Full focus on cinematography at IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is taking the opportunity of its 30th anniversary to place a special focus on cinematography in the documentary through the program Camera in Focus.

Established cameramen and women as well as up-and-coming talent will attend the festival and talk about their unique, inspirational ways of capturing stories through images. Also there will be several events especially for the professionals attending IDFA. Camera in Focus will take place from Thursday 16 through Tuesday 21 November in EYE.

Exceptional camerawork

IDFA has always focused on the creative documentary. Films of high cinematographic quality that clearly bear their makers’ signatures. It is the cinematography that determines how the story is presented, and this is absolutely crucial to the nature of the film. For its Camera in Focus program, IDFA will present ten films, five classics and five new documentaries, each of which demonstrates exceptional camerawork. During post-screening discussions, the cameraman or camerawoman concerned will talk in depth about his or her choices in terms of cinematography. The program will be moderated by Nicolas Rapold, editor-in-chief of Film Comment, the publication of the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, and Eric Hynes, film critic and curator of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

Industry events

Several events dealing with cinematography from a professional perspective will be organised for the professionals attending IDFA. Lars Skree (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence, among others) will give an Industry Talk in cooperation with the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers. In addition, cameraman Ed Lachman (Tokyo-ga and Carol, among others) will give a talk in cooperation with ARRI (camera design and production) on the basis of ARRI’s latest camera equipment, as well as a talk on camera use within the documentary genre. The NBF (Dutch Association of Film and TV Professionals) will also host a talk on the use of mobile telephone footage in documentaries.

The films, the classics

•    Wolfgang Thaler, regular cameraman for Ulrich Seidl and the late Michael Glawogger will talk about his camerawork on Glawogger’s film Whores’ Glory (2011), which won the Austrian Film Awards for both Best Documentary and Best Cinematography.

•    Pierre Lhomme will discuss Le Joli Mai (1963), for which he took to the streets of Paris with director Chris Marker and a lightweight camera – the result was an innovative feat of cinéma vérité.

•    The camerawork in Wim Wenders’ classic Tokyo-ga (1985) will be discussed by the American cameraman Ed Lachman – according to Variety one of the most adventurous cameramen of the moment, owing to the great variation displayed within his oeuvre.

•    The much-lauded Finnish filmmaker Pirjo Honkasalowill talk about the camerawork in her film Atman (1996), shot on 35mm film, for which she won the IDFA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary in 1996.

•    The fifth title is to be confirmed – more information will follow online.

The films, new camera talent

•    Talal Khoury will give us an insight into how he worked on the film Taste of Cement (2017, Ziad Kalthoum), the big winner at the film festival in Nyon. Poetically and in an almost Cubist style, Khoury tells a story of building up and breaking down.

•    Arseni Khachaturan shot impressive, calm images of a post-apocalyptic ghost town in Georgia for City of the Sun (2017, Rati Oneli). This award-winning documentary was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund.

•    House in the Fields (2016) – the filmmaker Tala Hadidwill talk about her direction and camerawork on this visual study of a traditional community in Marocco. The documentary was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund.

•    Mila Turajlic’s intimate camerawork will be the focus of her discussion of her film The Other Side of Everything (2017), for which she filmed her own family.

•    Manuel Abramovich will talk about his highly visual film Soldier (2017) – which received praise for its camerawork from The Hollywood Reporter.

 

The 30th edition of IDFA will take place November 15 – 26.