Idfa Volume and Main Award
From the press release of idfa, impressive numbers, yes, the interest in documentaries is huge, bravo: Although the festival runs until Sunday, we can already cautiously say that the festival has once more received more visitors than last year… If the trend continues, the number of visitors will increase from 157,500 in 2008 to 165,000. Net income rose from € 700,000 in 2008 to € 750,000 this year. The number of (inter)national guests remained approximately on a par with 2008, at 2,295. IDFA’s online activities were better visited this year than ever. Since January 2009, the website has attracted some 600,000 visitors, from 210 different countries. The trailers, full films and festival reports on the documentary channel IDFA TV were viewed during the festival a total of almost 6,000 times a day (4,000 in 2008).
The VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary (consisting of a sculpture and € 12,500) went to Lixin Fan for “Last Train Home”, about the heroic journey undertaken by countless Chinese workers each year from the new industrial areas to their families in the provinces. The jury stated that this is a striking, honest film about a topic that is of relevance to the entire world.
