Jury report: IDFA Competition for Student Documentary 2020

Jury statement

It has been a pleasure for us to see so many strong and rich documentaries from the students' world. We had many favorites, literally. We have admired the filmmakers' ability to open up new worlds to us, at times in a melancholic way, at other times in a quirky way, sometimes pointing the camera towards themselves and their own, intimate spaces, at other times diving into a foreign place on the other side of the globe or even underground.

Special Mention

A delicate, fresh, and unassuming film. We were moved by the humor and disarming simplicity with which the filmmaker depicted her own (very universal) gesture of visiting home abroad and the many décalages and delights that can come with it. It’s our pleasure to award a Special Mention to I Don’t Feel at Home Anywhere Anymore by Viv Li.

IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary

To follow one’s dream or to abide by the realities and obligations of everyday life? The director swiftly guides us through this universal question in a journey filled with twists and turns, revealing bits and pieces of this world with much care and attentiveness while staying true to a vision of life as it is: with its own joys and disappointments, cruelty and consolation. The winner of the IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary is Boyi-biyo by Anne Bertille Vopiande Ndeysseit.