Spanish doc takes top prize at Amsterdam
The Spanish film My Grandmother's House (o.t. La casa di mi abuela) won the top prize, the VPRO Joris Ivens Award, at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) which ended this weekend. The main competition counted 21 entries, with a very strong European presence of 15 titles.
Winner My Grandmother's House, directed by Adán Aliaga, follows 6-year-old Marina's relationship with her 75-year-old grandmother Marita. They live in a small industrial town in Alicante, where Marita's house has been designated to be demolished. The film is produced by Video Genic, Ignacio Benedeti Cinema and Salto de Eje. Sales are handled by Kevin Williams Associates.
The Austrian film Our Daily Bread (o.t. Unser täglich Brot) from Nikolaus Geyrhalter won the Special Jury Award. A world premiere at Amsterdam, it is an audacious piece of work offering 90 minutes of well-edited footage showing how and where our food is prepared and processed without any commentary. The film was produced Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion with support from ORF and ZDF/3sat; AUTLOOK Filmsales manages sales.
Our Daily Bread was also part of the Green screen side-bar, which screened 17 films about the environment, including two also in competition: We Feed the World, again from Austria, and The Real Dirt on Farmer John from the USA. Profiles of Farmers: Daily Life, the most recent film of Raymond Depardon (to whom the IDFA dedicated a retrospective this year) and Werner Herzog’s latest (The Wild Blue Yonder) where also part of the mix.
The Audience Award went to the festival's opening film Sisters in Law, from festival regular Kim Longinotto, who collaborated with Florence Ayisi on the English documentary about two female judges in Cameroon. The film was produced by Longinotto for Vixen Films, which also handles world sales.
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