{"id":501,"date":"2017-02-08T13:34:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2017-02-08T13:34:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T12:34:30","slug":"idfa-amsterdam-2016-my-best-of-the-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/blog\/idfa-amsterdam-2016-my-best-of-the-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"IDFA (Amsterdam) 2016 &#8211; My Best of the Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In our ongoing plan to watch interesting films and visit interesting cities, Clare and I attended <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idfa.nl\/industry\/festival\/festival-for-english-audience.aspx\">IDFA<\/a>,a documentary film festival in Amsterdam in November 2016. I\u2019ve picked out my top 3\u00a0favourites below.<\/p>\n<h2>The War Show<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class='youtube-player' width='474' height='267' src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DcKYpTAM0c8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5719108\/?ref_=nv_sr_1\">The War Show (2016)<\/a> on IMDb<br \/>\nRelease dates: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5719108\/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf\">No major releases planned<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I suspect most people following the news from Syria over the last few years have found it confusing and depressing. That&#8217;s why I highly recommend this film &#8211; it&#8217;s still depressing, but at least it&#8217;s also\u00a0enlightening.<\/p>\n<p>Through judiciously chosen on-the-ground footage and some light contextualising commentary, the film delivers\u00a0penetrating insights into how peaceful protest escalated to civil war, and the terrible cost the civilian population has borne as a result.<\/p>\n<p>This film changed how I look at politics and history, and I can&#8217;t recommend it highly enough.<\/p>\n<h2>National Bird<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class='youtube-player' width='474' height='267' src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A8hPK7G-5bw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5525310\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">National Bird (2016)<\/a> on IMDb<br \/>\nRelease dates: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5525310\/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf\">US 11th Nov 2016, UK no major release<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As far as I can figure out, this film got\u00a0released in the US and doesn&#8217;t seem to have\u00a0gained anywhere near the attention it should have. It very clearly lays out\u00a0the enormity of the US drone programme: how it is far more secret than is healthy, massively\u00a0more likely to escalate conflict than resolve it, and on a significantly\u00a0larger scale than most people assume.<\/p>\n<p>The experiences of three whistleblowers are woven together, taking great care to avoid falling foul of the 1917 Espionage act with what they can reveal. I initially worried that this hamstrung the film from being as powerful as it needed to be. That changed\u00a0when the film focussed on one particular incident from 2010: a drone strike that mistakenly targetted a convoy of unarmed civilian families, killing 23. The drone footage of the strike (and, crucially, the build-up to it) is accompanied by an acted reading of the\u00a0transcript from the strike crew, and then intercut with interviews with actual\u00a0survivors of that strike.<\/p>\n<p>This by itself was incredibly powerful, but that power increased tenfold when they ask one of the whistleblowers, Heather (an ex-visual analyst herself) to comment on that incident. She drew attention to the fact that the visual analysts identified that children were present and that no weapons could be seen, but the strike crew effectively overruled both judgements. But most damningly of all, she says that this was typical of what her work as a visual analyst had been like every day: trying, and failing, to convince strike teams not to kill civilians.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the documentary itself doesn&#8217;t make a sharp enough point of it, but putting everything together it seems clear (especially after having seen <em>The War Show<\/em>) that the drone programme is\u00a0certain\u00a0to escalate violence rather than to solve it.<\/p>\n<h2>Machines<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class='youtube-player' width='474' height='267' src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qMvQP5yViwk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5690244\/\">Machines (2016)<\/a> on IMDb<br \/>\nRelease dates: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5690244\/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf\">Not yet shown anywhere else<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The trailer above is an accurate summary of the film: mesmerising shots of a vast, semi-automated textile factory, interspersed with brief interviews.<\/p>\n<p>It may not seem likely, but this remains enthralling and thought-provoking over the full 75-minute run time. By dedicating so much of the film\u00a0to simple observation of the work itself, I think it\u00a0makes a more compelling case for the workers than a more traditional approach might\u00a0have yielded.<\/p>\n<p>All the interviews touch either implicitly or explicitly on worker&#8217;s rights, and astonishingly frank comments from every level of the hierarchy paint a very vivid picture of the situation.\u00a0The interviews are one-sided: we never hear the questions and no retort is offered, but again this ends up giving a more powerful effect than something more confrontational. This is especially true when we finally reach the top of the hierarchy, and after everything else we&#8217;ve seen, the big boss&#8217;s comments on worker pay (delivered off-hand while checking his email) are all the more incredible.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8211; Tim Mannveille tweets as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/metatim?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">metatim<\/a> and previously highlighted some of the best short films\u00a0from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/blog\/dresden-filmfest-2016-my-best-of-the-fest\/\">Dresden FilmFest 2016<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our ongoing plan to watch interesting films and visit interesting cities, Clare and I attended IDFA,a documentary film festival in Amsterdam in November 2016. I\u2019ve picked out my top 3\u00a0favourites below. The War Show The War Show (2016) on IMDb Release dates: No major releases planned I suspect most people following the news from &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/blog\/idfa-amsterdam-2016-my-best-of-the-fest\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">IDFA (Amsterdam) 2016 &#8211; My Best of the Fest<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[54,24],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ie0C-85","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mannveille.com\/tim\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}