Yamagata 2013
There is something fascinating about the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, YIDFF. It takes place every second year (this year October 10-17), it has several sections like ”New Asian Currents”, ”Japanese Panorama”, a retrospective of Chris Marker, a series called ”Another Side of the ”Arab Spring”” with no further details so far, and a section that puts a focus on Ethics.
Take a look at the website, old-fashioned and pretty boringly designed many would say, but with a serious focus on Documentaries with facts and links, and with a reference to an archive with interviews and a text about the film library that is open the whole year round.
The information about the ”15 outstanding films selected from 1152 films from 117 countries and areas” is already there:
”The Act of Killing” (Joshua Oppenheimer et al.) is there, ”Stories We Tell” (Sarah Polley), ”The Punk Syndrome” (Jukka Kärkkäinen, J-P Passi), “Once I entered a Garden” (Avi Mograbi) to mention films that have all been written about on this blog, the latter not yet watched and reviewed as “Motherland or Death” by Vitaly Mansky (photo) and ”The Other Day” by Chilean Ignacio Agüero, a film that won the main award at Chilean Fidocs festival this summer.
There are also films from the hosting country, and from Korea, Taiwan, India and Thailand.
The Japanese festival has its own profile with no industry activities. It is all about documentaries as an art form. Respect!
