As someone who appreciates attending documentary-only film festivals, I must admit that after a few days, it can become a bit of a slog. This is not due to the excellence of the films, particularly at a high-end event like IDFA, the acclaimed International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, which ends its 11 day run today. If anything, it is the opposite. The films presented are so visceral, so challenging, so disturbing, so awakening, that it truly is a shock to the system to see th...

  Films Transit International, the premiere distributor of international documentaries with offices in Montreal and New York, is having a record year at this year's IDFA, the world's largest and most prestigious documentary film festival. The company, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, has an impressive 11 films represented in both the Festival and the  parallel Docs For Sale market, including 5 films that are competing in the main Features Competition. The high number of fi...

After 12 years, an Italian director has been awarded the Golden Gentian - “Gran Premio Città di Trento”, the most prestigious prize awarded by the International Jury at the 55th TrentoFilmfestival. Among 40 films in the competition, the prize has been awarded to the Sicilian documentary-maker Stefano Savona for his film Primavera in Kurdistan, which deals with the war of the male and female PKK guerrillas in the Iraqi Kurdistan mountains, where they are defending the freedom and self-dete...