Amsterdam, Netherlands: Having hosted 306 movies and more than 130,000 moviegoers, including its one-millionth all-time attendee, the 2005 edition of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam wrapped a successful 11-day run on Dec. 2.

At the fest’s industry event, the invitation-only Forum, Canadian doc veteran Jennifer Baichwal (Let It Come Down) and relative newcomer Alison Murray (Train on the Brain) were among 41 filmmakers who presented their proposals to a table of commissioning editors that included Nick Fraser of BBC Storyville, Mette Hoffman Meyer of TV2 Denmark, TVOntario’s Rudy Buttignol and the Documentary Channel’s Michael Burns.

Baichwal pitched Act of God, a film about the science and metaphysics of lightning to be coproduced with Nick de Pencier’s Mercury Films and Daniel Iron’s Foundry Films.

‘I really admire IDFA as a festival,’ Baichwal says. ‘But when you’re presenting at the Forum, you’re so isolated from the wider intellectual activity of the festival. It really is, fundamentally, about getting money.’

A representative from Japan was not easily sold on her project. ‘One of the NHK broadcasters asked, ‘Why do you want to do a film on lightning? Westerners may like it but not the Japanese,” she recalls. ‘But I had read about the Japanese reaction to lightning and had found out that, in their language, it is called ‘rumbling of the gods.’

‘So, instead of being stymied, I pointed that out to him. And it was the perfect answer to his question.’

Murray, the only other Canuck among the 41 hopefuls, pitched Carny, a ‘gritty and poetic adventure following the lives of fairground workers.’ She’s upbeat about the experience.

‘I… really feel that our piece stood out by being optimistic in an atmosphere where most of the projects felt like they were from a carnival for the oppressed,’ she quips, noting the high number of pitches about social issues, ‘like, who can come up with the worst story about the most oppressed people on the planet?’

Still, Murray felt reticence among the commissioning editors. Despite the backing of TVO’s Buttignol, an influential player on the international documentary scene, Murray isn’t a known quantity, and the project requires a director who can develop insights into characters.

‘Everyone wants to see the product first. They’re all saying, ‘Show it to us at rough-cut stage,” she says. That’s a cause for concern for the young filmmaker, who has only $90,000 of her $230,000 budget.

It’s too soon to tell how successful this year’s pitches will be, but, according to organizer Fleur Knopperts, the 2004 Forum generated at least 4.8 million Euros in financing for participants.

Meanwhile, the Ontario Media Development Corporation again sent a group of filmmakers – including Markham Street Films producer Judy Holm and director/writer Min Sook Lee – to observe the Forum.

Nomad Films’ Mark Johnston led the delegation and arranged for pitches to 18 commissioning editors. ‘My favorite comments were from Iikka Vehkalahti of YLE TV2 Finland, who told me that he had heard eight or nine interesting pitches,’ says Johnston. ‘Iikka told me that the group was ‘sharp and pithy.”

The festival handed its top Joris Ivens prize, for best long documentary, to My Grandmother’s House by Spain’s Adán Aliaga. Other winners included Before Flying Back to the Earth (Lithuania/Germany) by Arunas Matelis for best short documentary, The Angelmakers (Scotland/Hungary/the Netherlands) by Astrid Bussink for the First Appearance award, and Sisters in Law (England) by Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi for the Audience Award.

www.idfa.nl