The Year of the Woman: The 30th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

Though it’s been half a decade since I’ve covered Amsterdam’s International Documentary Film Festival, this year’s 30th edition was a welcome reminder as to why IDFA is often heralded as the crème de la crème of doc fests. First there’s its sheer size and scope — this year, a whopping 319 documentaries were presented over the festival’s 12 days. Fortunately, these nonfiction projects of every stripe were helpfully divided into a surprisingly navigable 20 sections — everything from your standard competitions (and not-so-standard, as IDFA DocLab has both a Competition for Digital Storytelling and a Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction) to specialty programs such as “Shifting Perspectives: The Arab World” (a series of films and debates viewed through a non-Western eye) and “The Visual Voice.” For that specific 30th year celebratory section, 18 top-notch directors were invited to screen their personal faves, which made for some unexpected selections. Frederick Wiseman, for instance, chose Marcel Ophuls’s Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, while The Yes Men presented Josh Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing.

To read all about my visit visit Filmmaker magazine.