May 1st to the 10th will be the dates for the 6th International Documentary Film Festival DOCUMENTA MADRID 09, organized by the City of Madrid. As its main new feature, all the films participating in the competitive sections of the festival will be making their premiere in Spain.

The calling of this year's DOCUMENTA is to show a selection of international films as a true reflection of the social, cultural, economic, artistic and environmental realities in today's world. DOCUMENTA MADRID has grown to become one of the festivals in Spain with the greatest international scope and the most audience attendance of the competitions of the Community of Madrid.

In addition, the famous soundtrack composer and the multi-disciplinary artist Michael Nyman will perform at the competition's opening ceremony, to be held on April 30th at the Fernán Gómez Theater.

For this, the 6th festival, a total of 1078 films have been received from 86 countries, both of which are higher figures than those from past competitions, which proves the festival's growing international scope. Documenta has used filmfestivals.com to source film through the Bulletin Board service.

The case of Spain in this respect is quite remarkable (a total of 185 films have been received), which goes a long way in demonstrating the success the documentary genre is having in Spain, which just a few years ago was merely a scattering.

This year, the competition will have prize-winnings totaling 73,000 €, to be divided among the Four Competitive Sections: Section of Original Documentary, the Reporting Competition, the National Competition, and Filmotech.com.

Another new feature at this year's festival is the possibility of getting distribution as part of the Documentary of the Month, which will be granted to the full-length Original Documentary that wins the Audience Award. The Documentary of the Month is an initiative run by the Parallel 40 production company (which specializes in documentaries) and integrated into the CinemaNet Europe project, which shows 12 documentaries every year in more than 100 cinemas Europe-wide. In addition, AVID will give the Award for Best Editing in the National Short Film section.

Nyman opens DOCUMENTA MADRID
The pianist and orchestra conductor Michael Nyman will be charge of opening this year's festival, with a performance of one of his compositions. Michael Nyman (London, 1944) is one of the most prolific composers, pianists and orchestra conductors on the scene today, and undoubtedly one of the most commercially successful.

He studied music at the Royal Academy of Music and at King's College. After a period as a music critic, he made his debut as a composer with the creation of soundtracks for such filmmakers as Peter Greenaway. Some of most famous scores include: The Daughtman's Contract (1982), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) and Prospero's Books (1991), among others. In any case, his name will always be associated with the Oscar-winning film The Piano (1993) by Jane Champion, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and the album to which has sold more than three million copies.

In addition, he was responsible for musical compositions on films as diverse as the cinematographic style of their directors: 9 Songs (2005) and Wonderland (1999) by Michael Winterbottom; The Hairdresser's Husband (1990) by Patrice Leconte; Carrington by Christopher Hampton (1995); The End of the Affair by Neil Jordan (1999) and Nani Moretti's La Stanza del figlio (2001), among others.