IDFA 2020

Matti Paunio started his job as Head of Production at The Finnish Film Foundation in the autumn of last year. Then, the pandemic came. “As with everybody, this was a total surprise and changed a lot of things we had planned,” Paunio says of the sudden challenges posed by Covid-19.

Chiledoc is out in force November 19 during IDFA Industry, as a delegation of doccers present a selection of upcoming features. IDFA also presents two Chilean world-premieres in 2020. The Sky Is Red plays in First Appearance while Arica is selected for Frontlight.

Madagascan Nantenaina Lova’s story of protecting sacred land from foreign mining interests hits just the right tone: no sentimentality, no voyeurism, just honesty.

Prague-based sales agency picks up the pastoral Bosco, directed by Alicia Cano, in Luminous, and Eleonore Weber’s There Will Be No More Night, based on video recordings from the American and the French armed forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, selected for Paradocs.

When lockdown began, industry misgivings were shared at newsreel archive British Pathé, which holds huge amounts of film material from 1896, the very start of cinema, to the early 1980s. Would anyone pay to license this material during such a difficult period? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.

“In established power structures, there are many people who abuse their power willingly and for their own benefit, and also at least as many people who know about it and silently tolerate it.” Alison Kuhn talks to BDE about The Case You, her documentary response to a horrific experience.

Prolific Icelandic filmmakers Anní Olafsdottir (IDFAcademy 2020) and Andri Snær Magnason brief BDE on their current, highly pertinent, creative docs whose content and production have been either informed or affected by lockdown.

A lyrical and intimate film that both celebrates and mourns an increasingly disappearing way of life.

Like an X-ray, this documentary gets under your skin to touch invisible points both in the body and the mind.

“Filmmakers, young and old, showed up when the whole industry needed them. Watching these films makes one confident that cinema will survive,” Creative Director Orwa Nyrabia tells Business Doc Europe of the IDFA 2020 harvest.