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"A friend and visiting programmer described International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as somewhere to “take stock of what is going on in the world of documentary”, and by extension, in the wider world too. A mirror, microscope or window onto every corner of the globe or recess of the soul. At this year’s festival, narratives surrounding conflict, migration and extremism dominated, with multiple filmmakers going undercover in terrorist training camps, an alarming number of portraits of Neo-Nazis, and no less than 30 films relating to Syria. Viewing this type of work consecutively can prove exhausting, an all-day bludgeoning of reality. Several experimental films, with equally grave subject matter, offered, simply through the unorthodoxy of their approach, a strange kind of relief."
A postcard on IDFA, with notes on Agustina Comedi’s Silence is a Falling Body, Jude Ratnam’s Demons in Paradise, Yaser Kassab's On The Edge of Life, Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki’s El Mar La Mar and Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel Caniba can be found in Little White Lies 73