Friday, December 1----As the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) heads into its final weekend, the speculation is growing on which films will win the major prizes at the ceremonies on Saturday night. There has been, as one would expect at a festival with many heart-felt opinions, many passionate discussions on the merits (or demerits) of certain films.

Last evening, the nominations were announced for IDFA’s competition programs: the Joris Ivens Competition for best long documentary;, the Silver Wolf Competition for best short documentary and First Appearance Award for the best debut. In addition, the three nominations were announced for the Movies that Matter Award and that of the youth jury (the MovieSquad DOC U! Award). The ceremonies will conclude with the announcement of the Audience Award (5000 Euros prize), The Special Jury Award and the Silver Cub (5000 Euros). The winners will be revealed on Saturday evening at the Closing Ceremonies at the Pakhuis de Zwijger.

VPRO JORIS IVENS AWARD
Nominees:

THE MONASTERY---MR. VIG AND THE NUN (Pernille Rose Grønkjaer, Denmark)
SATUL SOSETELOR (Ileana Stanculescu and Klaudia Begic, Germany/Romania)
A STORY OF PEOPLE IN WAR AND PEACE (Vardan Hovhannisyan, Armenia)

SILVER WOLF AWARD
Nominees:
ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS (Eva Mulvad, Denmark)
HEARTS (Øyvind Sandberg, Norway)
VOYAGE IN G MAJOR (Georgi Lazarevski, France)

FIRST APPEARANCE AWARD
Nominees:
LA CIUDAD DE LOS FOTOGRAFOS (Sebastián Moreno, Chile)
PRIRECHYNYY--THE TOWN THAT NO LONGER EXISTS (Tone Grøttjord, Norway)

MOVIES THAT MATTER AWARD
Nominees:
GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL (Asger Leth, Denmark)
NEW YEAR BABY (Socheata Poeuv, USA)

MOVIESQUAD DOC DOC U! AWARD
Nominees:
ANDREW JENKS, ROOM 335 (Andrew Jenks, USA)
EVERY GOOD MARRIAGE BEGINS WITH TEARS (Simon Chambers)
A LESSON OF BELORUSSIAN (Miroslaw Dembinski, Poland)

A full report on the Award Winners will be listed on this site on Sunday, December 3.

Sandy Mandelberger
Online Festival Dailies Editor