IDFA 2006: You Are Not Very Punk

I've been back from Amsterdam for more than a week now, but I'm still feeling the effects - both spiritually and physically.  My sleep has more or less recovered (although I find I am still wide awake at 1:30 in the morning and exhausted at 9:30 am), but am still floating of the feelings of community that embraced me at IDFA (the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam), where About A Son had its second European festival appearance.

The City Theatres, just off Amsterdam's Leidseplein and across the street from De Balie, ground zero for IDFA for at least this year.  Word has it that the City Theatres are to be torn down and the festival relocated.

It was my first time at IDFA and I was not quite sure what to expect, although I'd heard great things about it from those who'd been in the past, and I knew that many friends and colleagues were going to be there this year.  It turned out to be one of my all-time favorite festival experiences.

It wasn't because of the films.  I seemed to miss the two or three films that were big favorites (and that won prizes) including The Monastary and We Are Together, and of the films I saw, most were not my cup of tea.  (The lack of excellent films that had not already played numerous fests on the circuit seemed to be a constant complaint amongst many festivalgoers.)  I've already alluded to a first person doc that I had to walk out of, but there was a worse film, a lazy and inept exercise by an industry veteran that still has me shaking my fist in the air.

I did manage to see two films that I missed in Toronto - Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cite Soleil and Mohammed Naqvi's Shame.  Ghosts of Cite Soleil had many people at IDFA enthralled and it has been getting raves ever since it had preview screenings in Telluride.  While I was mightily impressed with the film's stylish look and feel as well as the filmmakers' access to their subjects, I had seriously mixed feelings about the film, particularly the heroic portrayal of the gang members who are the central characters.  There are definitely questions of objectivity here, made even more clear in a Q&A when one of the filmmakers - the cameraman - revealed that he had an offscreen relationship with one of the main characters and that he felt he owed his life and safety to the gangmembers while he was filming them.  I definitely think it's a film to be shown and seen and discussed, but I can't quite come to terms with it.

Shame, meanwhile, reminds viewers of a story they may remember only peripherally - the saga of Mukhtaran Mai, an illiterate Pakistani village woman who is gang raped by men in her village to avenge a romance/affair/rape/attack (it's never quite clear what happened, although the accusations get progressively worse as the film goes on) allegedly committed by her younger brother on another woman in the village.  Mai decides to go to the authorities, which leads to lots of press attention, and subsequent government attention as the government of Pakistan, post 9/11, tries to project the image of a stable, forward-thinking country.  The twists and turns in Mai's story, covered over a 4 year period, are amazing, and it's not spoiling anything to reveal that the third act gets mightily surreal when Mai is presented awards by the likes of Brooke Shields and Las Vegas Mayor (and former mob lawyer) Oscar Goodman.

Aside from those films (and a few others that I won't mention here) and my own screenings (which went wonderfully - great questions from the audience, including one that inspired the title of this post, as a young dutch girl asked me how I could have made this film about Kurt as "you are not very punk" - I had to explain that I was, in fact, quite punk, but had just gotten old), I was able to spend a lot of my time in Amsterdam with friends and colleagues I had met over the past year, reuniting with folks I first met in Park City or Columbia, Missouri or Toronto, Ontario.  What follows will seem to only reinforce the notion that going to film festivals is nothing but an endless party, but in the case of IDFA this year, it felt more like the most amazing corporate retreat.  That is if a corporate retreat ended up with 15 people on a houseboat singing Styx' Come Sail Away at 5 AM at the top of their lungs.

Thanks then to all at IDFA for their generous invitation to me and my film, and to all in Amsterdam for the terrific hospitality.  Herewith, a sampling:

Amongst the first friendly faces I spotted outside de Balie were Black Gold co-director Nick Francis and Toronto Film Festival documentary programmer Thom Powers.

Jesus Camp and Boys of Baraka filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady just before the first of their sold out raucous screenings for the European premiere Jesus Camp.



Silverdocs' Amy King, A&E IndieFilm's Ryan Harrington (in the house to support A&E Indie's Jesus Camp) and True/False Film Festival's Paul Sturtz inside the first of many cocktail hours at the de Balie.

Indiewire's Brian Brooks and yours truly at a great Indian restaurant just off the Leidseplein that found room to accomodate 20+ festival goers on very little notice.


This Film Is Not Yet Rated director Kirby Dick with the Center for Social Media's Pat Aufderheide, the leading proponent of Fair Use policies in documentary filmmaking, which Dick utilized great in This Film.


Hitting one of the evening parties with Silverdocs' Sky Sitney, Docurama's Liz Ogilvie and Matt Dentler of the SXSW Film Festival and blogger extraordinaire.


Petra Epperlein, co-director of The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (as well as Gunner Palace), and James Longley, director of the IDFA short Sari's Mother (as well as the Oscar shortlisted film Iraq in Fragments) at the D-Word dinner.


Our good pal and fellow doc blogger Agnus Varnum after we swarm a party with lots of liquor but no corkscrews (you can find other evidence of this evening over on Indiewire) somewhere in the middle of a wonderfully fun evening.  Agnes has her own pics up over on her site.


Later, that same evening...


Yours truly with my brother and sister, Randy and Ellie, who took a quick 2-day trip to Amsterdam from Chicago to see the film (and the museums) at cocktail hour.


True/False Film Fest's David Wilson and Channel 4's Katie Speight at the True/False - BritDocs - Indiewire - SXSW Red Light Dinner.


Tribeca Film Fest's David Kwok and BritDocs' Maxyne Franklin at the Red Light Dinner.


Docmakers on the dance floor at one of the evening parties.


Finnoula Jamison and Thom Powers of the Toronto Film Festival flank Doug Block, director of 51 Birch Street, D-Word co-founder and docblog godfather at the BritDocs party.


Matt Dentler prepares to dive into dinner as BritDocs' Beadie Finzi (right) encourages or warns.  Or maybe they're contemplating what to do to filmmakers who complain about not getting their films selected for their fests...

A couple more pictures, of some of us who had just learned of our Independent Spirit Award nominations, can be found here.