International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam: (11/21-12/1/02). (Festival Wraps).

Canada was well represented last year at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam, both with films and the exuberant presence of Peter Wintonick, who ran a Master Class and chaired one of the evening discussions. Some notable risks were taken by a number of Canadian filmmakers. In the Line of Fire (made by Patricia Naylor for CBC's Witness) investigates the way in which journalists working on the West Bank are shot at by Israeli soldiers. Seeing Is Believing (Katerina Cizek and Peter Wintonick) deals with how lightweight videocams have become a powerful tool for exposing official abuse. Black-veiled women of Damascus are interviewed in Veils Uncovered (Nora Kevorkian) as they shop for sexy underwear in the marketplace. Not as risky, but charming, was Olivia's Puzzle (Jason daSilva), which contrasts the lives of two seven-year-old girls, one living in Canada, the other in Goa.

Three Canadian films attempted in different ways to tackle how humans perceive and interpret reality: Cyberman (Peter Lynch), McLuban's Wake (Kevin McMahon) and EVO (Oliver Hockenhull). The subject of EVO is the recent discussion among scientists as to whether evolution is gradual or takes place in leaps and bounds, and how this has affected the ways in which societies have developed. Hockenhull warned his audience before the screening that what they were about to see would be "demanding and intellectual," which was no understatement. The film includes several long and repetitive sequences: a colourful ball floats above the Cambridge lane where Charles Darwin used to walk; a geisha slowly revolves while speaking in a robotic voice; images with confusing text snippets speed across the screen; and chunks from a lecture by Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary expert, are endured. Questioned afterwards as to whether he had an audience in mind, Hockenhull responded: "Yes, maybe an audience in another 20 years, or for my future self."

Kevin McMahon's McLuhan's Wake recounts the life story and tribulations of Marshall McLuhan, remembered by most people only for his rather chilling statement: the medium is the message. What McMohan reveals is the very human story of an academic who, as a child, lost his brother when he was struck by a terrible storm while out sailing. The film suggests that, as a result, McLuhan saw new technical developments as "maelstroms" that, if not examined critically, could be disastrous. By combining animation, dramatic reconstruction and rare footage, a moving story is told of a man who deserved better treatment for his ideas than a rather jealous academic establishment was prepared to allow him.

The theme of 2002's festival was What Do You Believe In?, a topic dealt with by about 30 of the films screened. The titles were often expressive: Advertising Missionaries (Gauthier Flauder and Chris Hilton) follows a theatre group whose job is to sell products like Colgate and Coca-Cola to primitive Papuan New Guineans; Christ Conies To the Papuans (Thomas Balmes) concerns the many different churches competing to obtain converts; however, it was Peter Wintonick's Seeing Is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News that most clearly illustrated how visual evidence affects belief. At the heart of this film is the packaging and dispatching of minicams to development--aid workers, followed by examples of their use. In particular, we observe Philippine human rights activist Joey Lozano, who, with extreme bravery, documents acts of violence in his country.

That video evidence can endanger as well as protect lives was pointed out in the last of three discussions entitled Religion, Terrorism and Extremism. "Terrorism basically means that people can commit any crime and put it down to terrorism," said Sweden's Agnieska Lukasiak, who made The Nameless War about the ongoing civil war in Algeria. She admitted that filming her gay acquaintances in the outdoors, where they might have been seen or overheard, was dangerous. "But they were so tired of being scared. They wanted to talk and be in the film." In My Terrorist, a different response to terrorism was proposed by Israel's Yulie Cohen Gerstel, who was seriously injured in an attack in 1978, but decided to work toward the release of her attacker. "I am trying to take the hate Out of my system. To break the vicious circle," she said. "I think the West Bank settlers are developing religious terrorism."

Several important events ran alongside the festival: the Annual Seminar examined the concept of cultural identity as seen in some of this year's films; a Mediamatic Workshop investigated new ways of telling stories using digital and interactive methods; leading documentarists talked about their work in three Master Classes; the Market offered some 400 titles for sale; and there was the Forum, where 44 projects were pitched. For the first time network commissioning editors were invited to take centre stage and describe their program strands, which resulted in some hard-hitting comments. For example, Nick Fraser of the BBC was grilled over the way the Beeb "reversions" documentaries, cutting them shorter or adding voice-overs in a bid to make them more acceptable to British audiences. Forum director Fleur Knopperts said she had yet to decide whether or not to repeat the experiment. "If we do, we want to make it more of a discussion. Another idea is that commissioning editors should only be invited to pitch if t hey have new strands to announce."

Winnipeg's Jeff McKay, who pitched for his project Haunts of the Black Masseur, was enthusiastic about his experience. "My film will be a celebration of the swimmer as hero, illustrated by diving in art, literature, sport and culture, right from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century. I found the Forum ultimately a very positive event, because it forced me to evaluate my project again with a fresh eye. The process of doing the pitch helped me to focus it tighter and tighter. I came away from the Forum with one significant licence deal and offers of others. Besides there is the opportunity to talk with the commissioning editors and filmmakers one-on-one. You can't beat that."

Henry Lewes is a film journalist based in England who has reported for Cineaste and Take One.