The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker known for his socio-political, human rights-oriented films. Some of his films explore the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India, while others investigate nuclear nationalism and unsustainable development. Notable films include Bombay: Our City (1985), In Memory of Friends (1990), In the Name of God (1992), Father, Son, and Holy War (1995), A Narmada Diary (1995), War and Peace (2002) and Jai Bhim Comrade (2011), Reason (2018), and The World is Family (2023), which have won national and international awards.
Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling is a documentary film on the 31st International Whistlers Convention that follows a Washington D.C. investment banker, a Dutch social worker and a turkey hauler among others as they compete for a prize in competitive whistling.
My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan Tom, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. It was nominated for and won several awards, including the Audience Award and the Director's Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Danniel Danniel was an Israeli film director, screenwriter and film editor. He lived in the Netherlands since 1980. He died in the morning of 4 May 2017 in Amsterdam.
Planet B-Boy is a 2007 documentary film that focuses on the 2005 Battle of the Year while also describing B-boy culture and history as a global phenomenon. This documentary was directed by Canadian-American Korean filmmaker Benson Lee, shot by Portuguese-American filmmaker Vasco Nunes, and released in theaters in the United States on March 21, 2008. It was released on DVD on November 11, 2008.
Brett Gaylor is a Canadian documentary filmmaker living in Victoria, British Columbia. He grew up on Galiano Island, British Columbia. He was formerly the VP of Mozilla's Webmaker Program. His documentary, Do Not Track, explores privacy and the web economy.
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open-source documentary film about "the changing concept of copyright" directed by Brett Gaylor.
Soundtrack for a Revolution is a 2009 documentary film written and directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman. This documentary traces the story of the Civil Rights Movement and the gains achieved by young African-American activists with an emphasis on their use of the power of music. Soundtrack for a Revolution had its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Soundtrack for a Revolution was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Oscar shortlist for the Documentary Feature category of the 82nd Academy Awards. Guttentag and Sturman were nominated for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. The film has screened at numerous festivals including Cannes, Tribeca, IDFA and Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Just Vision is a non religiously unaffiliated nonprofit organization that utilizes storytelling, media and public engagement campaigns to highlight Palestinian and Israeli grassroots leaders working to end the occupation and conflict through unarmed means. They are based in Washington, New York and Jerusalem.
Antoine is a 2008 Canadian documentary film directed by Laura Bari. The film features a 5-year old blind boy named Antoine Houang, living in Montreal, Quebec. It tells the real and imaginary life of Antoine, a boy detective who runs, drives, makes decisions, hosts radio shows and adores simultaneous telephone conversations. Over the course of two years, he uses a mini-boom microphone to discover and capture the sounds surrounding him. In this manner he also co-created the soundtrack of the film.
Leonard Retel Helmrich was a Dutch cinematographer and film director. Born in Tilburg, he had lived in Amsterdam since 1982. He received the highest honors for international documentaries at the Sundance Festival and was the first two-time International Documentary winner at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). On June 5, 2018, he was awarded with the title Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion by the Dutch King Willem-Alexander.
A Story of People in War and Peace is a 2007 documentary film about Armenian filmmaker and war veteran, Vardan Hovhannisyan, who had an understanding of the human cost of war.
Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in his home country of the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him there.
Nicolas Rossier is an American filmmaker and reporter best known for his biographical documentaries of the former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide and South African Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient F.W. de Klerk.
Of Men and War is a 2014 documentary film by Laurent Bécue-Renard. It explores the psychological legacy of war on a group of American veterans returning from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The men are undergoing trauma therapy at The Pathway Home, a residential treatment program on the grounds of the Veterans Home in Yountville, CA until 2018. Over the course of five years, they participate in group therapy and one-on-one sessions and gradually transform their trauma into narratives of survival before returning home to their wives, children, and parents. The film premiered in the Special Screenings section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. The film won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 2014 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. It received a European Film Award for Best Documentary nomination at the 27th European Film Awards and screened at the Museum of Modern Art's Documentary Fortnight.
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami is a Sundance Award-winning Iranian documentary filmmaker who was born in Tehran. She has directed one full-length documentary, four short documentaries and one animated documentary.
The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is a 2020 documentary film, directed and written by Iryna Tsilyk, who won the Directing Award in the "World Cinema Documentary” category for the film at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
499 is a 2020 Mexican-American docudrama film straddling documentary and fiction, directed by Rodrigo Reyes. The film is a creative exploration of the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico, 500 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The film had its international premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the best cinematography award in the documentary competition, as well as winning the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs the same year. It also won the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Golden Frog Prize for Best Docudrama.
