AMSTERDAM — Of the 12 films representing Canada at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Up the Yangtze! occupies the most prestigious spot. The feature-length doc is up for the fest’s main prize, and producers Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin pronounced its screenings to be very successful, in part because of the worldwide interest in its subject, China’s controversial Three Gorges Dam.

The National Film Board/EyeSteelFilm coproduction follows a cruise ship filled with tourists down the Yangtze River, past cities, villages and farms about to be flooded by the massive hydroelectricity project. Director Yung Chang concentrates on two young Chinese workers on the ship, ‘Cindy’ Yu Shui, timid and naive, and ‘Jerry’ Chen Bo Yu, who is slightly older and confident.

‘We’ve loved being at IDFA,’ comments Cross. ‘The festival is so respectful of the art of the documentary and the people who make it.’ The film was also a hit at the Vancouver International Film Festival and Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, and the producers are applying to Telefilm Canada for alternative distribution funding. EyeSteel is planning a grassroots campaign for next spring.

Other Canuck titles playing the IDFA, widely considered to be the finest such event in the world, range from Joe Balass’ Iraqi memoir Baghdad Twist to older works such as the Oscar-winning Ryan and Donald Brittain’s film essay Paperland.

White Pine Pictures brought A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman — shortlisted for an Oscar — and Triage: The Dilemma of Dr. James Orbinski, both about political and ethical issues.

Orbinski, the Toronto-based Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Doctors Without Borders, was on hand for the world premiere on Saturday night. He came away impressed by the ‘power of documentaries that engage with issues of social conscience to affect peoples’ minds.’

White Pine’s Peter Raymont, coproducer of Triage with the NFB and director of Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, believes that, ‘of the two, Orbinski is the more accessible figure. Young people will be able to relate to James and be inspired by his example.’

Dorfman was another special guest of IDFA. The Chilean-American writer took his family to Amsterdam for four years, living in exile after the overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende in the 1970s.

‘In many ways, you saved my life,’ he commented to a crowd of old-time Dutch progressives and artists.

Rudy Buttignol of B.C.’s Knowledge Network, CBC’s Catherine Olsen and filmmaker Peter Wintonick are also at IDFA. Olsen and Buttignol are moderating sessions of its Forum, where filmmakers pitch projects looking for international co-financing, while Wintonick is running IDFAtalks, the daily program of panel discussions and master classes.

Broadcaster and doc-maker Avi Lewis delivered a surprise pitch at the Forum, for an adaptation of his wife Naomi Klein’s bestseller The Shock Doctrine. Klein’s thesis, that governments are being undermined by forces of privatization which use wars and natural disasters to increase their power, proved difficult to the roundtable of broadcasters. Nonetheless, Lewis was satisfied with the results.

‘We were able to announce our project to a room full of commissioning editors and producers. At this early stage, that’s enough,’ he said. Lewis has director Alfonso Cuaron on board as an executive producer and an £80,000 commitment from England’s Channel 4.

The festival runs until Dec. 2.