01/12/2003

The International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) ended yesterday with victory for the Israeli film, Checkpoint by Yoay Shamir, which won the VPRO Joris Ivens Award for Best Documentary.

The other films that won awards include The Corporation by Jennifer Abbott & Mark Achbar (Canada), which was given the Special Jury Prize. The Silver Wolf Award for Best Short Documentary Film went to Surplus-Terrorized into being consumers by Erik Gandini (Sweden). The Fipresci International Critics Award was won by The Very Best Day by Pavel Medvedev (Russia) in the Best Short Film category and My Flesh and Blood by Jonathan Karsh (USA) won the Best Feature Length Film section as well as the Public Award. The Amnesty International-Doen Prize was given to Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer by Nick Broomfield & Joan Chrchill (Britain).
The facts and figures of this festival prove its success, as it had an audience of around 110,000 and there were 1,900 professionals from the sector attending the event, brining in a total of €365,000.

(Translated from French)