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West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF) is a high standard platform for the arts and the humanities that promotes documentaries through competition, forums, screenings, pitching and workshops, which is held by the side of West Lake, Hangzhou during every golden autumn. IDF stands for “I-Documentary-Fact” and aims to explore the relationship between documentary creation subjects, objects, and methods.
The 1st West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF2017) was held in April 2017 with the annual theme of "Things & Sentiment". 26 documentaries from eight countries on three continents have been screened and more than 300 documentary professionals attended the festival. IDF2018 was held in October 2018, with the annual theme of "Epoch & Scope", attracted 453 documentaries from 51 countries on 6 continents in competition. More than 400 professionals, 5000 audiences gathered in Hangzhou. The annual theme of the IDF2019 is "Something & Somewhere". With larger social participation, IDF2019 received 632 documentaries from 61 countries on 6 continents and welcomed more than 10,000 attendees including special guests, industry guests as well as audiences. The 4th West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF2020), with the theme of Life, Lives, attracted 472 documentaries from 72 countries and regions on 7 continents. IDF arranged 22 online and physical Q&As during this special time. The 5th West Lake International Documentary Festival(IDF2021), with the theme of Perceiving, Knowing, attracted 562 documentaries from 73 countries and regions on 6 continents. 38 documentaries have been screened during the festival that attracted more than 10 thousand audiences. With higher international brand reputation, IDF has become one of the most academic, professional and international documentary festivals in China.
The 6th West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF2023) will be held from 24th to 26th November, 2023 in Hangzhou, China, wth three sections including IDF Competition, IDF Forum and Glory of Documentary Screening Section. IDF2023 will invite documentary filmmakers, production companies, distributors, scholars, press at home and abroad to visit Hangzhou to share the glory of documentary.
IDF’s mission
Embracing core values of innovation, pioneering spirit, academic rigor, and non-fiction cinema, IDF aims to unlock boundless possibilities as new technologies revolutionize documentary filmmaking. We believe that documentary is a medium ingrained in humanity’s wisdom of “observation and decision-making”. Our society serves as the best observation arena of this medium, where filmmakers, characters and audiences collectively shape its subjects.We cherish time and space captured within images, and appreciate inner thoughts and souls depicted therein. We champion documentaries as gateways to the real world, rather than mere replicas of reality. What matters is whether these gateways lead to new revelations and profound insights. We will delve into the intricate relationship between creating fictional content and documenting reality, and highlight their interplay and collision. This exploration will offer both filmmakers and audiences with greater freedom to interpret and envision reality, ultimately injecting new vitality into China’s documentary industry.
Annual Theme: People·Person
Embrace the community you belong to, follow the path of your own.
About 90 years ago, a school of anthropology assumed that a tribe is the sum total of all individual members, and the tribe’s culture is the collective sum of each adult member’s personal culture.
Unity diverges from the aforementioned Utopian vision into duality, and eventually forms a community of three. The Chinese bigram “众·人” visualizes the concept of “people and person”.
The pictographic character “人” (person, man, mankind) resembles a standing figure, whereas “众” (people, multitude, masses, public) is represented by three people gathering together. The one-man-above-two-men structure of “众” suggests an internal power dynamic, while its aerial view transforms into a two-dimensional non-hierarchical relationship. However, one man still leads the other two, implying inequality in knowledge and awareness.
Filmmakers prefer to translate the apparent “inequality” seen in documentaries into difference. Their engagement with subjects and audiences merges personal emotions and collective consciousness, which are inherently different. Thus, the “·” in the middle of the bigram sets up a buffer between the parties involved, much like a camera, microphone, or projector, enabling sustainable communication.
Along the journey, an individual will find not only companions and community, but also kindred spirits and audiences. Any screening or discussion should provide an interactive space for communication, and a haven for solitary reflection.
IDF Competition is aimed to highlight outstanding documentary filmmakers, all the while encouraging documentary filmmakers to be curious and persistent on their journey of creation. The festival conducts an open call for submission and the recommendation by international film selection consultants. The submission opens to feature-length documentaries (60 minutes and above) and short documentaries (less than 60 minutes) completed after 1st January, 2021.
After two rounds of evaluation and selection, the outstanding documentaries will be shortlisted for IDF Competition of the 6th West Lake International Documentary Festival. The finalists will be evaluated by an international jury committee and compete for awards.
Glory of Documentary Screening Section is curated by West Lake International Documentary Festival for the purpose of cultivating audience and focusing on excellent documentaries at home and abroad. The purpose is to focus on the screening of outstanding international documentaries and Q&A after the screenings, presenting the academic vision, cultivate documentary audience, arouse discussions of cutting-edge topics, and help documentaries infiltrate into people's life, so as to create a documentary art feast for the public. Based on different perspectives and motivations, this section has various themes. It presents in the way of "screening -- post-screening Q&A", presenting the spirit of "exploring the ontology of documentary, setting up youth experiment, holding people's heart high and creating oriental temperament".
IDF Forum section consists of Academic Lecture, Academic Forum and Filmmakers Forum. It invites professional documentary filmmakers, cultural masters and industry investors from home and abroad. By the spirit of I Documentary Fact, it explores open, inclusive and forward-looking academic discussion and excavates ontological creation and frontier issues in documentary. IDF Forum aims at idea exchange and academic consensus based on I-Documentry-Fact among the global documentary community, stimulating documentary practitioners to repay people’s life the most sincere, avant-garde and professional actions.
1）IDF Best Documentary
2）IDF Special Mention
3）IDF Best Chinese Documentary
4）IDF Best Short Documentary
