best Editing. To be fair, Sergei Loznitsa’s humbly titled, riveting epic Mr. Landsbergis really should have put the master director in a category of his own.

To read all about it (and my other finds) visit Documentary magazine.